KERALA, INDIA, July 28, 2004: Mata Amritanadamayi Devi, popularly known as Amma, is all set to start her own television channel. The channel, to be called Amrita, is likely to be commissioned on September 27 this year on the occasion of Amma’s 51st birthday. A company — Amrita Enterprises Pvt Ltd — has been floated to run the channel. It is promoted by a group of Amma’s devotees, quite a few of them being Non-Resident Indians. The total investment in the channel is likely to be around US$10 million.



“It’s not going to be a religious channel,” says S. M. C. Pillai, CEO, Amrita. “It’ll be a 24-hour commercial channel with programs based on Indian traditions and values. Besides serials, yoga, travel shows, Amma’s teachings, the channel will also have around five hours of news programming.” Most of the programming would be done in-house. The language of the programs will be Malayalam though officials of Amrita Enterprises say that there are plans to have programs in Hindi and English as well. News will be outsourced from wire agencies, which will later be supplemented by inputs from the channel’s own bureaus.



Pillai says that most of the clearances have been received from the Central government. The Thiruvanathapuram-based channel will have three studios and an earth station. Work on these is near completion. The company has leased a transponder on the Intelsat satellite. For distribution of the channel, Amrita Enterprises officials say that talks with local cable operators in south India have been finalised.



In north India, Siti Cable is most likely to distribute the channel. For distribution in Europe and US, where Amma has a sizeable following, talks with cable operators will begin soon. Pillai says that he is confident that the channel will break even within a year of starting operations. However he’s not willing to divulge details of his marketing strategy. All he says is that like other channels his team will target all advertisers. A true spiritual soldier, he says: “The point is not to make money. All we want to do is spread Amma’s message. If the channel loses money Amma’s disciples will pump in more.”

LEICESTER, UNITED KINGDOM, July 05, 2004: Two separate organizers hoped that their club nights in Leicester would attract Indian youth in droves. Instead, they attracted insults, threats and abuse. Trying to be creative, each organiser had named the club-night, Jagraan — which is also the name of a religious fast observed for Goddess Durga. They had not reckoned with the increasingly vocal Hindu community in Britain. The Hindu Dharma Sabha is a large UK organisation of Hindus that aims to pinpoint areas where the Hindu name is tarnished. The Hindu Human Rights group, which has a successfully led high-profile campaigns (including recently one about sacred images on bikinis), posted a protest on its website. Community leaders quickly issued statements condemning the insult to Durga, urging the organisers to change the name of the events. The BBC requested Ramesh Kallidaime, General Secretary of the Hindu Forum of Britain, to appear on a show to comment on the controversy, asking him if a club night was an innovative way of attracting the younger generation to religion. He felt that an event of music, alcohol and dance could never emulate a peaceful arati (worship) ceremony.



The debate expanded to whether Hindu temples in Britain were making any attempts to reach out to youth, and whether young people found temples daunting. Most UK temples seem to attract a middle-aged clientele - usually female, and even this group is shrinking alarmingly, whilst British-born youngsters rarely attend temples. Vishal Thakrar, a 25-year-old graduate, said that humanitarian service was more important than service to God or temple rituals. He added that people preferred going to the gym or clubbing — he preferred cinema or watching football. To be fair, several Hindu and other groups are highly skilled in reaching out to youth. Their youth camps show a good response to morning meditation sessions, group discussions, role-plays, discourses, dramas and many other activities. Chinmayananda, the founder of the Chinmaya Mission said that the youth are not “useless, but just used less.” Three years ago, the youth wings of 30 Hindu organizations successfully came together to form the Hindu Youth UK (HYUK). HYUK organizes high profile Get Connected youth festivals. Other organizations could easily emulate this successful good practice, and this would perhaps be more important that merely protesting. One of the controversial Jagraan nights was eventually cancelled, its organiser expressing surprise at the outcry, for such events had been held successfully before - why are people suddenly protesting now?

HOUSTON, TEXAS, July 30, 2004: Rahul Patel knows how to speak like a lawyer: He can make all the logical arguments. But this Georgetown Law School graduate did not rely just on reason when he decided to turn down a $125,000-a-year job offer from a New York City law firm to follow a spiritual path of poverty, chastity and obedience. He also responded to inspiration and his emotions about the spiritual leader of the Swaminarayan Hindu faith, Pramukh Swami Maharaj. “It is hard to describe the feelings I get when I see him,” the 27-year-old said. “He is unlike anybody on this planet. To please him and to serve him and, in the process, serve God and his devotees and the general human population is, I think, one of the greatest achievements — if I achieve it — in my life, more than being a lawyer or working for a big company.”



Sunday, Patel turned in the last vestiges of his life as a car-driving, cell-phone-carrying Texan to join five other American-born Hindus in the diksha vidhi initiation ritual on the grounds of the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, a temple in Fort Bend County. At the end of a two-hour ceremony that began shortly before sunrise, Patel was given a new name, Virat Bhagat; a “guru mantra,” from Pramukh Swami; and a janoi, or sacred thread. He also changed into the white cloth garment and hat that he will wear until he trades them in for the orange garments of the sadhus, or saints, of the faith.



He also chose to live according to five principles: poverty, chastity, detachment from his family, obedience/humility, and abstention from food preferences. That means this former Aggie (Texas A & M University student), son of two medical doctors from College Station and a one-time campaign volunteer for George H. W. Bush, has given up his life of comfort. He will no longer have any contact with his parents and older brother, and for the rest of his life, he will refrain from speaking to women.



“Anybody in life who wants to do anything, they have to give something up,” Patel said. Rather than focusing on sacrifice, Patel sees his path as one of service that will lead him in the direction of peace and liberation, he said. “It is the idea of oneness with God,” he explained. “You have no attachment to your body, no attachment to your ego. You have no sense of need; you have no anger or jealousy; you are at peace, and the only thing that matters to you is what will make God happy.”



Saying goodbye to a son was a difficult honor for his mother, Dr. Anila S. Patel. “Emotionally, when you dwell on the thought, it is hard,” the Bryan pediatrician said. “But to know your son is going for a mission like this … I feel so proud.” “We feel very fortunate and very blessed that we had an opportunity to be with him for 27 years,” she added. Patel’s decision to become a sadhu was an obvious one to his childhood friend, Jignesh Patel, who is not related to him. The two had discussed the sacrifices and rewards of the path since their teens, Jignesh Patel said. “He has so much conviction and faith,” he said. “I don’t know if he is truly going to miss anything. The mental preparation had already happened.” Patel did not spend his entire life lost in prayer.



“Except for not eating meat, I’d be a good ol’ Southern Texan,” Rahul Patel said a few days before the ceremony. “I’m conservative. I like country music. I love Mexican food.” He also enjoyed James Bond movies and was a bit of a Trekker, but “not to the point where I was going to conventions or anything.” A good student, Patel had won a scholarship to study at Texas A&M, where he earned a degree in biomedical science. He also has a history of volunteerism. He worked with Habitat for Humanity and tutored children struggling in school. He also pitched in for Bush’s 1992 presidential campaign. As a sophomore in college, Patel made a losing bid for a seat on the College Station Independent School Board. He had radio commercials and signs and gave speeches at local civic organizations, he said. “I felt like I had something to say, and I wanted to say it, so I decided to file,” Patel said.



But throughout his life, Patel devoted his Sundays to the Fort Bend County temple and the round-trip car ride from College Station. And among the greatest influences on his life were Pramukh Swami and the sadhus who ran the temple, he said. “It wasn’t like you felt that … he was holier than thou,” his friend Jignesh Patel said. “If anything, it is the exact opposite.” Rahul Patel approached Pramukh Swami with the idea of becoming a sadhu in 1996, when he was 19. He was told to continue his education. (HPI adds: It is a requirement of the Swaminarayan order that each prospective sadhu earn a university degree)



Later, at the swami’s suggestion, he abandoned plans for medical school and entered law school. In June 2003, he entered an 11-month first stage of training in India to learn the language of the faith, Gujarati, and to determine if the life of a sadhu was one he could handle. But abandoning his innate desire to make lawyerly arguments will be one of the most difficult sacrifices for Patel. “A part of me looks at something and automatically analyzes it and says, ‘What are you doing and what are you thinking,’ ” he said. “In India and on this path, a large part of it is humility and just listening.” He is giving up the logic for faith, he said. “There are plenty of people who maybe follow a different religion, a different path, who strive for the same thing. … For me, I found a path that I truly believe in, and that is Pramukh Swami, and he will show me the path as a sadhu.”