Doha airport: Yound people meet devotees
I had an interesting experience in the Doha airport, with my wife, in transit from Mayapur to Moscow. Doha is a materialistic city, completely based on the idea of shaping the landscape through the use of money and technology. It offers an artificial oasis of sense pleasure in the middle of the desert, opposite to the Vedic idea of a civilization based on natural resources and spiritual advancement. We had a long wait there, and we were traveling with a small harmonium, so this was a good opportunity to chant in the airport. But in Qatar, a conservative Muslim country, this might not be the best idea, especially when you are traveling in devotional clothes and wearing tilaka.
Since it was a little after 7 a.m., we chanted a very soft guru-puja kirtan. I suddenly saw a guy sitting ahead of us with a drum, fumbling, but happily making attempts to play with some friends. Such a good opportunity! Immediately I approached them with my harmonium and started talking to him. He was interested so I started showing him how to play harmonium and suggested that we try to play together. He liked the idea so we started playing right there on the spot with my wife and his friends. To our surprise he started playing quite nicely unlike what he was doing before. We wrote the maha-mantra on a piece of paper for him and thus we were all chanting in a kind of a small sitting harinama in the transit area of the airport of Doha.
A Muslin man came close and started watching us, I smiled, waved to him and said, “Allah akbar!” He smiled and left. Security guards started observing, but seeing just a group of young people, they also left.
We gave the group a small book and a Kirtan Mela 2014 DVD, fed them prasadam cookies from Mayapur. My wife became a facebook friend with one lady in the group. As we left we heard them discussing us: “These people are so positive.”
Your servant,
Caitanya Chandra Dasa
Brazil
