Without boring you to death with all the details of my preliminary online search, let’s just say that with the help of Google Web (infinite websites scoured), Google Images (a sneaky way to get to even more websites that don’t come up otherwise), Google Maps (very helpful if you have the patience to travel at “street view” around town), and Google Earth (an eerie technology that consequently does help in learning the lay of the land from home) I was able to get a few phone numbers and some addresses of people and places possibly serving the Kali community. This was about a week or so back. First let’s get up to speed.
Up to this point my search had lead me to a few discoveries. First, finding Kali mandirs (temples, or places of worship) is not always easy. With the exception of a Kali mandir out on Long Island which, aside from its huge committees and the $1000 membership fee, seemed to serve mostly as a cultural center, I was coming up empty.
Part of the issue I was having was that I was originally focusing almost entirely on Flushing, Queens, since way out on the end of the 7-train there’s a huge South East Asian population with scores of Hindu temples and Gurdwaras (Sikh temples) lining the blocks. I had taken a trip out there once before to visit a few temples, and while I had the opportunity to meet a nice Sikh man who was kind enough to show me the ropes at one of the Gurdwaras, I ultimately left and noted the experience as being a good one. Of course this was after I nearly incinerated the inside of my mouth with a “vegetable” (read: chili pepper) uttapam.
As I continued to look, however, I slowly started to realize that not all worshipers of Kali are necessarily from India or even identify culturally as Indian, though they may considered themselves to be Hindu. Had I forgotten what Brooklyn was all about, where for every ten orthodox Jews there’s a Black Hebrew waiting to be granted Israeli citizenship? Nevertheless, as I clicked around I began to see the words “guyana” or “guayanese” pop up when reading the fine print between “brooklyn,” “kali,” and “mandir.” Although, once I formally added “guyana” to the mix it all started to unfold, albeit in piece meal. Call me crazy, but it never occurred to me to look up English speaking Hindus from Guyana, a country on the northern tip of South America, who identify more with the Caribbean cultures of Tobago, Trinidad, and Jamaica then they do with South America or India as my gateway into local Kali worship. But here I am, wondering if I have actually stumbled upon a culture informed simultaneously by Catholic and Hindu sensibilities.
So it went. The more I looked online, the more I found. So long as I kept my research linked to Guyanese culture I was able to find a number of websites along with the ever-coveted find: videos!
If you were to move to South Philadelphia around the Tasker/Morris stop on the subway, you might notice a number of small Christian churches occupying ground-floor corner properties. In these churches you would probably see rows of folding chairs, men, women, and children in various states of engagement (foreign tongues included), a statue of Mary Mother of God, and see and hear a band playing. So be it that when my wife looked at the above video her first thought was, “Looks like one of the Christian churches in South Africa.” She’s from South Africa.
Interestingly enough, Guyanese mandirs in Brooklyn have services on Sundays at 10 am. They may have a band. They may have folding chairs. They worship the Mother. Apparently you might see people speaking in tongues. Go figure. I’ll have to see.
Coming up next: “Sorry sir. Do you live on this block?”
