I was a bit puzzled. I asked him “Do you think Indian psychiatrists also indulge in abuse?”

And he almost screamed at me, “They are the worst. The UK is full of Indian psychiatrists”.

As he was walking out, he stopped, turned to me, gave me a big smile, and said, “By the way, we have an event with John Travolta next month, do you want to come?”

At that moment, I realised, that he may possibly be a Scientologist, because Travlolta is one too.

“Isnt Travlota a Scientologist?” I asked.

“O thats ok,” he brushed it away. “Do come to the event.”

Things clicked in place, and when I went back home, I did some digging round, and found that Ron Hubbard had started this campaign against psychiatrits because they had questioned the authenticity of Dianetics.

An orchestrated campaign of hatred against psychiaty as a profession – all because many of them don’t accept Dianetics.

After I learnt this, I maintained a respectful distance from this man. Too much hatred is a wrong thing.

Unfortunately, because these devices have been taken up by the cult of Scientology they are discarded by most of those who would find them useful in a ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ kind of way.

Incidentally, I’m no fan of Scientology but in the interest of truth you should know that it now seems that Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park.

…yes I fell for it

I haven’t visited this [great] blog of yours in a while.
Pleasantly surprised to note that you are visiting stateside.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to a conference my colleagues and I are organizing at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
It is an India centric conference – “Inspiring India”.
Two panels – U.S. – India relations and Kashmir.
To make a long description short – where may I email the details?
If you can access my email, do write and I shall replay asap.

Anyway, one morning, we had just come out of our hotel, about 11am, walking toward times square. Muz, who was about to enocunter his come down from the drum and bass night we found the night before, and was really itching to have breakfast at a ‘proper american diner’. When we finished our munch and were leaving, we opened the door and realised it was pissing it down. We kind of stood in the doorway wondering what to do.

Then this nice lady appeared, with a big umbrella and huge smile. Said hi and kind of ushered us out. She suddenly took the role of our trusty tour guide asking us where we are from and what we are doing in town. By the time we all were wondering what we were doing just following her as she spoke, she asked “Have you guys heard of scientology?” We were already at the church of scientolgy by then.

Anyway, we went in and asked many many questions. They didnt really have an explanation for scientology, just kept pointing us to the posters, ooh and you MUST buy the books for 99% of your answers. I think they quickly realised we were going to ask them a lot of stuff and directed us to this dark room, with lots of chairs and a projector screen. They proceeded to show us this well crap video, selling scientology to us as a lame manufactured ‘religion’. It was quite tacky, Muz ran out of the room after 5 minutes because the thought there might be subliminal messages in the video! (by the freemasons) Back in the main hallway area where they have posters and little screens showing videos, we were all being quite funny,bit like Rohin.

The other major part of their gimmick is that they have developed this stress detector test which detects stress in your life which the books, theories and donations of scientology can solve! It just looks like this box with wires that plug into your body this little dial that gives your reading! Could not believe this was what they had on those stalls in times square!

At one point we were all jumping up and down yelling ahhhh freemasonaryy as soon as we noticed the pyramid shape and made other similar hearted conspiracy comments for the purpose of catching jokes. I cant remember details of the exact questions we were asking, but I think we most of their answers were returned by looks of confusion from us or us telling them that thats common sense. In fact we walked out of the building talking about how geniusly they have repackaged some logic and common sense concepts into a religion and went into business.

At least we finally figured out what those stress detecor tests around time square were! Next time we walked past one we paid attention as people who were told they had high levels of stress were directed or walked to the church of scientology or at least sold a book.

But the hundreds of other people were bonza. Like Larry the drunk father of two who refused to believe I wasn’t Egyptian and that I wasn’t called Ronin.

“Yo! Ronin! Like the V8! Yeah! V8! You paramilitary? Man I’m fucked up, been out the army too long! Woo! Darius! (my friend) you’re I-ray-nian? Shit I love Iraynians! And Egyptians! Whether you’re Mooslem or American or purple alien, shit you’re a good person!”

He then taught me how to kill a man in 3 ways. And demonstrated on a girl.

Or 3 of the Sepia Mutiny crew, who were great. Or the indie bookstore owner I had a smoke with when skiing. Or the countless funky hipsters in NY and San Fran. Or the nutters in LA and Vegas.

I like America a lot more than I did before. I advise all America-haters to hit it up, I guarantee you’ll mellow.

On the other hand, with Americans, that might not be so difficult; naive and irony-free cherubs that they are.