the daily snivel

Across the street from my beloved legal clinic (where I spent the bulk of my law school years and now the bulk of my summer as a graduate and an employee) is a humble vegetarian restaurant that is universally known by all who attend the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law as "the cult place." Inside are a number of willowy young women in saris who serve (admittedly delicious) vegetarian cuisine with a serene smile and glassy eyes. The restaurant itself is festooned with prints, photographs, and quotations from the Leader of the order, Sri Chinmoy. He is depicted performing great feats and a source of great compassion, and no doubt has a great following of... eerily content young, slender, white girls.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a blog entry by a writer based Chicago who writes about another creepy restaurant that also credits its good food and serene bliss to the Leader:

... Over the speakers, his music played. On the tables, the plastic insert holders usually telling of drink specials contained instead copies of his paintings, abstract art pieces which, to my untrained eye, looked like thick globs of powder blue paint covered by tangerine blobs of paint that looked like Goldfish crackers. The painting was entitled "Forgiveness" and had a loosely-drawn pen illustration of a bird next to the handwritten title.

Chinmoy, Chinmoy, Chinmoy, and the occasional frilly pink sari. Fliers in between the salt and pepper shackers announcing when the next meditation would be taking place.

If I didn't know better, (and I don't) I'd say this was a cult restaurant, the only cult restaurant I've ever seen. I looked carefully at the diners. The restaurant was crowded, and they all sat around chatting animatedly. Nobody was creeped out, so I could only conclude that either they'd all been eating too much Inspiration Soup or I'd been living in the suburbs for too long.

The veggie wrap I'd ordered was tasty, but not tasty enough to shake that weird cult vibe the place had going on ....

It describes my own feelings about our own cult place perfectly. I confess, I had their vegetarian potato skins there once (with a friend who dug into hers and proclaimed -- "Look! I found a Leader bean!") and they were dee-licious. Even so, I've rarely braved it (the exact number of times I've attended being three in as many years), even though I probably am not in danger of assimilation, given that I am definitely not a young, impressionable, slender white girl. I'm sure they mean absolutely no harm, but still -- what serene sect of enlightenment and compassion and total devotion to a loving, messianic leader ever does?

When you think you may be in a cult restaurant, you probably are.

Is there a Sri Chinmoy divine enterprise in your town? Please let me know in the comments.