PUBLIC CONFESSIONS OF A HINDU SAMAJ PRESIDENT
{President's Report to the AGM 2005, Hindu Samaj of Southern Saskatchewan, Canada}
Last December, when I was elected to this position, I promised to work kayaa, vachaa, manasaa. I believe I have done so to the best of my ability. Yet, the feeling in me now, is that I have not done enough. I am the kind of a person, if you send to the backyard to split wood for the fireplace, likes to see the wood chips fly. I did not see the wood chips fly. I am left wondering if I utilized the wrong end of the axe. Thus, it has been a humbling experience for me. On the other hand, and in different words, we can say that this Hindu Samaj is a robust and resilient organization whose norms have set and solidified.
The Year 2005 was a special year. It was our Temple’s 15th Anniversary as well as our Province’s Centenary year. We combined these two celebrations with our annual fund raising event and gave it a HSSS brand identity – Varshik Bhojan. We invited Mrs. Jackie Shumiachar, a respected Saskatchewan personality - not a politician or high office holder, to celebrate the occasion with us. We offered a classical dance and music program with the theme, ‘the female diety in Hinduism’. This was a great success, beyond our expectations. Consequently we donated $1180 to the Regina Food Bank – ten percent of our net gain from the dinner.
We need to continue this (donation) event annually at the same scale or even higher. It should become a cultural event of Regina, not only a fund raising activity for us. It helps our public image and serves to decrease the prejudices against Hinduism and Hindus in this geo-environment. We must acknowledge that the Varshik Bhojan proved beyond all doubt that our vegetarian cuisine, unaccompanied by alcohol, accompanied by a professional level classical entertainment is attraction enough to bring in more than 500 people. We also established that we only need to invite just a good solid Saskatchewan citizen coming as a partner to celebrate with us, not as a patron or politician. All we need on our part is some good teamwork and imagination.
We also had a grand 15th Anniversary Celebration. We were fortunate enough to bring in the same two eminent persons that guided us during our formative years – Swami Veda Bharati and Dr. Bhudendra Doobay. We conferred an Honorary Life Membership of the Samaj upon Dr. Doobay, just as we had done to Swamiji at an earlier occasion. While the celebration was grand, it also brought out a weakness in our organization, which I shall refer to later in this report.
One of our successful religious innovations was a 7-minute silence we all observed one day after Aarti while we moved downstairs. It showed that we are capable of some spiritual discipline, just as the rickshawallas, taxiwallas, highcourt judges and all kinds of other people do at the Geeta Bhavan in Central Bombay when they come to hear Dada Panduranga Athavale. Doing more such practices of ‘mouna’ and ‘vrat’ in a samuhik way will surely advance us to the level of ‘sadhaks’ and our assembly into true ‘sat sang’.
We made some real progress on our ‘leaking roof’ problem. We consulted our architect Mr. Peter Sen, and put the problem in the able hands of an engineer – Mr. Joginder Bhangu. He in turn took quotes from at least three contractors as well as an inspection from the foreman who built our Temple. All gave different diagnoses. Finally a roofing Engineer-Consultant was called in, who gave a diagnosis that rang true and reasonable. He also did not charge us, as we are a non-profit religious group. He even arranged a contractor to do the first phase of repairs, at a cost of less than $1,000. The second phase, depending upon the results from the first, needs to be undertaken next summer. I hope Mr. Bhangu will be entrusted with this task in the coming year.
The Constitutional Review and the revised Constitution was a success. The last review and change was ten years ago in 1995. The review took a lot of man-hours and a lot of consultations with the congregation. Whether it will help us to function better is for the future to tell, depending upon the future officers of the Samaj and their willingness to adhere to the provisions therein.
We were also successful in lobbying the University to give a kick-start to the stalled Indo Canadian Shastri Committee. Consequently, Dr. Shreesh Juyal is the new head of the Shastri Committee and four community members are on the Advisory Board of the Committee – Dr. Natarajan, Dr. Indra Datta, Mrs. Renu Kapoor and Dr. Kalburgi Srinivas. We were also able to place a member of our congregation (Dr. Rajanikant Patel) on the Regina Health District Spiritual Care Committee.
Early in the year we raised funds for the Tsunami relief and many of us also gave volunteer time at the Red Cross office. Late in the year we raised funds for the Katrina and Kashmir-Pakistan earthquake disasters. In all these cases we added to the funds raised from our operating budget.
Another first this year was the Centennial Picnic where all East Indian groups – the ICA, the Gujarati Samaj, the ISKCON temple, the Sikh Society as well as the Hindu Samaj joined together and held a common picnic. At the picnic we raised $175 for charity and this was contributed to the Food Bank on behalf of all the organizations involved. A little bit of initiative and a letter to the other organizations is all it took to unite all our organizations in a purely social activity. This coming together of all our groups should be continued. Thus, on the whole it was a year of modest achievements.
What were our failures? The’ Mr. Clean Seva’ was a failure. So were ‘Mandir Seva’ and ‘Bhavan Seva’. The "can-a-week" donation to the food bank was also a failure. Our attempt to make local families become ‘host-family’ to university students from India did not get far. But we were able to pull together some furniture and household things for students who needed them.
Our celebration of the 15th Anniversary was unfortunately accompanied by an exchange of some harsh words between and among some people. It revealed our propensity to take offence at the drop of a hat. We as a group need to do some soul searching as to why we do so, especially when we take pride in our religious philosophy of behaving in an ego-less manner. This and some other happenings that transpired around the 15th Anniversary Celebrations dispirited and debilitated my physiological functioning. Frankly, I was advised (by my GP) to seek psychiatric help.
Perhaps we need many ‘Michami Dukkadam’ days like the one we practiced around Valentine’s day – to forgive others that have offended us, ask forgiveness from those we have offended, and forgive ourselves for our own shortcomings. Michami Dukkadam is a powerful Jain practice that can advance us greatly in our religious and spiritual quest.
The attempt to bring some order into the singing of the bhajans, based on a suggestion given by Dr. Doobay, was also not successful. So, the singing of bhajans will probably continue to evoke complaints until such time as we are all willing to let only the more talented among us, to lift our ‘religious/spiritual mood’ through the bhajans. Our kitchen/prasad coordination elicited much disapproval, yes. The new coordinator position added in the new constitution should improve this. But the whole issue of ‘sponsored prasad expected every week’ needs to be revisited as I suggested in my report at the SAGM. One of our failures, if we can call it so, is our Pandit – Venkat Machiraju, leaving us for greener pastures. Let me assure you that money was not the major reason for his leaving us! Perhaps we should be proud that we ‘grew’ him here, and launched him into his true calling in a more prominent setting.
On the financial front, we have received a recent notice from Revenue Canada that our disbursements have been low. This used to come only as a warning in previous years. We as a charitable organization are required to give away 80% of our received ‘donations’ to other charitable organizations. We have not been doing so. The Revenue Canada notice indicates that they may start imposing penalties if we do not meet our disbursement quota. We need to look into this with all seriousness. Perhaps we should categorize our receipts as donations, membership fees, capital improvement grants and such other.
A 12 year trend analysis of our revenue and expenses has shown that while our revenue has been more or less at the same level, our expenses have been going up and up, and that perhaps our expenses would exceed our revenue in a matter of a few years. However, this year has reversed the trend lines. Our revenue has gone upward and our expenses have gone downward. And we have substantially increased our capital reserve. However we must take note that our Aarti collections fluctuate quite a bit and our PAP contributions and our regular memberships are on a downward slope.
Our Temple building is aging. But we have no systematic preventive maintenance schedule. When in an emergency we cannot find records of work done earlier or who the earlier service people were and so on. At the beginning of this year we listed 40+ small and large maintenance jobs. About 30 have been done so far. Since we do not have persons in our congregation who can do or supervise these odd maintenance jobs (other than Mr. Bhangu and Mr. Jilwah) we should arrange to have this job contracted out. Our attempt to have a standing arrangement with Mr. Jilwah did not materialize for reasons I am unable to fathom.
Allow me to make some comments from my (professional) management orientation. I shall be rather forthright in doing so as I want to appeal to your constructive conscience. This Hindu Samaj is a high potential organization – intended to awaken the higher consciousness of its congregation. It is my personal feeling that we have much to achieve in this direction. Our main achievement over the years has been that we have held together without becoming splinter groups. This issue of our 'directionality' needs to be addressed by us as a collective, and by our leadership cadre. We need to dialogue, ponder, brain storm and find consensus for our future direction. The longer we postpone this issue, the more equivocal we are, the more we are likely to slip away from our real mission and become a social club, with superficial interactions, and in the process risk losing respect in the eyes of our children. Did we not build this temple for them, the future generation?
On the social side, we need to become a more collaborative and cooperative organization. We have a tendency to stretch small differences into big ones. Perhaps our diversity of language and upbringing is the cause. It is ironic that while North Americans are moving in the direction of Hindu philosophy and Hindu worldview, we seem to practice Hinduism superficially. We need to discover what true Hinduism is, that lies behind all the ritualism we have been conditioned to.
Over the years, burnout has been a fairly common experience among our Board members and Office bearers. The minutes of our past Board meetings and General body meetings have recorded several statements of frustration and lack of support and help to the Coordinators and Officers. It is therefore no mystery that we have in the past few years found it difficult to get people on to the Board and into Officer positions. We seem to lack group skills to work in a democratic structure. We seem to carry a 'headship' structure as our mental map. We seem to personalize all task-interactions. That is, not able to distinguish between personal disagreements and role/task related disagreements. The remedy, I think, lies in us as an ethnic group, acquiring group skills training, conflict management skills, and experiential team development. Those among us, who have undergone such training experiences in their work context, vouch for their value and worth. But many of us remain unaware of their benefit and hence are unwilling to find the time to attend such training experiences. These heart-felt frank observations on my part should not be taken as criticism or offensive. We need to see ourselves in a clear mirror so to say. Only then can we make mid-course corrections. If we are not aware of our self, how can we aspire to know our Self?
In conclusion, I wish to acknowledge that my fellow Trustees on the Board were cooperative and helpful. Hence we cut down on the number and duration of Board meetings. Our eGroup (HSSS-BoT) greatly helped our communications. We also made decisions by consensus rather than by voting. We also posted the minutes of our Board meetings on a bulletin board soon after they were approved. In other ways too we tried to be as transparent as possible, often asking and consulting the congregation before making decisions.
I have personally learned much. I have come in contact with some good men and women. From the time I asked you all to call me plainly as Srinivas, it has been an experiment on myself. I have pushed myself to play a role that I am not naturally inclined to. So it has been a stretching experience for me; an adventure of discovery and growth.. I have found some strengths I did not know I had, and some shortcomings I was not aware of. I am sure I still have some blind spots, and will learn about them as I reflect and “process” this experience. I thank you all for giving me an opportunity to serve you in this role.
Respectfully submitted.
Kalburgi Srinivas
President 2005
Last December, when I was elected to this position, I promised to work kayaa, vachaa, manasaa. I believe I have done so to the best of my ability. Yet, the feeling in me now, is that I have not done enough. I am the kind of a person, if you send to the backyard to split wood for the fireplace, likes to see the wood chips fly. I did not see the wood chips fly. I am left wondering if I utilized the wrong end of the axe. Thus, it has been a humbling experience for me. On the other hand, and in different words, we can say that this Hindu Samaj is a robust and resilient organization whose norms have set and solidified.
The Year 2005 was a special year. It was our Temple’s 15th Anniversary as well as our Province’s Centenary year. We combined these two celebrations with our annual fund raising event and gave it a HSSS brand identity – Varshik Bhojan. We invited Mrs. Jackie Shumiachar, a respected Saskatchewan personality - not a politician or high office holder, to celebrate the occasion with us. We offered a classical dance and music program with the theme, ‘the female diety in Hinduism’. This was a great success, beyond our expectations. Consequently we donated $1180 to the Regina Food Bank – ten percent of our net gain from the dinner.
We need to continue this (donation) event annually at the same scale or even higher. It should become a cultural event of Regina, not only a fund raising activity for us. It helps our public image and serves to decrease the prejudices against Hinduism and Hindus in this geo-environment. We must acknowledge that the Varshik Bhojan proved beyond all doubt that our vegetarian cuisine, unaccompanied by alcohol, accompanied by a professional level classical entertainment is attraction enough to bring in more than 500 people. We also established that we only need to invite just a good solid Saskatchewan citizen coming as a partner to celebrate with us, not as a patron or politician. All we need on our part is some good teamwork and imagination.
We also had a grand 15th Anniversary Celebration. We were fortunate enough to bring in the same two eminent persons that guided us during our formative years – Swami Veda Bharati and Dr. Bhudendra Doobay. We conferred an Honorary Life Membership of the Samaj upon Dr. Doobay, just as we had done to Swamiji at an earlier occasion. While the celebration was grand, it also brought out a weakness in our organization, which I shall refer to later in this report.
One of our successful religious innovations was a 7-minute silence we all observed one day after Aarti while we moved downstairs. It showed that we are capable of some spiritual discipline, just as the rickshawallas, taxiwallas, highcourt judges and all kinds of other people do at the Geeta Bhavan in Central Bombay when they come to hear Dada Panduranga Athavale. Doing more such practices of ‘mouna’ and ‘vrat’ in a samuhik way will surely advance us to the level of ‘sadhaks’ and our assembly into true ‘sat sang’.
We made some real progress on our ‘leaking roof’ problem. We consulted our architect Mr. Peter Sen, and put the problem in the able hands of an engineer – Mr. Joginder Bhangu. He in turn took quotes from at least three contractors as well as an inspection from the foreman who built our Temple. All gave different diagnoses. Finally a roofing Engineer-Consultant was called in, who gave a diagnosis that rang true and reasonable. He also did not charge us, as we are a non-profit religious group. He even arranged a contractor to do the first phase of repairs, at a cost of less than $1,000. The second phase, depending upon the results from the first, needs to be undertaken next summer. I hope Mr. Bhangu will be entrusted with this task in the coming year.
The Constitutional Review and the revised Constitution was a success. The last review and change was ten years ago in 1995. The review took a lot of man-hours and a lot of consultations with the congregation. Whether it will help us to function better is for the future to tell, depending upon the future officers of the Samaj and their willingness to adhere to the provisions therein.
We were also successful in lobbying the University to give a kick-start to the stalled Indo Canadian Shastri Committee. Consequently, Dr. Shreesh Juyal is the new head of the Shastri Committee and four community members are on the Advisory Board of the Committee – Dr. Natarajan, Dr. Indra Datta, Mrs. Renu Kapoor and Dr. Kalburgi Srinivas. We were also able to place a member of our congregation (Dr. Rajanikant Patel) on the Regina Health District Spiritual Care Committee.
Early in the year we raised funds for the Tsunami relief and many of us also gave volunteer time at the Red Cross office. Late in the year we raised funds for the Katrina and Kashmir-Pakistan earthquake disasters. In all these cases we added to the funds raised from our operating budget.
Another first this year was the Centennial Picnic where all East Indian groups – the ICA, the Gujarati Samaj, the ISKCON temple, the Sikh Society as well as the Hindu Samaj joined together and held a common picnic. At the picnic we raised $175 for charity and this was contributed to the Food Bank on behalf of all the organizations involved. A little bit of initiative and a letter to the other organizations is all it took to unite all our organizations in a purely social activity. This coming together of all our groups should be continued. Thus, on the whole it was a year of modest achievements.
What were our failures? The’ Mr. Clean Seva’ was a failure. So were ‘Mandir Seva’ and ‘Bhavan Seva’. The "can-a-week" donation to the food bank was also a failure. Our attempt to make local families become ‘host-family’ to university students from India did not get far. But we were able to pull together some furniture and household things for students who needed them.
Our celebration of the 15th Anniversary was unfortunately accompanied by an exchange of some harsh words between and among some people. It revealed our propensity to take offence at the drop of a hat. We as a group need to do some soul searching as to why we do so, especially when we take pride in our religious philosophy of behaving in an ego-less manner. This and some other happenings that transpired around the 15th Anniversary Celebrations dispirited and debilitated my physiological functioning. Frankly, I was advised (by my GP) to seek psychiatric help.
Perhaps we need many ‘Michami Dukkadam’ days like the one we practiced around Valentine’s day – to forgive others that have offended us, ask forgiveness from those we have offended, and forgive ourselves for our own shortcomings. Michami Dukkadam is a powerful Jain practice that can advance us greatly in our religious and spiritual quest.
The attempt to bring some order into the singing of the bhajans, based on a suggestion given by Dr. Doobay, was also not successful. So, the singing of bhajans will probably continue to evoke complaints until such time as we are all willing to let only the more talented among us, to lift our ‘religious/spiritual mood’ through the bhajans. Our kitchen/prasad coordination elicited much disapproval, yes. The new coordinator position added in the new constitution should improve this. But the whole issue of ‘sponsored prasad expected every week’ needs to be revisited as I suggested in my report at the SAGM. One of our failures, if we can call it so, is our Pandit – Venkat Machiraju, leaving us for greener pastures. Let me assure you that money was not the major reason for his leaving us! Perhaps we should be proud that we ‘grew’ him here, and launched him into his true calling in a more prominent setting.
On the financial front, we have received a recent notice from Revenue Canada that our disbursements have been low. This used to come only as a warning in previous years. We as a charitable organization are required to give away 80% of our received ‘donations’ to other charitable organizations. We have not been doing so. The Revenue Canada notice indicates that they may start imposing penalties if we do not meet our disbursement quota. We need to look into this with all seriousness. Perhaps we should categorize our receipts as donations, membership fees, capital improvement grants and such other.
A 12 year trend analysis of our revenue and expenses has shown that while our revenue has been more or less at the same level, our expenses have been going up and up, and that perhaps our expenses would exceed our revenue in a matter of a few years. However, this year has reversed the trend lines. Our revenue has gone upward and our expenses have gone downward. And we have substantially increased our capital reserve. However we must take note that our Aarti collections fluctuate quite a bit and our PAP contributions and our regular memberships are on a downward slope.
Our Temple building is aging. But we have no systematic preventive maintenance schedule. When in an emergency we cannot find records of work done earlier or who the earlier service people were and so on. At the beginning of this year we listed 40+ small and large maintenance jobs. About 30 have been done so far. Since we do not have persons in our congregation who can do or supervise these odd maintenance jobs (other than Mr. Bhangu and Mr. Jilwah) we should arrange to have this job contracted out. Our attempt to have a standing arrangement with Mr. Jilwah did not materialize for reasons I am unable to fathom.
Allow me to make some comments from my (professional) management orientation. I shall be rather forthright in doing so as I want to appeal to your constructive conscience. This Hindu Samaj is a high potential organization – intended to awaken the higher consciousness of its congregation. It is my personal feeling that we have much to achieve in this direction. Our main achievement over the years has been that we have held together without becoming splinter groups. This issue of our 'directionality' needs to be addressed by us as a collective, and by our leadership cadre. We need to dialogue, ponder, brain storm and find consensus for our future direction. The longer we postpone this issue, the more equivocal we are, the more we are likely to slip away from our real mission and become a social club, with superficial interactions, and in the process risk losing respect in the eyes of our children. Did we not build this temple for them, the future generation?
On the social side, we need to become a more collaborative and cooperative organization. We have a tendency to stretch small differences into big ones. Perhaps our diversity of language and upbringing is the cause. It is ironic that while North Americans are moving in the direction of Hindu philosophy and Hindu worldview, we seem to practice Hinduism superficially. We need to discover what true Hinduism is, that lies behind all the ritualism we have been conditioned to.
Over the years, burnout has been a fairly common experience among our Board members and Office bearers. The minutes of our past Board meetings and General body meetings have recorded several statements of frustration and lack of support and help to the Coordinators and Officers. It is therefore no mystery that we have in the past few years found it difficult to get people on to the Board and into Officer positions. We seem to lack group skills to work in a democratic structure. We seem to carry a 'headship' structure as our mental map. We seem to personalize all task-interactions. That is, not able to distinguish between personal disagreements and role/task related disagreements. The remedy, I think, lies in us as an ethnic group, acquiring group skills training, conflict management skills, and experiential team development. Those among us, who have undergone such training experiences in their work context, vouch for their value and worth. But many of us remain unaware of their benefit and hence are unwilling to find the time to attend such training experiences. These heart-felt frank observations on my part should not be taken as criticism or offensive. We need to see ourselves in a clear mirror so to say. Only then can we make mid-course corrections. If we are not aware of our self, how can we aspire to know our Self?
In conclusion, I wish to acknowledge that my fellow Trustees on the Board were cooperative and helpful. Hence we cut down on the number and duration of Board meetings. Our eGroup (HSSS-BoT) greatly helped our communications. We also made decisions by consensus rather than by voting. We also posted the minutes of our Board meetings on a bulletin board soon after they were approved. In other ways too we tried to be as transparent as possible, often asking and consulting the congregation before making decisions.
I have personally learned much. I have come in contact with some good men and women. From the time I asked you all to call me plainly as Srinivas, it has been an experiment on myself. I have pushed myself to play a role that I am not naturally inclined to. So it has been a stretching experience for me; an adventure of discovery and growth.. I have found some strengths I did not know I had, and some shortcomings I was not aware of. I am sure I still have some blind spots, and will learn about them as I reflect and “process” this experience. I thank you all for giving me an opportunity to serve you in this role.
Respectfully submitted.
Kalburgi Srinivas
President 2005
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