In New York, it is the United Colours of Spirituality

In New York, it is the United Colours of Spirituality
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

NEW YORK, AUGUST 29: New York has many religions. Let's see now... there's Wealth, embodied by such deities as Donald Trump, he of the Trump Towers and towering tramps eminence. There's Power, manifested in the hungry search for a Senate seat by First Lady Hillary Clinton. There's Fame aka Notoriety, exemplified by such shallow celebrities as Madonna.

Through this week, hundreds of spiritual souls from across the world are gathering at the United Nations and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel to examine the role religion can play in fostering peace and brotherhood. Noticeably, the assembly of the pious and devout is meeting a week ahead of the modern day movers and shakers. The heads of state and government, some 150 of them including Prime Minister Vajpayee and General Musharraf, will descend on the UN next week to conduct real business.

New York actually presents a pretty good example of how power passed from religion to politics to the corporate world. No, it did not happen with the coming of NYSE and Nasdaq. Even as early as the start of this century, monstrous new buildings towered over church steeples, preferring size to spiritualism and mammon to mental peace as they reached for the sky (``skyscrapers,'' like ``schmuck,''is original New York lingo).

The Waldorf Astoria itself, now boiling with spiritual delegates from far corners of the earth, is perhaps not the best place to host the holy men of faith. It has a storied history that might not go well with the saintly and the righteous. The original Waldorf, owned by New York socialite Mrs Astor, was actually located on 34th street where the present Empire State Building stands. Evicted after a spat with her nephew, the convivial Mrs Astor moved to the current site on 50th street in 1897 and created such a bibulous haven for the haves that it came to be counted as the social mecca of New York. At one time or another, purveyors of power such as General MacArthur, the Duke of Windsor, John F. Kennedy and Henry Kissinger made the hotel their home. Such was the social elan it demanded that up until a few decades back, one required a full formal dress (tails) to step into its ballyhooed lounges.

What a remarkable sight it is then when this refuge of power and pelf, fashion and fad, throws open its doors to saintliness and spiritualism. Meandering through the elegant hotel this week, one comes across holy men in a stunning array of clothes (robes, caftans, togas, ponchos, dishdashas, smocks, tunics, muumuus, shawls, capes, dhotis). The colours are pure (white, black, green, saffron, purple, ochre). The sheer variety of what is on their head (turbans, cowlings, yarmulkes, tuques, crowns, pugrees, hats, fez), and what is under the head-dress (shaven pates, matted hair, rastafarian dreadlocks) not to speak of what is in their heads, is mind-boggling. You begin to wonder if the city's captains of chic didn't miss a treat.

Organisers of the religious meet say they have a basic, uncomplicated agenda to begin with: to stand up and be counted. Watching hundreds of these learned men and women of peace exchange gestures, greetings, thoughts, philosophies in this pitiless and implacable city, they would certainly appear to have accomplished that much.

As hymns, incantations, mantras, chants echoed through the UN General Assembly Hall at last evening's opening ceremony, it seemed that God is in his heaven, and there are plenty of his men on Earth.