Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Bay Buffet
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Just talked to my mom about, among other things, Hindu temples in San Francisco. It's good to know which ones are run by Hare Krishna/ISKCON, which ones are rabidly Vaishnavite/Saivite/whatever, and which ones are primarily spaces for intellectual contemplation. The temples in Livermore, Sunnyvale, Fremont, etc., which the nineties Indian diaspora built, are places where kids run around and Indians chant while dripping ghee onto idols. A "Vedanta Center" is more like a garden/bookstore combo where white people learn yoga. In my experience. Mom says I could enjoy the Palaniswami Temple and Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.
