My mother’s dream of becoming a doctor, meanwhile, took a detour: she got married and starting raising a family instead of pursuing her career. When Srila Prabhupada passed away, in November of 1977, my mother was already pregnant with me, her second child.

Despite the similarity in their arrival dates, little else seemed to bind the swami and my mother. She had come here to learn, to soak in what it meant to be an American, and to create a financial foundation for herself and her future family. Prabhupada came to teach, to share with the world what it meant to be a devotee of Krishna, and to create a spiritual foundation for people. Through years of parallel existence, their paths never intersected.

Until, of course, I became a Hare Krishna devotee. I grew up trying to be a good Hindu-American — which probably would have been easier if anyone knew what that meant. Without the luxury of a definition, though, I had difficulty walking a tightrope between two seemingly incompatible aspects of my life. In public school I took great delight in celebrating the holiday season by making paperclip Christmas ornaments and spinning plastic dreidels. At home, we rang in Diwali, standing reverentially before our kitchen cupboard makeshift altar, offering diyas (ceremonial candles) to deities and garish pictures cut out of Hindu calendars — feeling tinges of guilt for offering the diyas quickly enough to run off and watch TV. — Beliefnet.com