The Beach Boys were doing a series of shows at the Chevron Hotel. Janne had befriended them and invited them to the temple. Although they never came, their suave, well-dressed young manager did visit one day, and brought some strawberries as an offering. The devotees were impressed; it would be very prestigious if Janne could join them, they thought.
Certainly the chanting was having an effect on Janne. She found her values were changing, and she had recently become a vegetarian. But she felt herself resisting. She could not accept all the philosophy, and had bought a copy of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, she reasoned, only to help the devotees out. And Bali-mardana and Upendra, she noticed, would argue a lot. But she still enjoyed the street chanting.
One day she asked if she could wear a sari on sankirtana. Upendra offered Janne one of his wife's saris, but didn't know how it went on.
Janne: Upendra tried to help me with it, and I put it on over my jeans. But he got it wrong, and somehow wrapped it around twice instead of once. I had to walk to the fountain taking tiny steps. I could hardly sit down and felt like an Egyptian mummy. I decided there and then that there was no way the devotees were ever going to get me to join.
Janne had plans to further her career overseas. She felt that her priorities to establish herself in the acting world did not sit comfortably with an austere, regulated life based on devotional principles.
Janne: One day Bali-mardana came right out and said it: "Why don't you come and live in the temple?" I looked at their rooms -- no furniture, no carpets on the floor, no television, no stereo -- nothing! Just some old sleeping bags hanging out of a cupboard. That was it! From that day on, I stopped coming to the temple.
- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu
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