Length-45 minutes, 58 seconds
Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interview Ms. Jayanti Tamm,
author of Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up
Cult published by Harmony.
From the time of her birth, Jayanti Tamm, was declared the
chosen disciple in the cult of Guru Sri Chinmoy. Jayanti lived inside the
confines of the Guru’s inner circle, shuttling between her family’s home, Sri
Chinmoy’s Connecticut headquarters, and his ashram in Queens, New York. Sri
Chinmoy assigned Jayanti to court celebrities, infiltrate the United Nations,
and find elephants for him to weight lift, all in an effort to transform the
world. At the age of twenty-five, after multiple attempts to leave, she was
permanently exiled from the group.
After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Queens College, she worked as an editor
for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. She received her MFA in Creative
Writing at American University in Washington, DC, where she studied fiction and
playwriting. Following graduation, she had a number of stories published in
literary journals in North America. In 2000, she was nominated for a Pushcart
Prize. In 2005, her one-act play, The Suicide Bomber won the New England Academy
of Theatre One Act Play Award. Jayanti is currently an English Professor at Ocean County College where she teaches writing.
She lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter, and two cats where she is
working on a novel. Visit her website.
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