Cartwheels in a Sari
A Memoir of Growing Up Cult
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Narrated by:
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Jayanti Tamm
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By:
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Jayanti Tamm
About this listen
In this colorful, eye-opening memoir, Jayanti Tamm offers an unforgettable glimpse into the hidden world of growing up cult in mainstream America. Through Jayanti's fascinating story, the first book to chronicle Sri Chinmoy, she unmasks a leader who convinces thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him, and throngs of celebrities (Sting, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela) to extol him.
When the short, bald man in flowing robes prophesizes Jayanti to be the Chosen One, her life is forever entwined with the charismatic guru Sri Chinmoy, who declares himself a living god - a god who performs sit-ups and push-ups in front of thousands as holy ritual, protects himself with a platoon of bodyguards, and bans books, TV, and sex.
Jayantis unusual and increasingly bizarre childhood is spent shuttling between the ashram in Queens, New York, and her family's outpost as Connecticut missionaries. On the path to enlightenment decreed by Guru, Jayanti scrubs animal cages in his illegal basement zoo, cheerleads as he weight lifts an elephant in her front yard, and trails him around the world as he pursues celebrities such as Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. But, when her need for enlightenment is derailed by her need for boys, Jayanti risks losing everything that she has ever known, including the person that she was ordained to be.
With tenderness, insight, and humor, Jayanti explores the triumphs and trauma of an insider who longs to be an outsider, her hard-won decision to finally break free, and the unique challenges she confronts as she builds a new life.
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When two lost souls are joined together in marriage by the charismatic leader they each found in an ashram in Queens, the strangers begin a journey toward spiritual salvation marred early on by a slip-up. Sri Chinmoy has banned his disciples from having sex, but rather than instruct this couple to “do the abortion” as he had for so many other couples, he anoints their child as special. At first it may seem pretty cool to be told you are the Chosen One, but Jayanti Tamm’s life is far from perfect. In this haunting memoir of her striving to become God-Realized and then her struggle to escape the cult that raised her, Tamm narrates her own story in a touching manner that humanizes both sides and stops short of either self-pity or moral superiority.
Most people have heard of Sri Chinmoy. He claims to have lifted an elephant, to have been the spiritual guide of the United Nations, to have been close friends with Mikhail Gorbachev and Princess Diana, and so on. But most people have not heard of Jayanti Tamm, who was loyally by Chinmoy’s side, born to be nothing more than his devotee and ever in his service, until her slow fall from grace and eventual excommunication at the age of 25. Tamm’s perspective on the Chinmoy cult is therefore delightfully specific. She dwells on the tiniest details of a head nod or a special light blue color, finely attuned to the major significance of the smallest signs of a favored status within the cult. She excitedly tells of her childhood quest to gain Guru’s permission to have a pet bunny, and speaks with gravity about avoiding the ominous bust of his head on the family shrine that she thought was out to get her. Sent to a swanky private academy for girls to keep “lower vital temptations” at bay, Tamm discusses her teenage frustration and shame at being an outsider, and her longing to blend in with a more normal life.
Tamm travelled the whole world with Guru, but only really saw the inside of hotel conference rooms. As the bustling and colorful life of New York City trickles into her growing consciousness, she thoughtfully traces her declining status in the cult, from the first few natural transgressions, to a tentative rebellion, to a fierce rejection of the only social system she’d ever known. Never having defined herself except in relation to Guru, Tamm’s story is ultimately a meditation on the importance of being able to think for one’s self. The author succeeds in treating Sri Chinmoy with all the respect that is due to such a formative mentor, but she does not shy away from condemning the selfish audacities that ultimately caused him to break her heart, bringing her to the edge of a terrifying personal abyss. Ironically, after failing for two and half decades to understand Sri Chinmoy’s imperative to be “most soulful”, Jayanti Tamm tells her unique life story with an unflinching poise and the honest peace of a soul who has indeed experienced both the pain and the height of spiritual awakening. —Megan Volpert
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Story
Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
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A Chance in the World
- An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home
- By: Steve Pemberton
- Narrated by: Steve Pemberton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A Chance in the World is the unbelievably true story of a wounded and broken boy destined to become a man of resilience, determination, and vision. Through it all, Steve's story teaches us that no matter how broken our past, no matter how great our misfortunes, we have it in us to create a new beginning and to build a place where love awaits.
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Good Book
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-20
By: Steve Pemberton
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In the Country We Love
- My Family Divided
- By: Diane Guerrero, Michelle Burford
- Narrated by: Diane Guerrero
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just 14 years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the US, Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.
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Moves very slowly
- By Laura S. on 07-23-16
By: Diane Guerrero, and others
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Rats Saw God
- By: Rob Thomas
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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By his senior year, Steve York has come through the worst two years of his life. His parents have divorced, and his girlfriend has betrayed him. Worse yet, after running away to live with his mother in San Diego, forays into the drug culture have turned his A-average into a thing of the past. Steve's only hope to graduate on time and avoid summer school is to write a 100-page paper for his guidance counselor. Unfortunately, he has to write about something he knows, and all he knows well are the last two years of his life.
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Real
- By Mary on 06-26-09
By: Rob Thomas
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The Great Failure
- A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.
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If you have been let down by anyone. Listen
- By Mia on 04-19-18
By: Natalie Goldberg
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Language Arts
- By: Stephanie Kallos
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Marlow is a Seattle English teacher who instructs his students to expand their worlds through language. Lately, however, with one child off to college and the pressure from his ex-wife to make plans for their severely autistic son who's about to age out of the system, he prefers the company of the ghosts he turns up in the storage boxes in his crawl space.
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The beauty of the broken
- By SJ Evans on 04-27-18
By: Stephanie Kallos
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The Book of Separation
- A Memoir
- By: Tova Mirvis
- Narrated by: Tova Mirvis
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life. After all, to observe was to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. She married a man from within the fold and quickly began a family. But over the years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age 40 she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating existence.
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So many parallels
- By Cortney on 01-05-18
By: Tova Mirvis
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City of Spies
- By: Sorayya Khan
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Aliya Shah lives a double life in Islamabad, Pakistan - at home with her Pakistani father and Dutch mother, and at the American School, where Aliya tries to downplay that she is a "half-and-half." But when a hit-and-run driver kills the son of the family's servant, Sadiq, who is also Aliya's dear friend, her world is turned upside down. After she discovers the truth behind the tragedy - a terrible secret that burdens her heart - her conflicted loyalties are tested as never before.
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Beautifully written and narrated
- By Wayne on 11-05-17
By: Sorayya Khan
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Maharishi & Me
- Seeking Enlightenment with The Beatles' Guru
- By: Susan Shumsky
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Susan Shumsky is a successful author in the new age/spirituality field, writing books on meditation, intuition, prayer, auras, chakras, and the like. But in the 1970s, she was one of only a handful of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s personal attendants and administrators, in India, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Following the teachings of Maharishi displaced Susan’s devotion to the hippie lifestyle, as she learned about meditation and grew spiritually self-aware. Maharishi founded the spiritual movement TM (Transcendental Meditation).
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Excellent
- By Tam on 12-25-20
By: Susan Shumsky
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Finding Fish
- A Memoir
- By: Antwone Q. Fisher
- Narrated by: Thomas Penny
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.
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This book will not disappoint you.
- By Joseph on 10-16-16
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The Submission
- A Novel
- By: Amy Waldman
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Claire Harwell hasn't settled into grief; events haven't let her. Cool, eloquent, raising two fatherless children, Claire has emerged as the most visible of the 9/11 widows who became a potent political force in the aftermath of the catastrophe. She longs for her husband, but she has found her mission: she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for the victims of the attack.
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Some books were meant to be read...
- By Barbara on 02-24-12
By: Amy Waldman
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Finding Grace
- A True Story about Losing Your Way in Life...and Finding It Again
- By: Donna VanLiere
- Narrated by: Donna VanLiere
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Finding Grace is the powerful, often humorous, and deeply moving story of one woman's journey of broken dreams. It is the story of how a painful legacy of the past is confronted and met with peace. This book is for anyone who has struggled to understand why our desires---even the simplest ones---are sometimes denied or who has questioned where God is when we need Him most. This story is about one woman's unlikely road to motherhood. Finally, it's a book about the "undeserved gift which is life itself."
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Finding Grace... and joy, delight, and camaraderie
- By WeRLoved on 02-02-17
By: Donna VanLiere
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Born Bright
- A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America
- By: C. Nicole Mason
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Born Bright, C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, is a story of reconciliation, constrained choices, and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful but volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school, where she excelled. By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds.
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Solid Book
- By Daryl on 11-06-16
By: C. Nicole Mason
What listeners say about Cartwheels in a Sari
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matthew J Meyers
- 03-08-19
Queens Resident that never knew but always curious
Born and raised in Jamaica queens (Not dangerous at all I like to add)My school was past hillside where Sri chinmoy resturant and house was. I always wondered about them and they seemed happy. This audio book let me into the world of it all. Very well done but I will never think the same way walking past the white house and resturant.
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- Max
- 02-06-19
life changing !
I too am a cult survivor, and Tamm's fearless honesty and insight into her experience has been incredibly healing for me to hear. her performance is very personal and bring you the experience home and a great way. thank you for this amazing book!
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Overall
- Lauren
- 04-14-10
A Must-Listen
This is a gripping story that you will want to listen to in one sitting! Funny, moving, and inspirational, Cartwheels in a Sari is a terrific book that will leave you thinking about it long after it is over.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- LL
- 10-14-10
Interesting Story
Jayanti Tamm has written a moving story of her first 25 years of life as "the chosen one". What I enjoyed most was the description of day to day growing up straddling the life of her upbringing and the outside world. What I didn't like was Jayanti's pronunciation of the word "guru" which she uses hundreds of times in the book. It sounds like "Grr-er" or just a throaty growl. The other thing I didn't like was that I had a lot of questions that the book didn't answer (or maybe it did and I have to re-listen). For example, there is the story of how Jayanti wanted a pet but Guru didn't allow pets. Later in the book, she relates a story of her brother walking Guru's dog.
Despite my complaints, I do think it is a worthwhile story and a very interesting listen.
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2 people found this helpful