By Caru das
From utahkrishnas.com
A number of devotees boarded the American Airlines flight from Chicago to Delhi with me. I knew Ishan and Raghavendra (both living in Alachua, Florida). There were three other males and four females (North Carolina) whom I did not know. Devotees from all over the world are heading to Vrndavan for the festival month of Karthik.
The fifteen hour flight was tolerable as it was night, and one could sleep through at least half.
I had talked a bit about Krishna Consciousness with my seating partner, Joe Petty, from Michigan. He was on his way to Katmandu for a month of trekking, and had an overnight layover in Delhi. I invited him to come with us to the Hare Krishna Guest House, which he happily did.
Seven AM Thursday morning the two of us walked five minutes to the Delhi ISKCON temple in East Kailash. This huge complex was built at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, many of them coming from the Hinduj family. The prime minister of India at that time, Bajpayee, inaugurated it in 1998.
I took Joe through the temple explaining the basics: Deity worship, the role of Prabhupada, reincarnation. He was fascinated by the many excellent paintings, some of which I also explained. We attended Guru Puja and class. The class this day was a recording of Prabhupada’s lecture on a prayer by Queen Kunti (vipadah santu ta sasvat..). The temple devotees passed out printed sheets with a transcript of the lecture. Thus one could read along with the recording. I thought this was very helpful, especially to someone like Joe, who was unused to hearing Prabhupada’s accent.
After I saw Joe off on an auto rickshaw to catch his plane, the devotees called me to do an interview for a Delhi radio station, Radio BIG 92.7. Anshal, the interviewer, was putting together a Sunday piece about ISKCON. I answered her questions for about half an hour, which she will edit to 8 – 10 minutes air time.
Later I went to the Central market in Lajpat Nagar. I would have liked to go to the huge market in Chandi Chowk, but it would have been an hour ride each way. At Central market I purchased some nice silver acaman cups, spoons, some little silver katoris, small thalis, a small silver bell, and later in Vrndavan I was to purchase a silver toy spinning top for the pleasure of our Gopal Ji Deity.
Friday attended the morning program at the temple, and thought to travel the 2 1/2 hours south to Vrndavan, the birth place of Lord Krishna, holiest spot on the planet. I was thinking to take a train when I got to talking to an Australian devotees, Subhadra Das, in the office of the Hare Krishna Guest House. When he heard my name, he invited me to share an SUV he had hired for the purpose. He had heard a lot about the early days of Australian Yatra from Ramai Swami, and mine was a name that had often been mentioned. Subhadra, his wife, and child Arjuna, had less comfort on the journey because of my presence, but we enjoyed talking all the way. He wouldn’t accept any payment from me. Neither had the Hare Krisha Guest House accepted any payment, so after two and a half days in India, I’d not spent anything on lodging or long distance travel (hadn’t eaten anything either).
When we arrived early evening in Vrndavan it was more crowded than anyone could imagine. Subhadra had reservations at the MVT Guest House, and I set about to find a room, usually most difficult this time of year. The very first person I saw after disembarking from the SUV was Bhagavat Purana, the devotee who lived at the Utah temple for a year. Bhagavat allowed me to store a cumbersome bag in his room while I searched for a room.Rickshaw whallas always have the inside track, so I put myself into the hands of one toothless Bengali known as Mohan. Couple of places we tried were full, but we found one via the grapevine which had reasonably priced rooms (250 rupees per night, $ 6.00) not far from the ISKCON Krishna Balarama Termple.
I visited the temple, was accosted by several devotees who knew me, chatted, toured the samadhi mandir of Srila Prabhupada, listend in to the “smoking” 24 hour kirtan, of which Bhagavat was a part. The temple room was so packed it would have taken a half hour just to get close to the Deities, so I contented myself with taking a picture of the huge festival crowd.
Krishna is famous in the month of Karthik as Damodara, who, though the Supreme Personality of Godhead, allowed Himself to be bound with ropes by Mother Yasoda. No one can caputre God, but in this case Krishna demonstrated to the world that He allows Himself to be bound by the love and affection of such devotees as Yasoda Mayi.
My wanderings took me into Prabhupada’s rooms, where, with tears in my eyes, I remembered having been present at his bed side 29 years ago, on November 14, 1977, at the moment ( 7:35 pm ) he passed from this mortal world.
Lastly, I sat in the temple courtyard, anonymous to all but a few “old timers”, and simply watched in amazement all the passing cavalcades of devotees, mostly quite young, from India and all over the world, massed here in the Holy Dham. I thought that what Prabhupada started four decades ago by coming, a single penniless sadhu, to America has now become a titdal ocean which will inundate the entire world. While I was so fortunate to have met Prabhupada and become his direct disciple, I am an insignificant drop in that ocean.