The Adventurous Govardhan Parikrama

By Kisora dasa

Studying, sleeping, getting up, chanting, dancing, eating. The same order every day. I want these things, but I need to escape for a while from that circle, just to refresh myself. Living at Govardhan, the enlivening recipe is simple, walk around the hill.

So there I went. Getting past the always crowded town, I found myself in the place just before the parikrama path curves near the hill. I remembered that somewhere nearby is the ashram of Dhanya Caitanya, the friend I made while on past parikramas. I didn’t find the ashram, so I wanted to head to the inner parikrama path. But across the street my friend was coming saying, ” Come and see my ashram.” I was glad to see that my friend, although wearing babaji cloth, was still a staunch follower of Srila Prabupada with the 1st Canto on the desk and his guru’s picture on the altar. It was nice talking to him, but it was time to go since it was late afternoon. I didn’t want to walk in the dark.

I was tormented many times before by the kids who come by you and demand one rupee or one candy. They just follow you and molest with, “Ek taka dedo.” Kids can be quite patient, following and driving you nuts with repeating their annoying mantra. Seeing them from a distance, I decided I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. By chance I had few candies with me, and I gave each kid one. They were very delighted; I think not so much with the candies but because they actually succeeded to persuade a pilgrim so quickly. You cannot really satisfy these kids with one candy, so they demanded more. At that time I laughingly started to run away. They took up the game and started following me. Wow, that was fun. These kids were so small I could easily adjust the tempo of running so that they were close but not really catching me. They mostly gave up their following after a short time but 3 of them remained. Since those were persistent, I stopped and gave them another candy. I felt we were no longer the foreigner on one side and the unpleasant local kids on another, but friends in play. They remained satisfied with one more candy, but other kids in the Aniyor village detected a generous foreigner. A bunch of children started running toward me, and I repeated the tactic, but this time no candies were given. We just had a racing match.

After Govinda-kunda parikrama became very peaceful. Just Govardhan and me. From a distance I heard beautiful singing. I could recognize a brahmana leading the tourists around Govardhan and singing about him. Although he was obviously paid for his services, I nevertheless felt that he was not just doing his job, but actually singing with great feeling and love. I would have liked to listen some more, but since I was racing against time to come back to the ashram before dark I overtook them.

Still, night caught me, but this just added to the adventure. Walking seemed like softly touching the parikrama path under the protection of a majestic hill in the moonlight. I finally came back to the passionate Govardhan town, seeing the transformation simple walking did to me. Although I had done exactly the same parikrama so many times before, I once more felt that this hill and his people are not at all ordinary. New, refreshing and spiritually nourishing adventure is waiting one who steps on the Govardhan parikrama path.