Parvati devi dasi:<\/p>\n
July 8, 2009<\/p>\n
Dear Maharaja’s and Prabhu’s,
\n Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.<\/p>\n
The other day, my godsister, my old friend, Gandiva prabhu, left her
\nbody in Canada in a wonderful way. It was Shayana Ekadasi right after
\nmangal aroti. I am writing this, because her passing should not go
\nunnoticed.<\/p>\n
I was not personally there, but I was able to telephone from
\nVrndavana a few times to communicate with her. A few of us internationally,
\nher old friends, did this to encourage her in her final hours. Many from
\nthe Winnipeg community came to make sure she and her family had everything
\nthey needed, and to perform kirtan. Her children, stalwart devotees, stayed
\nwith her at the hospital for weeks making sure she had Prabhupada’s tape
\ngoing 24 hours and was surrounded by pictures of Prabhupada and her favorite
\nDeities. She remained without food and water and without intravenous for
\nnine days, unable to speak, but able to hear and see for most of that time.
\nShe was nourished by the holy names and pastimes of the Lord and by the
\nsincere devotion of the devotees.<\/p>\n
Gandiva was a simple young South Indian teenaged girl who lived with
\nher mother and brother down the street from the Juhu Bombay temple in 1972,
\ncompletely drawn to Srila Prabhupada when he got the land there. Basically
\nshe was the first Indian young lady to join up in India. She was so
\nenthusiastic, and was completely supported by all her family members except
\nher father, who was so disturbed he actually deserted the family and was
\nnever seen again. Her mother used to cook idlis\/sambar for the devotees
\nevery Sunday, and much later even rallied the neighborhood women to
\nphysically protect the Deities when the municipal authority tried to destroy
\nthe temple. Prabhupada got Gandiva initiated quickly and married to Jagat
\nGuru das at the Cross Maidan Pandal program downtown, so she could move into
\nthe temple. She cooked for and dressed the Deities and helped with puja
\nalso. Aditya devi dasi remembers dressing the Deities with Gandiva-one day
\none of them would dress Rasabihari and the other would dress Radharani, and
\nthe next day they would change. In those days only the girls were available
\nfor the Deity worship, although a couple of times Gandiva also dressed the
\nDeities with Lokanath das brahmacari, alternating one with the big Deities
\nand another with the small Deities.<\/p>\n
One day Gandiva revealed to Aditya that she had received a letter
\nfrom Srila Prabhupada. She begged her to let her see it, but it was in
\nHindi. Gandiva always wrote to him in Hindi so he would read it personally,
\nas none of the servants could read Hindi in those days. Though she begged
\nher to also write a letter for her to Prabhupada in Hindi, but she wouldn’t
\ndo it. But whenever she got a letter, she would translate it out to her.
\nIt was always exciting when Gandiva would get a letter, because it was
\nwritten in person by Srila Prabhupada in own hand.<\/p>\n
One day Prabhupada noticed Gandiva did not have any bangles and
\ncalled her husband over to chastise him. He said that all newly married
\ngirls must have gold bangles, and said that wearing gold helps to curb the
\nsex desire. So it was very essential she have gold bangles. Being a simple
\nISKCON grhastha, her husband had no private money to buy gold bangles, so he
\nwas in anxiety how to fulfill Prabhupada’s order. Somehow he got one
\nbangle.<\/p>\n
One time Srila Prabhupada came to Juhu and Gandiva brought her
\nnewborn baby to get his blessings though the prescribed waiting period for
\nbringing the baby out of the house was not over yet. It was raining too.
\nBut she was afraid Prabhupada was going to leave Bombay too soon, and she
\nwouldn’t be able to take him the baby for his blessings. So she wrapped her
\nup very carefully and took her to Srila Prabhupada. When he opened the
\ndoor, he chastised her for taking the baby out so early and taking a chance
\non her health and life.<\/p>\n
After Srila Prabhupada left Bombay to travel, she used to go
\npreaching with her husband. One time they visited Mr. Bachhan, the father
\nof Amitabh, the movie star. He told them about his days in Allahabad where
\nhe used to visit Prabhupada at his medical shop. They became good friends
\nand Prabhupada often visited his home where they would talk at length about
\nspiritual topics.<\/p>\n
I came to Bombay in 1976 and was cooking mangal aroti sweets while
\nshe cooked the Raj Bhog offering every day in that little shack of a kitchen
\ninfested with rats the size of rabbits. From her I learned many simple
\nSouth Indian preparations. After the offering was transferred, Prabhupada’s
\nservants would come and take most of it up to his rooms. So she was feeding
\nthe Deities, the spiritual master and his servants. After Prabhupada left
\nthe planet, Gandiva continued her service in the new temple. Every morning
\nafter mangal aroti, I would sit with her and chant japa, baby Rasa Priya
\ndraped over our two laps until it was time to drop her off at her mother’s
\nhouse for the day so she could do her service. She was very regulated and
\nquite determined to manage her packed devotional schedule. She even tried
\nher hand at book distribution at the local train stations.<\/p>\n
In 1981, she was called to San Fransisco to cook at The Higher Taste, one of
\nthe Bay area’s 7 restaurants. She also did pujari work. In addition, she
\nwas teaching cooking classes upstairs almost every day. She had quite a
\nfollowing. People would attend her cooking classes for months. Manjari
\ndevi dasi assisted her because she was too shy to speak to everyone in the
\nclass. So she would demonstrate the preparation itself and whisper the
\ndirections to Manjari, who would announce the instructions to the class as
\nshe went along. After a year, there was another South Indian lady who could
\ndemonstrate some new recipes but only spoke Konkani, which Gandiva would
\ntranslate softly and Manjari would present to the class. She was also quite
\nknowledgeable about Indian classical music and dance, and taught Bharat
\nNatyam to the ladies in the ashram.<\/p>\n
After her husband went his own way, she remained steadfast in her
\nservice in San Fransisco, then St. Louis, then Dallas, then the Colorado
\nfarm, and back to the Bay area, where she eventually took shelter of another
\nmarriage and moved to Winnipeg. There she had two more children and did a
\nvariety of service, along with her home Deity worship. Whenever there was a
\nfestival she would perform abhishek, cook and distribute mountains of
\nsweets. She would often visit the local Farmers Market where she would
\ncollect “Holy Basil” which someone was selling publicly. She wanted to save
\nas many Tulasi as she could from some unholy fate, like being made into tea,
\netc.<\/p>\n
The devotees in Winnipeg always held her in the highest esteem and
\nvalued her wonderful firsthand stories and instructions from Srila
\nPrabhuapda. When she was preparing to leave her body, many devotees came to
\nthe hospital to make sure everything was taken care of. Daily devotees
\nwould come to chant and help read Bhagavad Gita and KRSNA Book to her.
\nPrabhupada’s tape was going 24 hours a day. The night before she left, her
\neldest daughter Rasa Priya completed reading her the KRSNA Book first part.
\nIn the morning, she sang the Samsara prayers with her mother just before her
\ndeparture. Gandiva’s final ekadasi was nirjala! Later, all the devotees came
\nand helped prepare the body, taking her around the hospital with a grand
\nkirtan procession. They also held a magnificent kirtan, doing parikrama
\naround the crematorium itself after she was consigned to the flames. She
\nwas loved by all and trained her devotee children so well they were all able
\nto help her successfully to her final destination. These kids are to be
\ncongratulated. All glories to Gandiva devi dasi. All glories to Srila
\nPrabhupada and the simple and effective process of devotional service he
\ngave us.<\/p>\n
I hope this meets you all well.<\/p>\n
Your servant,<\/p>\n
Parvati devi dasi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Parvati devi dasi: Gandiva’s final ekadasi was nirjala! Later, all the devotees came and helped prepare the body, taking her around the hospital with a grand kirtan procession. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}