Arundhati devi dasi Remembers Srila Prabhupada
Arundhati: Srila Prabhupada had some little Radha-Krishna Deities that traveled with him. We were in his apartment one day when he said, “I would like somebody to bathe my Deities. Is there anyone that would like to do that?” I said, “I will, Srila Prabhupada.” I wasn’t brahman initiated, but that didn’t matter at the time. The next morning Srila Prabhupada and I sat down in front of his Deities. He took his little brass Radharani and showed me how to polish Her by doing it himself, using tamarind and fuller’s earth. Then he handed Krishna to me, saying, “Now you do Krishna.” So I polished Krishna. Then he showed me how to bathe the Deities, and he asked me to come every morning to do that. So while he was in New York I did that. Sometimes he was in the room with me, and other times he would go on his morning walk. Then I returned to Boston with the other devotees and when Prabhupada came there I took care of his Deities again. During that time, Satsvarupa said to Prabhupada that he was concerned about the women in the temple because they were fighting with each other. Prabhupada said, “Well, they should be married. Immediately arrange for them to get married.” There were four of us, Saradiya, Rukmini, Jahnava, and me. So, Saradiya and Vaikunthanath were arranged to be married, Jahnava and Nanda Kishor, Rukmini and Baradraj, and Prabhupada said that I should marry a young man named Dayal Nitai. But I didn’t want to marry Dayal Nitai. He didn’t seem right, and I was very upset, going up on a hill, praying to Krishna and crying. Satsvarupa told Prabhupada, and Prabhupada said, “Nothing is by force in Krishna consciousness. She can get married at a later date.” So everybody got married except me. When everybody was married, the whole Boston temple suddenly changed, and I started feeling out of place. I prayed to Krishna to send me a husband. Prabhupada continued his travels, and one day about two months later, Purushottam, Prabhupada’s servant, called the Boston temple from Columbus, Ohio and said, “Srila Prabhupada wants to know if you want to come here and marry Pradyumna.” I said, “Okay,” and I went to Columbus. I had met Pradyumna once. When I got there, it turned out that Prabhupada’s Deities had been lost while he was traveling. They had been missing for some weeks, but on the day that I arrived in Columbus, the Deities came back too. Prabhupada said to me, “The Deities like the way you serve Them, so now that you are here, They have come back also.” So I got to bathe his Deities again. |
To view the entire unedited video go to Prabhupada Memories DVD 15 The 1996 NYC and LA Reunions
The full Prabhupada Memories Series can be viewed here and also at www.prabhupadamemories.com