Suddha Jiva das Remembers Srila Prabhupada
Following Srila Prabhupada
Interview DVD 09
Suddha Jiva: Trilocana and myself built this cart. We started about a year ahead of time because we knew Prabhupada was coming and we wanted to do something really special. We would go to these demolition places that would tear down big commercial buildings, and Trilocana would start going up to them and asking them to donate wood. And before you know it, we had these big huge long pieces of timber. Some of those beams were 12 inches thick. They were huge pieces of wood. So we started building the cart based on what wood we had and no idea how big it was going to end up. And before you knew it, it was over 50 feet long. Then we had to come up with some idea for wheels because we had such a big frame. So then we went to some electrical companies and we got these big spools that they would wrap wire around them, and the biggest ones they had were 8 feet in diameter. So each wheel was three of these put together. After we put them together, we rented this big industrial band saw, and they were so heavy. Trilocana and I were cutting these scallop edges around the wheels to give it this design. Then after we made the scallop edges, we would get these oak two-by-fours and we made spokes. And we had one devotee, Jim Newsham, he was a welder and he welded the hub, and we put it all together. Anyway, Prabhupada really liked these wheels. At one point after the parade, he stood there watching the wheels for about 15, 20 minutes and he asked Ravindra who built these wheels. So Ravindra told him and then he said, “These boys are descendants from the architects of heaven.” He really loved those wheels. So then we built this big dome to go on top of it. Then we were trying to think of different ways to decorate it, and we had some artists. Kim Murray was one of them, and some other devotees came out and painted all these beautiful designs. Prataraji made this beautiful canopy, and they were painting all these swans around the cart. The whole temple was buzzing around like bees, thinking that Prabhupada is coming and we really wanted to make this cart special. Then when we finally had it all together, Lieutenant Fensel came by, who was giving authority for parades. And when he saw this chariot and he saw the size of it, he said, “You’re crazy.” He says, “There’s no way this is going to go down the streets of Philadelphia.” So we went over to him and we showed him, we said, “We have a permit. We gave the sizes when we applied for the permit.” He says, “I don’t care what that permit says. There’s no way you’re going to take this cart down these streets.” So Sri Locana and I tried to convince him, and then Ravindra came and he tried to convince him. Finally it was Rupanuga, he came and very authoritative-like somehow or another he convinced this Lieutenant Fensel that we could do it. So during the parade this Lieutenant Fensel kept following the parade, and there were different times when we had to fix things underneath the cart. By that time, he was so much into it. He actually came underneath the cart himself. He says, “Do you need any help?” and you could see his whole face was transformed. He went from this real miserable authoritative-like policeman and he became real jolly, and he did everything he could and he was really into the cart. We started without Prabhupada. He wasn’t there yet until we went around the corner, and then Prabhupada arrived. And when Prabhupada came, everything came to life.
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