Kuladri das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Kuladri: After evening darshan in Vrindavan, Srila Prabhupada would nod to me. As his servant, I would get the jar of sweetball prasadam on his desk and distribute them. So one evening, after he had spoken with many Brijbasis, he nodded to me. I opened the jar, and saw ants all over the sweetballs. I said, “Srila Prabhupada, ants are eating the sweetballs,” thinking I couldn’t distribute them. Srila Prabhupada looked at me and said, “It is okay, they do not eat very much.”

I was serving Srila Prabhupada in Vrindavan when he was ill. One evening I was sitting on Srila Prabhupada’s bed inside his mosquito net and massaging him with Vicks Vapo Rub, which Prabhupada liked, when somehow or other a mosquito got inside the net. Now, since the living entities in Vrindavan are not ordinary, we have to be very careful—we’re not even supposed to step on an ant. I grabbed for the mosquito, but Prabhupada said, “No.” I went back to massaging and when the mosquito landed on Srila Prabhupada, I flicked it away. Then Srila Prabhupada said, “Now catch it—it is attacking.”

I talked about how light and gentle Srila Prabhupada’s body was, but once I was massaging Srila Prabhupada when his body seemed heavier than the heaviest. Prabhupada said, “Harder,” and I started massaging harder. Prabhupada said, “Harder.” I massaged harder. Prabhupada turned around, looked at me, and said, “Do you know what ‘hard’ means?”

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 36 - Bhutatma, Tosan Krsna, Kuladri, Chitralekha dd, Rangavati dd, Atma Tava

The full Prabhupada Memories Series can be viewed here and also at www.prabhupadamemories.com

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 10

Kuladri: I was the temple president at New Vrindavan for so many years, and Prabhupada had a vision for a pilgrimage site in North America and a farm community. So he never emphasized book distribution to us. He explained to me that, especially at the end when I was with him in Bombay and in Vrindavan just before he left, that the second half of his movement would be dramatically different than the first half. The emergency tactics that he used to distribute books and give young people sannyasa and open as many temples as possible, he wanted places like New Vrindavan to establish the culture of Krishna consciousness with colleges, grihastha lifestyle, all of the things to demonstrate the philosophy that he was so careful to present in his books. So he right up to the end was telling me that the farm communities were so important for the second half, and the vision would be so different than when his movement got started in the Western world.