Vaibhavi devi dasi Remembers Srila Prabhupada
Following Srila Prabhupada
Interview DVD 03
Vaibhavi: Vaibhavi dasi: There was a whole bunch of devotees that had joined recently. Some had just joined that week, seven days ago, some just two days ago, but Prabhupada decided he was just going to initiate everybody. When Prabhupada arrived, Bali Mardan and Vegavan were carrying Radha-Krishna Deities. So Srila Prabhupada obviously wanted that there were some brahmanas. So we got initiation, five of us got first and second initiation simultaneously. Of course, I didn’t know what a brahmana was. I hadn’t a clue really what initiation meant, although I did understand about following certain principles and chanting rounds. But at some point someone announced, “OK, we’re going to have five brahmanas here, so you need brahmana threads,” and Bali Mardan took off a thread that he was wearing around him and said, “Make some of these.” So I got up from the fire arena where I was sitting by the fire, ran out, went up and down the street looking for string, something similar, I got as close as I could. Then I came back and sat by the fire again and was making these long string things with knots in them. Later on, somebody said, “OK, now you’re a brahmana so you have to wear a brahmana thread too, so make one for yourself.” I said, “What’s a brahmana?” and I was confused. And then someone else said, “Ladies don’t wear brahmana threads.” So that was going on, the initiation was going on, and the installation was also going on. We didn’t know the Deities were coming really, and when They came we didn’t know what to do. But in the year between the first visit and the second we made a lot of progress, and we’d built a beautiful altar there. And that’s when he said, “When I was here before, I prayed to the Lord that He would instruct you from within how to take care of Him, and He has done so.” So he was very pleased with the Deity worship by then. When he left the previous year, he was thinking we were very much mlecchas. |
Interview DVD 06
Vaibhavi: We were pushing to have them finished for the festival on the following day. So I was in there sewing and then somebody came running in shouting and screaming, “There’s a big fire!” It was right next door. It was some sort of sewing facility also, I think. There were a lot of people on the top story that were working there, ladies. And it turns out the whole building was on fire and they were trapped on the top floor. So everyone is trying to decide what to do. They were all screaming and shouting, “What can we do?” I think it was me that might have suggested, “Take this canopy.” So we took the canopy, which was made of ripstop nylon, very strong; and we took it out and the men, there was a large number of men there, devotees, and they held it a few feet off the ground taut as they could make it and told the women, “Jump,” and at first they didn’t want to. But when the flames started whipping out the window and the smoke was coming and they just couldn’t take the fire any longer, then one by one they started jumping and they all jumped successfully. As one jumped and landed, then they would tighten up the canopy again and another would jump. Then the last one to jump, who was the most fearful, she was a pregnant lady. And when she finally jumped, at that time the canopy gave way and split where the seam was. However, she was fine. She survived that jump, and the baby survived also. So I was glad to see everyone safe and sound, but I immediately started thinking, “Aha! How can we use this for publicity?” So I suggested someone go and call the press quickly, and we got the newspapers there and we explained what had happened so that in the following morning’s newspaper the headline news was “Hare Krishna heroes save ladies from fire” or something like that. They showed it to Prabhupada, and he was extremely pleased. And it was very good advertising for the Rathayatra because we were on the front page the very day of the Rathayatra Festival, so we had a huge crowd that year.
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