25 Million Pilgrims at Mauni Amavasya Snana (Part 1)

[Guest guest]

Somehow in the ecstacy of reporting everthing, I've never mentioned one of the

most distinguishing features of our camp. We are right under the railway

bridge, so one day back before the Mela started we thought that wouldn't it be

great to stretch a banner underneath one 180' (50 m) span of the bridge with

huge letters saying "HARE KRISHNA". We were thinking it was illegal, but we

were meditating on ways to hang it there in the night in such a way it could no

be cut down.

 

Then Bhima Prabhu sent one devotee from Mayapur named Nishkalanka dasa who had

just finished painting signs for Mumbai Rathayatra. We floated the idea to him

and he liked it and went out to buy double the amount of cloth to be sewn

together to get double width of cloth. Even though Mr. Singhal our tent

contractor was extremely busy sewing up cloth for all the pandals he had

contracted, when he heard the idea, he gave us time to sew it with his crew.

 

Now the problem was where to hang it to paint it. But we realized that we had a

back boundary wall of tin sheets with wooden poles every 10' so we hung it up

there. He immediately set out line up 6' high and 5' wide letters. We joked

that he used our co-president Sarvabhauma as the model. He's quite huge and

people usually mistake him for some sort of Mahant. By this time I mentioned

one girl from Spain, Olga, who was our first bhaktin. It turned our that she

was a painter and so she rendered some very valuable devotional service helping

to fill in the letters for which she will definitely get Srila Prabhupada's

blessings.

 

One day we saw that the guy accross the street had put up a small banner on the

bridge and then we found out that you can get permission from the police. Of

course all the police were our friends as we were one of the first camps to

come up and they would come and talk with us and we had given the Station House

Officer a Bhagavad Gita As it Is. He immediately sanctioned it and the railway

workers themselves mounted it as no one is allowed on the bridge for fear of

terrorist going up there and planting bombs or mowing down pilgrims with sniper

fire.

 

Just before the first Snan, suddenly this deep maroon banner with bright yellow

day glow letters "HARE KRISHNA" was swaying beneath the railway bridge. You

could see it for miles hanging directly over our camp. It was really ecstatic.

If you went to the Sangam to take a bath, when you walked back up the bank, you

could see it clearly through the car bridge. It became a land mark and the

whole thing cost around only $75!

 

THere was one anxious moment, two days after it went up when we saw the police

there looking like they were going to tear it down. The devotees informed me

and I ran out and turned on the mike to the Padayatra cart and began making a

huge scene that attracted many onlookers. I was shouting that this whole Mela

is for the sake of Dharma, and this sign is not anybody's advertisement, but

simply the holy name of God. We have permission and you'd better not touch it

or we'll rip off our dhotis and become Naga Babas and come up and make a scene.

Finally one shouted down that the end of the sign was covering the top of the

pillar and some terrorist could hide there. Somehow they decided not to

challenge us and left it up. The railway workers even straightened it out and

hung it better when the wind kept twisting it around.

 

On the 22nd, people started streaming into the Mela like anything. It was the

most amazing sight, villagers walking with all their belonings on top of there

heads, seeking a place to stay. Our camp was stretched to the max. Devotees

were staying everywhere. Tents meant for 12 were holding 15, dormitorys meant

for 32 were holding more than 40! Of course that made it nice and warm at

night. No devotee who came was refused. Although I felt helpless to satify the

Vaisnavas properly, no one hardly complained and everyone was thanking us for

the nice organization and the welcoming mood of our camp. Meanwhile the

'revival camp' was sorely in need of revival as it was neither finished and

only 5 devotees were there. Only dioramas that did not talk to anyone, while in

the real ISKCON camp, everywhere you looked, you saw real devotees preaching to

their hearts content. The mood was just like the old days.

 

A bus of fifty devotees from Mayapur arrived headed by Akhilatma Priya and

Bhadra Charu Prabhus. Akhilatma Priya from Calcutta probably booked more tents

than anyone and rendered very valuable service to the Mela. All of us are

staying here freely by the mercy of our donors. The next two days with all the

Mayapur devotees Harer Nama was really enlivening. Pilgrims were shocked to see

an American born Brijbasi speaking in perfect (almost!) Hindi at every

intersection the the procession stopped. Now many gurukulis have joined us like

Bengali Ajamila's son Hari Bhakti, Bhadra Prabhu's Vishvambhar, and my

daughter's best friend, Che. They really lead enlivening kirtans.

 

We went by Adri's camp which is finally open. Beautiful 70' Gaura Nitai Deities

are towering over a 20' walking Srila Prabhupada who is so ugly he looks like a

dinosaur from Jurassic Park. He's charging everyone Rs.10 to enter his camp.

Our kitchen workers were totally fried, they went to see the camp and found

you have to pay to get in so they just looked from the outside. We had an

ecstatic kirtan led by Vishvambhar in front of their camp. Now there must be 10

million people in the area, so there is even some crowd way down at this end.

 

Radha Jivan das from Alachua, who is the single largest donor to our Kumbha

Mela effort arrived. He was extremely pleased to see how nicely the Food for

Life distribution going on very smoothly like clockwork. Somehow the

barricading we set up in front of the Prasad Pandal to direct pilgrims into a

snaking line into the pandal began to collapse, but we got it repaired. Our

prasadam is very popular with the pilgrims.

 

We had a separate 3 lines for sadhus partitioned off, and the day Radha Jivan

arrived, I saw him with Rupa Raghunatha standing in the devotee Prasad Hall

looking over the partition at the Food for Life hot kitchari and

burn-your-finger-hot halevah distribution in the evening. I complained to him

that all the sadhus are banging on my head for dakshina. This is the real

system, that you feed them and give them dakshina. Radha Jivan immediately

exclaimed that just see, we are from this land, but he knows our culture better

than us. He told Rupa he would immediately arrange Rs.5000 of 5 rupee coins to

give to the sadhus.

 

When I announced it in the morning after Mangal Artik, my Godbrother Dharmatma

prabhu who is visiting with his two sons, Devala and Dhrita, immediately gave

Rs.10,000 more for sadhu dakshina. He and his sons were always seen serving

prasadam morning and evening to the pilgrims. The next day Radha Jivan was

personally giving out shiny brand new 5 rupee coins that our bank went out its

way to supply us (unusual service especially for India). We had to have coolie

carry them in as now no cars are allowed to move. The sadhus were very happy

and seemed fascinated with the bright shiny coins.