Prison Preaching Expands to Gwalior

[Guest guest]

> Two Janmastami's ago, I was there and over 20,000 people attended the

> function. Srila Prabhupad would be very pleased to see this. Then next

> day, I met Dr. Suresh Chand Shastri with whom Prabhupada used to stay on

> his visits to Jhansi. He'll be 80 in August but is still going strong and

> can talk endlessly about his association with Srila Prabhupada.

 

Was Dr. Shastri one of the medical students that used to hear

discourses from Srila Prabhupada in the mid-fifties? Apart from Haridas

(Prabhakar Misra) I have never heard of any of the others. I did ask Srila

Prabhupada one time about them but he didn't say much:

 

>From Transcendental Diary Vol 4:

 

October 3, 1976 -- Vrindavana

I had noticed that his old Bhagavatam was published by The League of

Devotees, and I had also heard that he started the League in Jhansi. So I

asked if that were so.

"Hmm," Prabhupada acknowledged. "At that time there were many students. They

were not my disciples, but they were coming. Like that Prabhakara?"

"Yes, Prabhakara Acarya."

"He was the head," he said.

I asked if he was teaching Vaisnavism, and Prabhupada said yes. "I wanted to

start from there. It was very nice, big house. But this K. Munshi's wife

tactfully wanted me to ... the Governor's wife. That was a very big house.

But he peacefully took it. I could have fought but I did not like." He

reiterated what he had told us in Hyderabad: how Mrs. Munshi had put

pressure on the building's manager by threatening not to renew a cinema

license he held, if he didn't give her the building. "The license has to be

renewed from the collector. Collector was insisting that 'You give that

house, Lilavati Munshi.' Indirectly. 'Otherwise, your license will not be

issued.'"

"They didn't leave you very much choice," I said.

"I thought, 'I could not do something tangible.' That's a fact. 'Somehow or

other,' I thought, 'let me go to Vrndavana. What is the use of fighting?'

Otherwise, all the big lawyers in Jhansi, they were my friends. They said

that 'You not go. We shall arrange.' I thought that 'I have left my home,

for this reason I am going to, again litigation. I don't want this house.

Let her do something.'"

I was still curious as to what The League of Devotees actually was. "Was

that some Godbrothers that you joined up with, or was that just ..."

"No, after leaving Jhansi I went to this Godbrother," he said, pointing to

the photo of Kesava Maharaja. "I lived there for few months. Then I went to

another Godbrother, that Imlitala, Delhi. Then I left there. I used to live

alone in Delhi. Then I took one house in Kesi-ghata. Then the Radha-Damodara

men they called me that 'You can live here. We give you two rooms. We don't

charge. We give you the place.' I came to Radha-Damodara. And from

Radha-Damodara temple I went U.S.A."

"I was just wondering what exactly the League of Devotees was."

Prabhupada started smiling. "Oh, League, that was ... I was trying to

collect some devotees. Some of them, they were medical students. So they

came and used to live with me. But still, I lived there for two years, from

1954 to '56. I had some surgical operation in my testicles there, they were

taking care. This Prabhakara and ... They were not full time, they were

students, that's all. They were living with me."

"But your Bhagavatams," I asked, "it says they were published by The League

of Devotees. Does that just mean yourself or there were others?"

Prabhupada started laughing. "League of Devotees was my organization.

Therefore I gave that name. That League of Devotees—I was alone doing."

"But actually it was just you. Oh. I was trying to understand who it could

be."

Prabhupada went on. "I am everything at that time. There were some students,

but they were not any active. I was doing everything. That League of

Devotees means I am everything. I wanted to organize with this Prabhakara

Misra and others, but they were not interested to devote whole time. They

were ... Just like Prabhakara comes still, but if you ask him to do full

time work, that he'll not do. Therefore I did not initiate others. He was

initiated, Haridasa. But they were all learned scholars, Sanskrit."

I asked if any of them apart from Prabhakara still came to see him.

"No, they are practicing as medical men. They were medical students. Now

they are practicing. Sometime they came, long time it is passed. That was in

1956 or '55. No, '54. So, twenty years past, more than twenty years."

 

 

Your humble servant,

Hari-sauri dasa