Promised Video of ride to Loi Bazaar

Loi Bazaar, at long last!
I can't believe it! I think it actually loaded up. Someone please let me know if you could view this video.
Fingers crossed... 

Monkeys

I am watching a bunch of monkeys jumping and playing on the so called 'monkey-proof wiring' which they have ripped to shreds. It stretches across the small garden in back to keep them out because they tear up the garden, urinate, drop feces and bring garbage in. Due to so much jumping on it like a trampoline they have totally broken through in numerous places and use the broken bits of chicken wire that hang down like a jungle-gym hanging and swinging acrobatically into the garden. When they bounce on this billows of dust are sent into the air, into my room, onto the laptop and down my lungs. I have had a lung infection now for 2 weeks that I think came from the dust that can carry fungus from a variety of sources from bats to birds to monkeys. There are electrical wires that are precariously connected to the grid that they regularly swing from on their way to, from or over the garden, sometimes even stopping to chew on it. 

Family of monkeys at the very ancient Govindaji temple  established by Srila Rupa Goswami personally and later desecrated by the Mohammedans.

 

This is a picture from a previous year. This building is now just about complete and is already occupied by the owners

 They do this several times a day as I watch them through the window where my laptop is situated under. There are several panes in these windows with the outermost pane being glass, then innermost a screen window and metal grille sandwiched between. The grille is there to keep the monkeys out otherwise they will not hesitate to enter and steal anything and in fact if both fly-screen and glass are open the will reach in through the grilles and take something or even send a small enough baby in who will bring things out to the older ones. Once, in the temple kitchen here before they had screen windows, only the grilles, a small, young monkey slipped in and was scurrying over to a pile of hot chapatis and taking a few at a time was running back to the window grille and handing them out to the older monkeys who were lining up to get their chapati!

Sometimes they will sit in the window just 2 feet from my face and try to chew on their reflection in the glass, their teeth making that 'fingernails on chalkboard’ sound, sometimes swinging on the window pane and sometimes putting their faces through the grill and against the screens trying to see in. The braver one will see me sitting here and just watch me while the more shy ones will startle and quickly swing away. Every time I watch them I think of the grandkids and you, Chela - and your stupid request to bring one home for you! If you think Alakai is like a monkey (same ears), wait till you see the real thing. They scratch, bite and piss in the windowsill! …. Oh wait… so does Alakai! 

Shoba Yatra, Rama Navami and the Inauguration of the Opening of the Krsna-Balarama Mandhir in Vrindavan

Shoba Yatra

Shoba yatra occurs the day before Ram Navami all the small Deities were taken out on Their palanquins along with Srila Prabhupada.

They left the temple at 4.30 pm and went from department to department, stopping first at the Samadhi where Srila Prabhupada's murti joined the procession. This was an opportunity for the female disciples to make offerings of incense, flowers, ghee lamps and bhoga. Being a nonsense, I was late and missed out.

Then the procession went out onto Bhaktivedanta Marg to the Gurukula where there was a little program set up for Their Lordships’ pleasure. Offerings, bhajans, kirtan, recitations were all presented.

Then back into the temple through the main gate and over to Daivashakti’s library and the office next to that. Here, Daivashakti gave me her mercy and allowed me to offer the bhoga to all the Deities. From there the grand procession went to the Guesthouse, restaurant and bakery (meaning just outside the front door), onto Tulasi’s house and those offices and the new Balarama Hall where the Hindi classes are now held, to the back gate between MVT and the Mandhir and then into MVT to the little garden where there was a stage and Sundar arotik was performed. Then after a short talk, Their Lordships returned home for the evening.

 I was talking with....someone... that only in KC do the devotees understand and relate to God as a real live person. He and His entourage are taken out for Their pleasure, not just dry philosophy. It is these events that make God real for us and give us such real pleasure in response.

There are so many more wonderful pictures that I saved on my computer but I can't for the life of me find them. Here are the only pictures I can find from that day:



That's my head there in the lower left center.
We were waving our hands and cloth to
keep the 1000s of flies off the offering.
More than in Australia!!



Little Radhe-Syamasundhara on Their day out

Rama Navami is the Appearance day of Lord Ramachandra and is also the inauguration of the opening of the Krsna-Balarama Mandir and thus there were many wonderful events in celebration. That is why Daivashakti was giving class that day, recalling the lead-up to and the day itself along with Radha-Kunda, Brahmananda, Bhaktisiddhanta (who Daivashakti complained bitterly about saying he wasn’t even here but came afterwards and keeps telling the same story. She eventually started chanting her rounds again then left grumbling, lol) and others. Mokshalaxmi was explaining how she started up the mukut ‘business’ at Srila Prabhupada’s request, that the devotees make all the outfits for the deities here and for all the other temples to raise money for this temple. I kinda remember that from ‘the ole days’ as well. She said the sale of one outfit for one temple was enough to make an outfit for this temple. Just the other day Daivashakti again gave a talk for Bhagavad-Gita class about the history here (she always has such nectar and I even recorded the last two talks) wherein she was discussing how much service they/we all had to do. She quoted that SP wanted anyone living in Vrindavan to be living like the Goswamis meaning they had to do at least 8 hours of service every day. This one brahmacari asked how was it possible to do so much service now when they had to read for 2 hours every day to prevent falling down according to their spiritual masters. DS pointed out that if you allow 8 hours for sleeping and bodily needs, eating, 2 hours for reading, 4 –5 hours for chanting and the morning and evening programs plus the 8 hours service, what were they doing with their other 8 or so hours! She obviously had a different equation there I can’t remember exactly. Anyway, this led to quite a discussion and bewilderment for the brahmacaris who kept asking questions about this. DS pointed out that the devotees should be cleaning the temple, inside and outside, doing all the cooking, working in the restaurant, etc. etc. not paying outsiders to do all these things. The brahmacaris were stumped and even after class gathered together for about 30 minutes amongst themselves discussing this baffling point. DS was asked to give class the next day on this point which she did. She pointed out that SP wanted the devotees to be having their own businesses of making deities, deity dresses and mukuts, sewing and selling dhotis and saris, etc. instead of going into Loi Bazaar to buy these things and making all the shopkeepers rich off of us. Food for thought, huh....

The above is a slightly edited version of an email I sent to Ambika that I just pasted in here so that I didn't have to re-type everything. So it does have the feeling of speaking to someone specific, but the information is pretty much what I wanted to relay. Of course, I sure hope that Bhaktissidanta or Daivashakti don't come by this!

More pictures of the festivals:

Janardhan das who lead the kirtan and is originally from the Philippines

Going through MVT, devotee housing

There were more photos I wanted to upload but not working tonight. But on the bright side I think I managed to work out the trouble with the videos so I will upload those very soon...

A Day in the Life of those around me….

As we live in the village and not within the temple ‘walls’ I have the opportunity to watch the local Bengalis, my neighbours going about their day. As mentioned previously, we live on the third floor and I often watch a few of my neighbours. I feel like a bit of a ‘perv’ but I do hope one day I will be able to meet and communicate with them.

I can see into the back of one neighbour’s house where there is the water pump and thus a constant place of activity, creaking away with every downward pump on the handle. On the left side is an outhouse and on the other side is a 2.5 metre waterhole where all the run-off from the water pump goes. It is fairly stagnant and, no doubt, a source of many mosquitoes. But dogs and birds will come by to steal a drink when they can. Behind this is the back yard where all the garbage and food scraps are tossed. Dogs, cows and the occasional goat or even jackal will scavenge through this for a feed.

I have counted an elderly couple who I assume are husband and wife and I’m probably correct. There is a man about 30 years old who I’ve seen, but mostly I see 2 women, about mid-20 to 30 years. They are the most active at the pump.

In fact, there is a regular program around that pump. Around 3.30 every morning the old man comes out for his morning bath. I lie in bed and listen to the creaking of the pump handle as it echoes through the stillness of the early morning. He collects the water into his lotah, or brass bathing pot. He fills it over and over and as he pours the cold water over himself he shouts out, “Nitai Gauranga! Nitai Gauranga!” in his elderly yet strong voice, calling out the names of those transcendental brothers, over and over again until he is finished. No one ever bathes naked in India and he carefully cleans himself with his kumcha, or short ‘sarong’ in place. Then he goes inside and begins his morning puja or worship. Sometimes he plays his harmonium and sings his scales and then chants lovely bhajans. But more often he plays his karatals, brass cymbals, and chants Hare Krsna. I image they have family deities and every morning he worships them with prayers, kirtan (chanting) and puja (offerings). I think this because later his wife will come out with the arotik trays, the trays used for the puja, and wash these under the pump.

By 5.30 the younger ladies of the house come out. First one of them will go up on the roof and sweep it clean because this is where they will hang the laundry. Then they take turns. One will wash their laundry while the other reaches for their toothbrush (no they aren't sharing toothbrushes...) kept in a stainless steel cup that is nailed to the wall. Then one will disappear into the outhouse and the other will take their bath, fully dressed. Without changing she will take her laundry up onto the roof and hang it out while she herself dries off in the cool morning air as it is only just spring and so cool to cold before the sun rises enough to warm the temperature. Then the other one will do the same thing. Eventually the old lady will come out and bath. Sometimes she has some dishes to wash.

Around 2 or 3 pm, one of the ladies brings out 2 children, a boy and a girl, about 7 or 8 years old, which I assume are hers. Earlier I will have seen them come home from school and now the mother will give each one a bath while they try to play and laugh with each other.

Here is the family with their outdoor pump. This is one of the ladies giving her children a mid-day bath...

...while they laugh and tease each other.

A truck loaded with gravel for another building couldn't fit throught the gate here and so dumped his load on the road and blocking through traffic...not that there is much. But nobody complains, no problem. The workers will simply move the gravel from here into place...

They will shovel a load into a basket that you can see the man on the left walking away with on his head...

 ...he hands this to another man along the path and they carefully swap the load over...

He will continue with the load...

...and will swap this with yet another man until the load reaches its final destination.

When a truck load of building material arrives the back is first opened and as usual there will be some material that falls out the back. Then several men will get in the back on top of the load and force down a rod to the bottom of the load. A measurement is taken while other men will carefully watch the procedure. Then the calculations are done and a price agreed upon for the unloading of what is left in the truck. The customer will not pay for what has fallen out the back of the truck naturally but will only pay for what will actually be manually removed. Here you can see there are 2 men on shovels with ropes attached and 2 men outside the truck holding onto those ropes. They will pull on the ropes as the other men are shovelling the gravel out thus having 2 men per shovel.

On the other side of our apartment is yet another building going up. We watched them from our rooftop as they were pouring concrete for the topmost floor they were working on. Well, not pouring exactly! There was a steady queue of workers/wallas who were carrying the cement on their heads from the area where all the materials were dumped and being mixed by hand. I haven't seen a single wheelbarrow in all of India! I took a video of it and I will try to upload it here - but you know the lack of success I am having with up loading certain videos Let's see how we go.

Yes, I know. It's on its side. One day I will find a program that will help me turn these right side up. But till then you get the picture...if it will load up that is! Hope so, cus it is pretty damn fascinating! So quit your complaining!

Oh yes! It worked! Plus I worked out how to fix the previously promised videos so that I can post them. But that will be another day. Time for bed now.

Bhas gets down with the natives

Yes, yes. There have been several complaints that I haven’t updated the blog for some time. Several weeks, I think. But I have been busy and not too well so now I am doing something…so quit ya complaining!

 There have been several doubts how Bhas was going to cope with the locals here. Ok, I had my doubts. But my fears were groundless  as he gets on amazingly well with them and they even LIKE him! Who'd've thunk it? Although, when he accompanies me on business he takes on his 'Kebers' persona and becomes curt and rude while complaining about prices and how they aren't giving us enough of a discount, when on the street or anywhere else he gets quite chummy and they all laugh at his jokes and antics...once they get used to him. Many shopkeepers say they think he is very nice and peaceful and calm. Oooookay....whatevers.

It has been great to be with him traveling around as being a male he can more easily become involved in dialogues more readily than I can as a female. Woman aren't exactly segregated nor 'kept inside' but they are shier by nature, usually in groups around the home which I don't necessarily have ready access to and aren't involved in businesses very much especially in the villages. This is generally the man's domain and so males are usually more accessible. I do have conversations and freindships with the vendors I work with and regularly get invited to their homes for lunch where I will meet their wives, but usually they don't speak English and I suck at learning languages (though I am trying).

But Bhas will regularly and easily strike up a conversation with anyone. Sometimes there may be a group of men sitting around of an evening and if we loiter around long enough we are eventually invited over to join them. Invariably the conversation leads to cricket and as the world cup series has just concluded this is a hot topic indeed. Especially as India just won the cup there is much joy and delight throughout the nation. We were traveling from Delhi to Vrindavan on the day of the match and where ever we stopped people were huddled around a TV watching the game. Bhas would stop and watch and engage in discussions about the game - not that he is a big cricket fan, but he is reading papers and trying to catch-up. We knew that India had won when as we were lying down to go to bed that night and fireworks were going off. "India must have won the cricket" we deduced!

Another day while bathing down at the Ganges, Bhas made friends with many locals who were fascinated with him (I don't get it myself...). Somehow he attracted the attention of a group of young men who were visiting in Mayapura for the day. They stopped Bhas...

bailed him up...

 ... questions were being fired away and explanations given...

"These are JAPA BEADS. We chant on them everyday. We chant HARE KRSNA HARE KRSNA KRSNA KRSNA HARE HARE                      HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE...

"One mantra for each bead...

 These are counter beads. We go around all the beads 16 times and 

keep track of our rounds with these counter beads."

I don't know what he is saying here...

But now I've been spotted!

 Dad pretends to bowl...

Buddies...

 ...calling over other buddies.

They were very impressed with Bhas and they told me they thought he was a very good man.