Book Distribution Nectar from Chowpatty
NECTAR – 1
Bhakta Prabhajan, part of H.H. Lokanath Maharaj’s Padayatra, told this once-in-a-lifetime experience:
We were already attracting attention by our dress, bulls, and cart, and suddenly our Padayatra party, thanks to a crazy man, was a sensation in a small town near Allahabad.
Padayatra takes six years to complete one round trip of the country, and so we couldn’t recall having met this man years ago. Others in the town, however, informed us that he’d bought a Bhagavad-gita during our last visit and then, after he began reading it, declared that he would observe Mauna-vrata, a vow of silence, till we returned. Now the townspeople were anticipating his breaking a six-year silence. We were also told that during this period, he followed all the regulative principles and kept his association with his new wife to a minimum.
A Pandal was erected and attracted the whole town. We made the best use of being center-stage by distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books by the hundreds. The man entered, with the whole crowd cheering him and showering flowers on him. He then delivered a fiery speech, speaking for four hours, and nothing but Krishna consciousness as presented by Srila Prabhupada. If the audience was spellbound, so were we by his conviction and confidence. His mother made a dramatic entry and declared her guru to be God. This man, outraged by her audacity, roared back that her so-called guru was a bogus Mayavadi. Then he smashed that philosophy to pieces, repeatedly quoting from Bhagavad-gita.
A huge feast was sponsored by the town, and later we left wondering what new surprises awaited us.
NECTAR – 2
Vraja bihari dasa recently met a couple and learned a lesson:
The lesson I learned is that external appearance is often deceptive. I assumed a woman was one man’s wife. A Vedic lady, covering the head and face with a saree, she gave off a motherly reverence. Her husband, in contrast, was well built with a long moustache and red tilak: a bully, it seemed. His imposing presence discouraged me from showing his “wife” a book. We had learned this technique in the book distribution seminar: When you see a married couple, give the book to the lady and preach to her hubby. Very often, the book gets sold. However, here as the man dismissed me, I wondered if his pious wife would lift her veil and take a copy. Or, perhaps, she wouldn’t dare. He continued talking aloud, attracting other passengers as he corrected a “misdirected kid” selling books. I humbly nodded to all his chastisement but kept begging him to nevertheless take a copy and read.
A little while later, satisfied at his own lecturing, he looked up to me pitifully. Handing out a fifty rupee note, he took a copy of SSR and placed it in his wife’s bag. The moment I accepted the money, there was an uproar. The same lady who was quiet and unassuming till now was yelling. Abandoning her shy demeanour she demanded harshly, “Why the hell do you pile up so many books when you never read any of them? They cost so much money . . . blah, blah, blah. While she was furious, he was shivering like a tamed pet. I called out to Ganesh Prabhu and both of us fled the compartment before she turned her rage against us!
