Pranada devi dasi Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 10

Pranada: I had been anticipating his visit for some time and was very keen on getting some kind of exchange with Srila Prabhupada. Initially, as a book distributor, I was told that the ladies book distribution party was going to go on one of the morning walks. But as so many devotees wanted to go on the morning walk, it was more and more evident that that wasn’t going to happen. So I had heard that Srila Prabhupada liked it when the ladies oodled like they do in Bengal. So I decided that I could make an offering of oodling for Srila Prabhupada the moment that he came into the temple room for greeting of the Deities, and I was going to oodle for three long times all the way to Gaura-Nitai’s altar. So it so happened that, of course, when Srila Prabhupada came out, everyone hit the floor saying their obeisances and I was this single young lady in the balcony oodling at the top of my lungs by myself. By the time he got in front of Jagannatha’s altar, he tilted his head a little bit as he was listening to me oodling, questioning what I might be doing, and his brow furrowed a little bit. And by the time he got to the middle of Rukmini and Dwarakadisa’s altar, he just broke into this huge smile and he whisked his head up in the direction of the balcony and he offered me back this huge smile of acceptance, shook his hands in pranams a little bit with his cane, and then kind of nodded his head and proceeded over to Gaura-Nitai’s altar. So that was the perfection of my little service I was able to offer to Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada decided to see the new movie that Visakha and Yadubara prabhu made called “Spiritual Frontier” about New Vrindavan, and Kirtanananda Swami flew out to look at that movie with him. So one evening it was being shown in the temple room. Prabhupada sat on his vyasasana, and we proceeded to view this wonderful movie of the New Vrindavan community and what was happening there. Prabhupada liked it very much. About midway there was a close-up of a wok with a puri being cooked and it puffed up, and Prabhupada leaned over to Tamal Krishna Maharaja and said, “I would like one of those puris.” But then at the end of the movie he was glorifying Kirtanananda Swami and the work that he had been doing in New Vrindavan, and he was so pleased. He said, “I bless Kirtanananda Swami to go back to Godhead in this life,” and all the devotees broke out in this cheer. Then in his magnanimity and his big heart he said, “What Kirtanananda?” And he took his right hand and he placed it in the direction of Kirtanananda, which was the corner on the left, and then he started sweeping it across the heads of all the devotees in the temple room and he said, “I bless all of you to go back to Godhead.” Then as his hand was moving, I remember feeling like, “Oh, Srila Prabhupada, please make sure your hand comes all the way this way,” because it was all the way to the far right up in the balcony. And he did, it was a majestic movement blessing all these devotees back to Godhead, and we all just broke into this huge cheer, “Jaya Srila Prabhupada!” We were assured to definitely go back to Godhead by the mercy of the pure devotee.