New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

by Mother Rupa dd

For many many months after Srila Prabhupada left the planet it was customary for devotees to drive up to Srila Prabhupada’s mangala arotik and then drive back down to Bahulaban for the morning program with Radha Vrindavan Chandra.

During those days I often used broken down vehicles to sleep in over night. Sometimes I would be able to get into the van used as a shuttle bus between farms. One morning the key was even in the ignition, so I drove up to the Palace that morning.

I hadn’t counted on a bunch of the brahmacaries coming over from Vrindavan Farm for Prabhupada’s arotik as well. There were too many of them to all fit into Kirtanananda’s car, so when they came out of Prabhupada’s Palace and saw the shuttle bus sitting in the lot, naturally they all started piling in to head for RVC’s program–with mrupa at the wheel.

Back then there were some super uptight brahmacaries around and being the only full time woman in the directly construction related jobs, I had learned long ago to keep as wooden, bland, invisible, and PATIENT a profile as humanly possible around groups of males. So, I was pretty nervous when about 10 guys jumped into the bus I had planned to drive back to its parking space as inconspicuously as possible.

Just to be on the safe side, and so no one would try walking all the way to Bahulaban in the cold because there was a woman there, I hunkered way over, through a fold into the pleats of my sari hoping it would look more dhoti-like, and proceeded to drive like a maniac – as much like ‘Bhu would drive as I could.

At that time Tapamurti was acting as a sort of indigenous traffic cop, cause there were some truly hari-raising road trips going on along our road.

About level with the one-room schoolhouse he pulled me over for driving so fast, and exhibited a remarkable amount of self control to keep from laughing over finding mrupa ferrying a vanful of brahmacaris like a bat outta hell.

In hindsight lots of things seem a LOT funnier than were at the time of the initial anxiety attack.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.