New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Here’s the info we have:

Who (from let to right): Bhaktiniddhi (wearing light colored sari), Advaitacarya (wearing a dirty apron), Sudhanu (with his back to the camera).

What: Cooking a preparation for a large festival feast.

Advaita recalls:

“What I can tell you for sure is that it must have been a big feast because I am cooking on a burner outside the kitchen. For a time there were burners both inside and outside. So that would have meant that there was a lot of action going on in the kitchen. I will also point out the fact that if that were Kuladri Prabhu or Sudhanu Prabhu cooking their aprons would have been spotlessly white. As their protege in the pits [Brijabasi slang for New Vrindaban kitchens] it was a feat I always marveled at but could never achieve.”

He further elaborates:

“I can also tell you that I am cooking in a forty gallon pot. We only had one pot that size for a long time. For the opening of Prabhupada’s Palace [1979] we required additional larger pots and I was assigned the task of searching out some thirty and forty gallon pots on the Lower East Side of NYC. After walking up and down a few blocks I finally found the pots we needed. They were in a kitchen supply store in the first floor of the building on Bowery that Srila Prabhupada had briefly lived in. I believe the address was 94 Bowery but I am not sure.”

When: Circa 1983 to 1985. Radha Vrindaban Chandra’s Temple opened summer 1983. The brick road around the temple was installed sometime in 1985. The gravel visible on the ground between Advaita and the pot indicates the photo was taken sometime during this period.

Where: Outside Radha Vrindaban Chandra’s Temple kitchen, New Vrindaban, West Virginia.