New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

By Madhava Smullen

On Monday June 29th, New Vrindaban children waited excitedly while an inaugural puja was offered to open their brand new fully-equipped playground next to the Palace Lodge, before running into it to play with blissful abandon.

The playground is an endeavor by ISKCON New Vrindaban to serve and accommodate both the children who live in the village and the thousands who visit for festivals throughout the year with their families.

Ananga Manjari Dasi, mother to five-year old Chintamani and a member of the ISKCON New Vrindaban Board since early this year, brought the suggestion to the board when she saw the dilapidated condition of the old playground.

“It had been there for over twenty years, since the early 1990s,” she says. “It was a wooden play set, and carpenter bees had bored into the wood until it looked like Swiss cheese. The metal parts were all rusty. It was rickety and falling apart. And it didn’t have proper drainage, so there would often be standing water and it would get muddy. As a parent, I was concerned for my kids’ safety.”

While participating in the Farmers’ Market in Wheeling, Ananga Manjari would regularly see the stellar children’s facilities at other local churches. And with ISKCON New Vrindaban repairing a lot of its long-neglected infrastructure, she wanted to do something for the children too.

“As a new board member, I want to bring something to the table that shows that we put our kids first,” she says.

The ISKCON New Vrindaban Board agreed unanimously to fund the project. So Ananga Manjari partnered with Malati Dasi, whose previous research on play sets led them to a Mennonite family-run business in the Pennsylvanian countryside.

“My daughter Chintamani played with everything, and we asked her what she liked,” says Ananga. “We also customized our purchase according to our community’s needs. For example, they had play sets with closed-in playhouses and tube slides. But we didn’t get them because we wanted to make sure that parents never lost sight of their kids on the playground. We wanted everything to be visible and open.”

Back at New Vrindaban, facilities manager Gopisa Das oversaw the installation of new French drains at the playground site to eliminate the previous problems with mud and standing water. Over these, gravel was laid, and then several inches of shredded recyclable rubber mulch, which is shock absorbent and doesn’t rot.

Meanwhile the playground itself was installed by the Mennonite family who handmade it. “It felt really good to support not only local business, but also God-loving, gentle people from another religious community,” says Ananga.

The new playground includes a rock climbing wall with a rope, two standard swings, two baby swings, a tire swing, trapeze bars, a slide, and a bridge that connects two towers. It also includes items donated by Malati – a seesaw, and three benches so that parents can sit comfortably right in the playground to watch their children.

“We’re trying to cultivate a culture of parents and caregivers staying with their children at all times,” says Ananga Manjari.

All pieces of the play set are made of wood that is vinyl-coated to keep out carpenter bees and eliminate the possibility of splinters. Safety is also ensured by the railings throughout and the eighteen-inch faux rock wall surrounding the playground. Looking down over the whole scene is a picture of Lord Nrsimhadeva, who fiercely protected His five-year-old devotee Prahlad, and lovingly watches over all His devotees.

Ananga Manjari smiles, remembering how, during her most recent visit to the temple, she saw kids of all ages having a great time on the new playground.

“I see this as an investment in our families,” she says. “And I see it as just the beginning of making New Vrindaban so family-friendly that families will want to come here and stay – not just for one or two years, but for good, because it’s such a great place to raise children.”