Nick became Nirmala Kumar, and Edwin, the young boy from New Zealand who had shaved off his beard only the previous day, received the name Bhajanabhi dasa. Christine was given the new name Vaibhavi.
Vaibhavi: When Prabhupada told me my name, I couldn't hear it and he had to repeat it a number of times. I still couldn't figure it out. Prabhupada's Bengali accent was so thick, that it sounded to me like "Boy Bubby", but I knew that couldn't be right. Halfway through the ceremony, we discovered that there were no sacred threads for the brahmana initiations. In actual fact, we didn't even know what sacred threads were, not to speak of how to make them.
I left the crowded temple and ran down the street to buy some string, and, while Prabhupada was initiating people, I was sitting there in the arena making sacred threads, copying the one that Bali-mardana had taken off himself.
One after another, the five devotees chosen to receive their second initiation came and knelt before Prabhupada, who instructed them in the art of counting and chanting the mantra.
Upananda: I was afraid of making a mistake, and watched scrutinisingly as the other devotees went up to receive their Gayatri mantras. Finally I was called up. I was so nervous my hands were shaking, and after Prabhupada showed me once, I got it wrong. Again he showed me, and again I got it wrong; such an apparently simple thing had become so difficult -- my fingers were moving haphazardly, and my mind was totally confused. Finally Srila Prabhupada said loudly: 'No!' Immediately my mind was focused and I was able to receive the mantra attentively.
Vaibhavi: I was called up to sit next to Srila Prabhupada. He started showing me how to count with my fingers, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do because I had been making the brahmana threads and hadn't been watching the rest of the ceremony. So Prabhupada kindly took hold of my hand and pressed my fingers down in the counting position with his fingers. He showed me how to count and repeat the Gayatri mantra, and asked me to repeat it word for word.
The devotees later told me: 'You're a brahmana now. You have to have a sacred thread too.' They told me to make one for myself, which I didn't, because someone told me that women didn't wear sacred threads. We didn't know much.
After the initiations, Prabhupada married Dipak to Nartaki. Then Srila Prabhupada lit the sacrificial fire.
The day was warm and the room was already overheated from the crowds and hot lights. He poured ladles of ghee on to the fire, and as the flames leapt up, the room became hotter and hotter. Finally, Srila Prabhupada led the kirtana and then stood. As Dipak passed him the utensils, he gracefully performed the inaugural arati ceremony for Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha.
- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu
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