While I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one of the temple leaders there Jagat Guru Prabhu invited me to join him at a university program. At the school there was a festival in honor of Goddess Sarasvati. "We have a book table there," he explained, "and book distribution should be good." I took him up on his invitation and went to check out the Sarasvati festival, hoping that by Krsna's mercy I could distribute some books. When I arrived I was amazed there were thousands of people there! This is a predominantly Muslim country, but at the main university in Dhaka they were having a huge festival honoring the Hindu goddess Sarasvati! So I got some books and approached some students.
My first encounter was with two Muslim students who had come to check out the festival. I showed them "A Second Chance" and explained the story of Ajamila to them: "Ajamila was God conscious early in his life, but he became attracted to a prostitute, gave up his spiritual life, and become very sinful. At the time of death, though, when the representatives of the superintendent of death came to take him away, he chanted the name of God, once. Then, just because he'd chanted the name of God, God's representatives instantly came there and saved Ajamila from being dragged to hell." The two students were completely into hearing about Ajamila, but I said, "I'm not going to tell you the rest of the story; I'll leave it as a cliff-hanger. We ask just a small donation for the book." They enthusiastically took the book and gave a donation. A few more books went out to Muslims.
As I was explaining a book to one of them he said, "But there are no pictures." I was surprised for two reasons: one was because this was the first time he'd come across Prabhupada's books, so why should expect illustrations, since most books don't have illustrations in them; and the second was because all of Prabhupada's books have illustrations, so why should this one be devoid of them? Prabhupada knew what he was doing when he insisted there be illustrations in his books. Fortunately, by Krsna's mercy I was able to convince the Muslim gentleman to take the book anyway.
When I went back to the book table and mentioned the encounter to the devotees, Jagat Guru said, "There are illustrations in that book." He picked one up form the table and showed me where they were. They weren't as easy to find as in most other books. My Muslim friend would be happy when he found the illustrations in his book.
I remember Prabhupada saying how pleased he was when Muslims would take his books. Eighty percent of the population of Bangladesh is Muslim, but we have thirty-five temples and thousands of devotees there, where many of the associates of Lord Caitanya took birth and where the Lord Himself came and displayed His transcendental pastimes. I also just left Malaysia, another Muslim country, and there we have thirty-six Ratha-yatras annually.
So our movement is still a movement in many parts of the world, moving right along for the benefit of the conditioned souls.
Your servant,
Vijaya das
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