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Mayapur Chandra and his wife Campakalata were born and raised as devotees of Krishna, though they spent most of their lives in America. Both children of Srila Prabhupada disciples, they maintained their faith in devotion to Radha and Krishna, and in 2005 fulfilled their heart’s desire to come and live with their family in the holy dham. They made their home in Anyor, the site of Krishna’s original Govardhan Puja and Annakut festival.

Desiring to combine their residence in the holy land with some service to the devotees, they began by taking visiting pilgrims on parikrama and showing them the significant sites around Govardhan, as well as hosting their guru, Bir Krishna Das Goswami on his frequent visits and feeding the many abandoned cows in the street.

In April of last year, during the month of Purushottam, while doing their daily Govardhan parikrama, the couple stopped at Radha Kund to rest and chant japa. At that moment, says Mayapur Chandra, “We felt a great pain on seeing how so many people, even though they come to Govardhan and Radha Kund to become purified, then go and dump trash everywhere. The crowds of devotees that come from all over India to do parikrama are amazing and wonderful, but the amount of physical trash that they leave behind is also amazing. It seemed like no one cared. This broke our hearts every time we walked outside.”

At that point, as the two were wondering how they could do something to make a difference, he says, “I prayed to Srimati Radharani to be an instrument in helping to keep her special place and Govardhan clean.”

“And then,” says Campakalata, “the idea came to us that we could find sponsors to help pay for cleaning different spots, something like America’s ‘Adopt a Highway’ program.”

It was at that moment that Mayapur Chandra made contact with one of the local babajis who was working with the people from his ashram to clean the platform surrounding Radha Kund. They began looking for sponsors and through him engaged widows who were willing to work rather than beg on the streets, and others to do the cleaning work.

They not only clear away the piles of litter and refuse that accumulate on the parikrama path around the sacred kunds, but also remove the scum from the many flower and ghee lamp offerings that gathers in corners and along edges of Radha Kund, Shyam Kund and Lalita Kunda.

Now, after a year, with a reliable manager named Abhay Charan who commutes daily from Vrindavan, the couple, whose project is named Padma, are pleased to see that they are making progress with more and more sponsors coming forward to help with the cleaning of various areas in Radha Kund. Using some innovative ideas for cleaning the scum from the water surface using home made leaf rakes, they are leaving Lalita Kunda, Manasa Pavana Ghat, Jihva Mandir and the surrounding alleyways spotlessly clean every day.

Encouraged by their progress, the couple has now set its sights on the entire Parikrama Marg around Govardhan. “Our desire is that someday we can have a huge cleaning force for all of Govardhan. But for now we will be happy if at least some areas around Govardhan and Radha Kund are kept as clean as possible, considering the constant inflow of trash.”