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Then, looking around the room, Prabhupada engaged in friendly little exchanges with his disciples. Seeing Lilavati sitting in a corner with her baby daughter, Subhadra, Prabhupada said, "Your daughter looks just like Subhadra." Lilavati sighed gratefully to hear it. "Govinda dasi," Prabhupada said, "I am always thinking of your paintings."

Prabhupada asked whether all the devotees were chanting their prescribed sixteen rounds daily. Almost everyone replied, "Yes, Swamiji." One new devotee, however, an English girl whose face turned bright red, began to stammer in a faltering voice. "I chant...," she said, "I chant..." and then suddenly blurting out like a little girl about to cry, "Sometimes I chant more than sixteen rounds a day!" Her voice cracked, and she seemed on the brink of tears, but the devotees and Prabhupada could not help from laughing. In Prabhupada's presence it all seemed jovial. Uddhava dasa came into the room and announced, "We have some prasadam for you, Swamiji. Would you like to take now?"

"What?" asked Prabhupada. "A little rice?" The devotees began to laugh, thinking of the elaborate feast they had prepared for Prabhupada.

Prabhupada had one more thing to show them in his bag. It was a coconut grater commonly used in Bengali households. Prabhupada gave it to Yamuna, who began to grate a coconut while the devotees watched. Surrounded by his devotees, Prabhupada then went to the kitchen and prepared coconut laddus made from the white coconut pulp, butter, sugar, black pepper, cardamom, and camphor flavor. He rolled them into balls, ate one himself, and distributed a few.

Prabhupada returned to his room, where he sat down again and was silent. Sensing that he should be left alone, the devotees excused themselves from his presence. Everyone was satisfied. Prabhupada was back, and they would have him for a while.

Jivananda: After everybody left, I stayed behind to talk to him, and seeing me just kind of sitting there, he put me to work and made me clean up his room. I began to pick up the paper and stuff and throw away all the boxes. So afterwards Prabhupada said, "So you have some question?" And I said, "Yes, Swamiji. I would like to get married to Harsarani. "He said, "Oh. Who are you?" I said, "I am Jivananda." He said, "Oh, you have been initiated?" I said, "Yes." He said, "By me?" and I said, "Yes." He said, "That's very nice. What do you do?" I said, "Well, when I was in Santa Fe, I used to milk the cows." He said, "That is very nice." We talked some more, and then I said, "Swamiji, can I get married?" He said, "I will think about it. You can ask me again later."

Cidananda: That evening I went to his room to see him, as I felt he might be lonely. I went into his room to try to keep him company, but as soon as I got there he started talking about Krsna. There were some Brijabasi posters of Krsna on the wall, and he would point to them and explain a little, saying, "Here is Krsna and Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra." He talked, and I didn't have a chance to say anything, but he just talked about the posters on the wall. I got the feeling that we had known each other from some other time, although this was the first time I was seeing him. Yet he seemed like an old friend. He was certainly magnanimous and cordial as he sat there and talked about Krsna. I felt that if he was an old friend, then maybe I would know this to be a fact some day. But my attention span was not very long, and I really didn't know very much about the life of Krsna, so I left after a short period of time.



- From "Prabhupada-lila" by HH Satsvarupa dasa Goswami