Why do you immediately jump to Krishna’s pastimes from the Tenth Canto?
Hari Sauri das: When we were in Bhuvaneshwar, in late January and early February of 1977, two or three moviemakers came. They told Srila Prabhupada that they were making a movie and that they wanted to popularize Krishna’s pastimes. They said,
“Hare Krishna is becoming popular, and we want everybody to know about Krishna. We want to show Krishna’s Vrindavan pastimes. Since you are the guru of the Hare Krishna movement, we would like to get your blessings for making this movie, and in the movie we’d also like to offer you our humble thanks for popularizing Krishna’s pastimes.”
Prabhupada immediately told them, “No.” Prabhupada said, “Why do you immediately jump to Krishna’s pastimes from the Tenth Canto? Nobody will understand. They will take it as mythology when Krishna kills the Trinavarta whirlwind demon or whatever other pastimes.”
They said, “But, Swamiji, everybody in India is a Krishna bhakta.” As it happens, the evening before, Prabhupada had had a conversation with an educated Indian man who asked, “Who is Krishna?”
Prabhupada had been shocked and chastised that man, saying, “You are born in India and you do not know who Krishna is?”
Prabhupada mentioned this conversation in his evening lecture also by saying, “Here we are in Bharatabhumi, but now people are so degraded that they’re asking, ‘Who is Krishna?’”
So when these filmmakers said, “Oh but, Swamiji, in India everybody’s a Krishna bhakta,” Prabhupada said, “You say that they’re Krishna bhaktas, but last night a guest asked me, 'Who is Krishna?’”
Then Prabhupada said, “Why don’t you first make a movie of the First Canto and then go progressively through the Bhagavatam and do the Tenth Canto at the end?”
But, of course, they wanted the Tenth Canto, Krishna with the gopis, and they were simply trying to capitalize on Prabhupada’s popularity by advertising, “Oh, this movie is approved by Bhaktivedanta Swami.”
But they could not get an endorsement from Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada would not budge an inch even after they brought up various arguments for about a half an hour. Prabhupada said, “If you make one movie of the First Canto, then we’ll see.”
—Hari Sauri
Source: http://m.dandavats.com/?p=19816
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