Radhanath Swami’s room in the Radhagopinath Ashram, on that day, felt like the hollow of a scanning machine. What was scanned?—my mind, which had been for a while bristling with innumerable misconceptions—some related to philosophy and others to temple management. Who was the doctor?—Radhanath Swami, Read more …
Months of contemplation shyly hides behind this once-in-a-lifetime experience that I am going to narrate. The photograph that plays the lead-role in this narrative is the sole witness that caught me everyday in those thoughtful moments, sometimes minutes and sometimes hours.
A blessed photographer had captured this image—the smiling faces of the deities of Radha and Gopinath ( Krishna, the enchanter of the cowherd girls of Vrindavan ) —and had gifted me a copy. Gopinath’s moon like face tilted beneath a sky-blue turban and Radha compassionately smiled in her dark blue sari. Even one with an iota of devotion would be endeared by this photo; what to speak of Radhanath Swami for whom, I had heard, these deities were ‘life and soul.’ Therefore an idea of gifting it to Radhanath Swami had sprouted in my mind Read more …
Reality belittled wildest imaginations on this impromptu ‘Grand Prix’ from the North Indian city of Kanpur to the Lucknow Airport. Our car raced at 130 Km/Hr! Still, Radhanath Swami yelled from the rear seat, “Faster, faster.” Radhe Shyam Prabhu—an illiterate in traffic rules—appointed himself the traffic-navigator, and shouted directions from the rear, while I, like a coach impatient for victory, sat next to our ‘race driver’ Vikas and kept nagging him, “How much longer will it take to reach?” And like a gramophone record stuck in its track, the jittery Vikas kept repeating a mantra ‘hour after hour’– “We will be at the airport in ten minutes only.”
8 January 2011, 5:30 p.m., Kanpur. As the car keys turned on the ignition, Vikas turned to Radhanath Swami, Read more …