Interview with Navadvipa Prabhu Part 2

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Created on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 17:40
What particular services did you perform, was it cooking, dressing, everything on the schedule?

I was always more on the dressing side, started of with dressing Gaura and Nitai. Then I think I went to Girigovardhan. Lord Jagannatha was not here at that time. Took a long time before I got to dress Radha and Krsna. But again as circumstances would have it, something happened and there was absolutely no one. I used to dress in the night but there was absolutely no one to dress in the morning. They searched everywhere, called high and low, but there was no one. So I got thrown in at the deep end. I was never shown how to dress in the mornings. I was told  “You are doing it” So I went to the head pujari and said  “I'm doing it?' She said “ yes Navadvipa don't be so mental your doing it and that's it”.

Murli Manohara dasa: And head pujari at that time was mother Vilasini?

 Yes, so I thought 'ok' so the next morning as I used to dress in the evening I was just put everything back on in reverse, best as I could, and when the curtains opened I looked at the face of the devotees and there was one devotee, she was a backup Pujari, but she was very keen in regards to service to the deities. She looked at me and she nodded her head and I thought 'yes I have done good'

 Murli Manohara dasa: Since leaving the temple and moving out side you have always managed to maintain some level of direct service, for instance for many years now you have been serving Lord Jagannatha during his time of convalescence during the 2 weeks before Rathayatra, and before that you were regularly coming in to cook their lordships Mangala Arati sweets.

Could you say something about this or what is your particular inspiration?

When I got married, as a married couple we could not live in the temple, so it was more or less a practical necessity that we move out. I remember saying to the deities when I doing my last service including Lord Jagannatha who was there by this time. I said to them all ' I will be back' but I was thinking 'how will I be back?' and then the idea came that I should actually continue with a link to the temple by coming in and doing the mangala arati sweets once a week, and I continued to do that. As a result as certain devotees left the
temple and new devotees came it still kept me prominent in the minds of the devotees. As a result the service that I was quite fortunate to do while I was living in the temple, led to the next service in a natural way, because before I moved out I had taken part in Lord Jagannatha's Rathayatra.

This point in the time the head pujari said that he and his wife are not going, they are going to cook all the offerings and do all the aratis, and me as the only male devotee of Soho St I should go the represent the temple. So I did and I kept on thinking while I was on the cart helping to set things up that 'I will be told to come off and get down' So a huge thrill went through me when the cart began to move and I was actually on it, I thought 'Ok you have done it' But I still thought that at any moment you will be asked to come down or asked what are you doing up there, because it did not seem to me that the head pujari had asked anyone. He just insisted that I should be their as representative of Soho St, because the deities were established here he thought their should be someone from this temple representing the deities and the next year he said 'My friend you are doing the same thing again this year because I had very good reports last year that you were vigilant, you made sure are everything. And it just continued from that point.

Part 3 coming soon.

Your Servant
Murli Manohara Das