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Transcriptions of the Smriti (Daughter of Mrs. Warrior) Sridhar Swami: The next person I'd like to call is…well, if Jagannatha Chand is here, that would be nice, he can come up with his good wife, Smriti. I know Smriti is here, is Jagannatha here? Anyway, Smriti, you come up. You can bring your eight children with you if you like. Where are your kids? All over the place, OK. As I told you, Smriti is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Warrior, who live right over there at Nrsingha Kutir where I'm staying now. Now His Grace Sura dasa will garland Smriti Warrior. Haribol. Smriti: Nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale, srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine. Namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine, nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine. I grew up here in Hare Krishna Land, and I was here before the devotees came and Prabhupada came. I was one of the fortunate ones that got a lot of mercy from Prabhupada and the devotees because my mother and father were doing a lot of service and they only had a hut over here, so all the devotees would be at our house for prasadam, for the fan, for everything. So during school days, we didn't have a problem. They would come, they would have the whole house to themselves. The days when there was no school, that's when all the devotees would be there and it would be like a big festival in the house. My mother was a good cook, so Prabhupada used to send word when he came to Bombay to have her make South Indian. He liked idlis and laddus and sambar. So every day, every morning I got the mercy to take the prasadam over to Srila Prabhupada; and as rascal as I am, I used to wait for something in return. I would give him idlis, but I wanted a sweet back. And he would tease me, he would give me back an idli, and I'd go, "No, I got lots of that at home, I want the sweet." So very early in life I started grabbing all the mercy as I could. Even the pandal programs, when they had the temple at the…the temporary temple that they had, Prabhupada used to come. After the lecture he used to give prasadam. He'd give it once, I would still stand there and he would go, "Go away," I would still stand with my hand, "I want more." Like everybody was saying, it was very open at that time. Anyone could walk into Prabhupada's room. Anyone could associate with him. Malati prabhu, her daughter Saraswati and I, we used to get in a lot of trouble because we used to always be playing upstairs when Prabhupada was resting or writing or talking, we were always up there doing something. But Prabhupada never took offense to that. He would always just let us be. Sometimes he would tell, "Come sit down," and she would sit on one lap and I would sit on the other lap. There were times when Prabhupada would hit me with his cane or chastise me if I did something wrong. Or sometimes when I used to take his breakfast up to his room, there would be no servants around, everybody would be gone. So I'd bring the offering right over to his plate and he would take what he wanted, he would give me my sweet, and I would still linger around in case there was some more left on his plate. Maybe I'll get some more sweets. So I would hang around and then he would call for his servant, no one would come, so he would say, "Go get me my shoes." So I would get the opportunity to help him with his shoes, and he would pat me with his cane. Devotee: How old were you at that time? Smriti: About 7, 6-7 years old, I was a little rascal. Then the devotees came, at first it was something new because they were different, they were white, the way they talked, the way they ate, everything was different about them so we were really mesmerized by it. And the way they danced, it was so sweet. So we would also get into it and jump and dance and chant. The early days, it was like a big family. We knew everybody, everybody knew us, my house was open for everything. Mom used to cook, so everyone used to come and eat. I got even Radha-Rasabehari's mercy because I was the first one that…I was 5 years old, I used to get to wear Radharani's skirt. So I didn't have to go out and buy a chanya choli, I used to wear Radharani's skirt, and that was the most opulent skirt there could be and I would dance around. I remember this very beautiful skirt. It was multi-colored, it had beautiful ribbons on it, and I remember wearing it for years and years. Even though it became shorter and shorter, I still was attached to that skirt and I wore it a lot. Jagat Purusa was in charge of the drama department, so we did a lot of plays. Every week we did a play, and I would get to play Krishna so I had the most lines. But he was very patient, he let me learn them slowly. And it was wonderful, it was beautiful. We also had a Gurukula. Madhudvisa Swami, Gargamuni Swami and Brahmananda prabhu, all of them were our Gurukula teachers, and that was the first Gurukula that they started here. My brothers and I, we used to go. Of course, they were older than me so they were quicker in learning the slokas, I was slow. They had if you learned the Isopanisad, you get a maha plate. It took me a long time to get that. So my maha plate was far away from me. Madhudvisa Maharaja was saying about how when they first came they had no place to live, so they used to live on the rooftops. And to bathe and everything else, like he had to take his water at night. We used to see the soapy heads in the morning because that's all you can see from down was the soapy heads. It was austere, but it was a lot of fun. My mother and father, they were very good devotees. My father passed away in '75. He had cancer. So six months before he passed away, the doctor said he doesn't have very much to live. So dad had given up going to work. He said, "There's no use working for another six months." So he stayed home and he chanted. The last four months of his life he chanted 64 rounds a day. When he passed away, the devotees came and chanted. And I think it was all Prabhupada's mercy that he took the essence of what Prabhupada was here for, to take us back to Godhead. He took that essence and he realized that material things were not worth living for, so he just gave up everything and changed. Mom's still here and still chants off and on. But I think because of his mercy I'm here, my children are here. I have seven, Maharaja, not eight, and by Krishna's grace they are all wonderful devotees, I think. All nice Vaisnavas have been born to me. They are very well taking to Krishna consciousness. Like Yadubara prabhu was saying, Prabhupada spent a lot of time Bombay. Whenever he came to Bombay, we got a chance to be with him, we got a chance to enjoy his mercy. I never got any of the chastisement, I only got all the mercy. Every evening he would have a program up on the rooftop. There would be chanting and there would be a lecture. My dad would go for morning mangal aratik and evening aratik and definitely to Prabhupada's lecture, and I used to tag along but only for the sweet. At the end of the pravacana there was sweets, so I was there for it. I remember Prabhupada telling Visala one day, "Give her her sweets so she can go home and play," and he let me go. We used to put on programs for him, we used to dance for him, and I remember Mom used to make a garland every day for Prabhupada. It wasn't just…she would go pick the flowers herself or make us pick it, and it would always be a champa garland or a mogra garland, something that smelled very beautiful, and I would get to put it on every day. There's a couple pictures of me garlanding Prabhupada and dancing for Prabhupada. Yadubara prabhu said there's some footage of us dancing too, so hopefully we'll get to see it this trip. My house was not just the restaurant for the devotees, but it was also the dispensary. Anyone got hurt or sick or anything, the first thing they would do is run to my mom and say, "Give us something to get better." A lot of devotees came down with jaundice when they were in Bombay because of the water, and Mom knew these Ayurvedic herbs that you can pick and she would grind it up with buttermilk and she would give it to the devotees twice a day for three days and usually it would cure the jaundice. So I think a lot of devotees were cured that way before they got really bad, real, real sick. When Prabhupada used to come, that used to be the most beautiful time because all the devotees would go to the airport and there would be fantastic kirtan. It would be so loud and so ecstatic. For almost a whole hour before the plane even came we were there jumping and dancing, waiting for Prabhupada to come. I was real tiny so you couldn't see Prabhupada coming, you just knew he was there because everybody was going down so you also went down. It was definitely very wonderful. Devotees that would live here in Bombay, especially when the hut was here, it was too austere to be in the hut because it would be very hot. They would come home just to lay under the fan and take a rest; and especially when it was vacation, it would be very disturbing because we wanted to play and they would be like "Quiet, be quiet, we're taking rest." So after a while I think my brothers figured what to do. They would go and shut the main off and say, "Oh, power out," so all the devotees would get up and go, and then we would turn it back on and we would play. I think after a while they caught on because they would go and turn it on themselves. The sound was too loud when we used to shut the main off. We used to do a lot of mischief. I remember one Diwali, Mother Kanta was in the brahmacarini ashram and we were letting off fireworks. It was about 8:30-9:00, and I guess she wanted to take rest but we were not done playing. So she started throwing buckets of water down on us. So my brothers and I, we marched up to Prabhupada's room and Caitya-guru said, "You can't go in there, he's resting." So then I guess we made a lot of noise out there so Prabhupada said, "Let them in." So then my brothers went in and pleaded that we would like to do some fireworks, and Prabhupada said, "No, it's too noisy." So my brothers gave up, they walked out the door. I stood there, I said, "No, but it's Diwali, we've got to break some firecrackers." So then he goes, "OK, till 10:00, but then after that no more." So we got permission. We were down there breaking firecrackers, and I remember Mother Kanta had to come the next day with a maha plate and apologize for throwing water on us. Being here and being so close to Prabhupada, you got to associate with him in a different light. You got to be there. For some reason, I guess I was a brat so they would let me be up front, let me do what I wanted to do. I remember when Prabhupada was sick, when he'd come back in '77, he was in the towers. Nobody was allowed to go see him, he was feeling really ill. But I wanted to see Prabhupada, I hadn't seen him the whole trip. Even though I was bringing him breakfast, they wouldn't let me in. So Tamal Krsna Goswami had seen me come two or three times during the day to come see him. So when I came in the evening, there were some other servants there and they said, "No, you cannot go in. Nobody's allowed in." And I just stood there crying, and then Maharaja said, "Go ahead." He let me in, he let me go through, and I remember running in there. Prabhupada was asleep, but I just stood there by his bed, grabbed his lotus feet and ran back out. I've done that plenty of times, but because there were so many…not bodyguards, but so many devotees around him when he was really sick, they wouldn't let me do that. So that one time Maharaja let me go in. He said, "Go ahead, go in," and I ran in there and grabbed the mercy. In 1975, my father passed away and Prabhupada told my mother, "Surrender everything and join the temple." She didn't do it. She said, "No, my children, let them pick what they want to do, what their careers are. And then if they grow up and they're married, then I'll come." She still hasn't come. That year they booked a whole bogie, the whole train bogie to go to Vrindavan, it was the opening. I remember we were also invited to come, and it was wonderful. The trip there was wonderful. Then when we got there, Prabhupada personally took my mom and our family around the whole temple and showed us the Vrindavan temple. I'll never forget that. It was so beautiful walking with him, and he was telling us where everything is and what's going on and he was very wonderful. He was so merciful towards my mom and all of us. I can only be thankful for all the time and all the wonderful mercy that I enjoyed as a child. Even though I didn't realize that it was mercy, I was just having a good old time. But now I can realize, I must have done something in my past life to be able to be so close and to bathe in that nectar of Srila Prabhupada's mercy. Harikesa Maharaja used to come and bake the cookies for Prabhupada at my house; and being a child, of course, the cookies looked good. He would leave me the burnt ones. He would never give me the good ones, he would leave me the burnt ones. He goes, "This is for you for lusting over Prabhupada's offering." Tamal Krsna Goswami was his servant for a long time when he was here, and a lot of times he would forget to get Prabhupada's clothes ready the night before. So the last minute, 3:00 in the morning he's banging on the door, "I need to iron Prabhupada's clothes dry," and he would be sitting there ironing it dry because he spaced out the night before. He'd be ironing his kaupins and everything. The temple was different. Everyone was doing so much service. It was chaotic, but it was wonderful. When Prabhupada came it was like a festival, it was definitely wonderful. Everybody would be in such a space, they would be so ecstatic that they would forget everything. They were just into serving Prabhupada, what Prabhupada wanted, running here, running there, everyone was always on their toes. The mood was ecstatic, it was wonderful. Devotee: How long did the construction go on? Smriti: Hey, don't ask me that. How many nails I pulled out you could ask me. The construction, a long time, right? I was little. Time and space, nay. Nistraigunya prabhu probably will tell you the amount of cement bags we moved for him. He would have them stacked up, and we would go and undo everything he did. Shanka dasa, he was telling us…this Gandhi Garden was our playground, and he came and he wanted to make a garden in here with flowers and roses. No, we wanted to play, and he said, "You can't play, these flowers are going to get ruined," whatever we were playing, the ball was hitting the flowers. So at night we would take the thing and put it back in so the plant would die the next morning, so then he would have to do it again. He goes, "I was wondering why they weren't growing." We did a lot of mischief, but it was wonderful. They would come and sew Radharani's clothes and Radha-Rasabehari's clothes at our house. We had the sewing machine, so Mother Madri and Ambika and Sarvamangala, they would be in there sewing the last minute for the Janmastami outfit. I remember this beautiful veil she had, a pink veil with silver stars. It was so gorgeous. I helped put the stars on, and it was really wonderful. We spent a lot of time…I guess I didn't know I was doing service. We spent a lot of time helping and doing this. Of course, Mom and Dad would help a lot with the temple. I remember the time when Mrs. Nair had finally said that OK, the whole thing was finalized. All the devotees had gone for lunch, I think it was, at Mrs. Nair's house. And Prabhupada said, "So where is Mr. Warrior?" And they said, "Oh, we didn't invite him." And he got very upset. He goes, "It was because of him we got this land. You should go over there right now and bring him." And I remember they came back in a Jeep and my father was serving out kichari. It was the kichari prasadam time, and he was serving out kichari to the Food for Life. And they grabbed him, put him into the Jeep and took him back. They said, "Prabhupada won't eat until you come, so hurry up." So Dad, whatever he was wearing, he just went like that. He did a lot of service; and I think watching Daddy do all that, I guess I also was inspired to be a devotee and take shelter of Prabhupada's lotus feet. ISKCON has grown so much, it's not a small family anymore. But the closeness, the togetherness that we experienced in the beginning of the movement, if it can go on and we can be a family, I think we can grow so much more. And we can all look forward to having ecstatic festivals every time we meet or ecstatic festivals whenever we come together. Thank you so much for letting me sit here and share my memories with Srila Prabhupada. Hare Krishna. |