Chapter 18 – Alone in South Africa

(Cape Town, 1974)

Sitting on the bus from Zambia bound for Kenya, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja was mulling over everything that had happened in the last few months, culminating in the recent jeep accident. The reason he had planned to create a travelling saṅkīrtana party with Cyavana Swami was because the situation in the Nairobi temple was a mess. Most of the devotees would leave after a few months, and the ones that did stay were not so serious. Although Mahārāja respected Brahmānanda Swami, his rapport with Cyavana was much stronger – but now he was hospitalised and would not be back on his feet for a while. “Should I just go back to America?” he thought. He decided that he would wait and eventually discuss things with Brahmānanda when he returned.

When he arrived at the temple, he was met by Bhagavat Dāsa, the new temple president, who introduced him to Prabhānu Dāsa, an American devotee who had just come from Detroit.

Prabhānu Dāsa: I met Mahārāja first in 1974 in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time we were both brahmacārīs. His determination to serve the mission of our Guru Mahārāja was immediately obvious to me. He had so much energy which he employed only for the service of guru and Gaurāṅga. When I arrived in Nairobi in January of 74, he kind of took me under his wing. He gave me a walking tour of the town on my first day there. I remember he walked at a ferocious pace. Nairobi is 5000 feet up and it took me awhile to adjust. I was huffing and puffing half way through the tour. He always walked at a ‘Prabhupāda pace’ which was hard to keep up with, even as a young man at sea level.

We use to go out daily for hari-nāma saṅkirtana and did prasāda and book distribution. Prasāda distribution was intense (lots of hungry people) and book distribution was really just pamphlet distribution, as Kenyans were generally very poor. We covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

After a couple of weeks in the temple, Mahārāja became restless and decided to go on travelling saṅkīrtana to Mombassa with a couple of brahmacārīs, one of whom was Prabhānu.

Prabhānu Dāsa: The real support for the mission came from pious Hindus, but Mahārāja wasn’t so keen on that strategy. He wanted to prove that we could support ourselves by simply working with the local population. So one day, myself, Mahārāja, and four African boys piled into a Land Rover and headed to the coast for Mombasa. We were armed with pamphlets, karatālas, mṛdaṅgas and some gasoline.

He was always capable of great austerity. He could eat little to nothing and be just fine and have lots of energy. I was not quite so naturally blessed. Every day that we were there, we drank a half litre of milk with a couple of handfuls of nuts – period! No rice, dahl, subji, chapatis, no home-cooked meals by any Indian mātājīs. I think we did this for about two weeks.

Finally, by the grace of Kṛṣṇa, it became obvious that although this was a valiant effort, it just wasn’t feasible. As we started to make our way back to Nairobi, we had no money to speak of and even less gas. Fortunately, Mahārāja knew of a village on the way that was populated with guess who? Hindus! These pious people heartily welcomed us and that very night we had a program with maybe two or three hundred people in participation. Mahārāja gave the talk and slammed the audience with Vaiṣṇava philosophy. He told them, “Everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. Take it for yourself and you are a thief!” They were good-natured and pious, and they enthusiastically chanted and gave us a room for the night. The next day after our stomachs and gas tanks were full, we headed back to the temple in Nairobi with some cash to spare. You could say it was a failed experiment, but I would say no. In this endeavour there is never any loss or diminution. Mahārāja did not become discouraged or downcast and neither did I. We just moved on to the next adventure in our service to Śrī Guru.

During the month of February, Mahārāja continued with his service in the Nairobi temple, waiting for a good time to speak to Brahmānanda about his future. Then, one morning, the head pūjārī, Śarma Dāsa, approached him. “Prabhu, Brahmānanda wants to see you in his office.”
“Wow!” thought Mahārāja, “Maybe this is Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement. Now I can tell him how I feel and see if he’ll send me back to the U.S.”

He knocked on the door of the office, walked in and paid obeisances to Brahmānanda, who was sitting behind his desk with an unmistakable scowl on his face.
“Now what?” Mahārāja thought. He knew that look – either Brahmānanda was angry with him, or some bad news had arrived. Perhaps this wasn’t the time to have a ‘heart to heart with him…
Brahmānanda shook his head in exasperation, “I just got a call from South Africa. There are no devotees left in the temple in Cape Town!”
Mahārāja was shocked. “Really? Where are they?”
“Well, Ṛṣi Kumāra Swami fell into māyā, one devotee, Kṣudhi Dāsa, was deported, and the GBC there, Puṣta Kṛṣṇa Swami, is on a tourist visa and has to leave every few months. Now there’s only one English devotee, Janakarāja, staying there.”
Mahārāja knew what was coming next.
“So Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa is asking me to send a ‘reliable devotee’ there to help Janakarāja, and since you’re the only reliable devotee here, I have to send you.”

Brahmānanda was unhappy to lose his best brahmacārī collector, but also saw the necessity of helping the fledgling South African yātrā at its time of need. Although Brahmānanda was disappointed, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja, in stark contrast, was relieved.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I was so done with Kenya. It was either send me to South Africa or send me back to America. Now that Cyavana was out of the picture, there wasn’t much for me to do there. So, when Brahmānanda called me into his office and gave me the news, I was so ready to go!

In the early 70s, the South African government, which was comprised of the descendants of Dutch and British colonisers, was infamous for its draconian policy of apartheid (racial segregation). Most of the major cities in South Africa were divided into three sections – European, coloured (Asian) and African. The Europeans lived opulently, the Indians somewhere in the middle, and the Africans dwelt in ghettos. This resulted in international condemnation, economic sanctions and cultural boycotts.

From the moment the devotees set foot in South Africa, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) had been meticulously tracking their every move. One American devotee, Kṣudhi Dāsa, had been trailed for months because he had been preaching to the Africans. Thus, the government considered him to be an ‘anti-apartheid sympathiser’ and they eventually had him deported.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: After about a few weeks, Brahmānanda made all the arrangements to send me to South Africa. In order to avoid any difficulties at immigration, he took a pair of scissors and chopped off my śikhā. Then he put me in a red safari suit, a white turtleneck sweater, and sent me off to Zambia again. There were no diplomatic relations between South Africa and Kenya at that time, so I had to return to Zambia for a few weeks to get a visa for South Africa.

(Cape Town International Airport, 1974)

Mahārāja arrived in the evening at Cape Town International Airport, and was met by a visibly relieved Janakarāja. On the drive to the temple, he filled him in on what had been happening in regards to the preaching in South Africa. When Janakarāja and Puṣṭa Kṛṣna Swami first came from England, they began preaching in Durban at the prestigious Rhodes University where they made quite an impact on the students. However, after a few days, the campus security became suspicious and interrogated Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa and Janakarāja, fearing that they may be propagating some political ideology – in particular, the South African government was concerned about the spread of communism which they viewed as a significant threat to them. Finally, convinced that the devotees had no ties with Communist China, the Soviet Union or Fidel Castro, the interrogators released them. Not long after, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa and Janakarāja decided to relocate to Cape Town, a city which was considered to be more progressive and cosmopolitan.

As they drove, Janakarāja told Mahārāja that now he was here and because he was his senior, he should be the temple president. Mahārāja however, had just arrived and knew nothing of the terrain. It would be better, he said, if Janakarāja was the temple president – at least until Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami returned. Janakarāja continued to argue his case, but Mahārāja was adamant.

Arriving at the temple late at night, Janakarāja showed Mahārāja his room, served him some prasādam and they both took rest.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I woke up the next morning, went downstairs and on the table was a bunch of keys and a note from Janakarāja, saying “I’m going back to England.” I was like, “Woah! Woah! Woah!” I raced to the airport to try and catch him and convince him to stay. I got there just before he left – he was on his way to Zambia and was planning to go from there back to England. I tried to talk him out of it, but he’d had enough, so he was gone! I ended up staying in South Africa alone for almost three months.

Mahārāja called Brahmānanda who groaned when he heard the news of Janakarāja’s desertion. He suggested that Mahārāja wait there and do some preaching until Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami returned with a new tourist visa.

Since the temple had a few Kṛṣṇa Book trilogies, Back To Godhead magazines and incense, Mahārāja decided to do what he did best – book distribution. After the morning program, where he sang all the songs, did the ārati, gave class to himself, and took prasādam, Mahārāja would go to the University of Cape Town and distribute books on campus. The students were very eager to buy books and in April, Mahārāja sent a report of his book scores to the newly created Saṅkīrtana Newsletter in the US. He wrote:

“I am distributing Kṛṣṇa Books on the University campus here in Cape Town and the students are eager to hear about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The only thing is – there aren’t any devotees here. I am praying to Lord Caitanya that some devotees come here soon.”

(The University of Cape Town)

Although the majority of the students at the University of Cape Town responded favourably, a couple of them were less than favourable. There was one particular incident that Mahārāja remembered.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I was dressed in my brahmacārī cloth, talking to a group of about ten to fifteen students who were asking some nice questions, when this one student came up to us and interrupted. “So, you guys are vegetarians, eh?” I could tell immediately from his tone that this guy just wanted to pick a fight.
“That’s right” I replied.
He said, “Why? There’s nothing wrong with eating meat – you eat fruit. It’s the same thing!”
I looked at him and said, “So you’re eating a hamburger and I’m eating fruit and it’s all the same? It makes no difference?”
“No,” he replied, “The fruit and the vegetables also have life, so what’s the difference? Eating them is also murder.”
Then I told him, “So, according to your philosophy, your logic, the life of an apple, the life of an animal, the life of a human – they’re all the same, right?”
“Yeah!”
“And there’s no need to discriminate. Everything is all one.”
He nodded, “Yeah. That’s right. Everything’s all one.”
By this time, more students had gathered around us – there were about forty of them listening to us arguing back and forth. We were right outside the university cafeteria, so I told him, “Well, if that’s true, I’ll let you prove it. Let’s go to the cafeteria now and buy two slices of bread…” And I looked down and there was some fresh dog stool on the grass, so I pointed at it and said, “…and you can come out here with that bread, pick up that dog stool, put it between those two slices of bread and eat it! That will prove to me that we don’t have to discriminate, and that everything is all one.”
The crowd just went wild with laughter. He got red-faced, flustered, and just walked away, and immediately I sold six Kṛṣṇa Book trilogies to some of the students.

It wasn’t long before Mahārāja had distributed every Kṛṣṇa Book trilogy available in the Cape Town temple, but considering the success he was having, he didn’t want to stop. Before leaving, Janakarāja had told him that there was a warehouse in Durban where more books had been stocked, so Mahārāja locked up the temple, jumped on a bus, travelled 26 hours to Durban, located the warehouse and opened it with one of the keys that Janakarāja had left behind. When he swung open the door of the warehouse, he was immediately met with the familiar scent of Spiritual Sky incense.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I found all kinds of stuff! More books, extra bead bags, karatālas, BTGs, incense – Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa had all these things shipped to South Africa for the preaching six months before and had left it all in Durban before relocating to Cape Town. So, while I was looking around there, I saw something on a shelf so I reached up and I pulled out this thing. It was someone’s śikhā! It was tied with a rubber band and covered in cobwebs and dust! Man! That was scary! When I realised what it was, I dropped it on the floor. Then I remembered Brahmānanda telling me that before Puṣṭa Kṛṣna arrived, there had been one devotee, Ṛṣi Kumāra, who had blooped – I figured that this was his śikhā, and before leaving South Africa, he’d cut it off and left it on the shelf! I just threw it in the trash.

Initially, Mahārāja considered staying in Durban for while to distribute books at the universities there, but remembering what Janakarāja had told him about his experience in preaching at Rhodes University, he decided to return to Cape Town.

When he wasn’t distributing books, Mahārāja kept himself busy chanting japa, reading, and learning verses. The weekly highlight was going to the mailbox – every week, the LA temple would send tapes of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lectures, which Mahārāja listened to, day and night.

He would make a big pot of halava, just in case some guests would arrive. But in the few months he was there, hardly anyone came. Every now and then, there were visits from people that Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami had been preaching to – one young Indian girl named Saras Pillai, and a couple named Greg and Roma from Rhodes University in Durban (who later took initiation and became Gokulendra Dāsa and Rocanī Devī Dāsī). One time, three Africans came into the temple, helped themselves to some halava and left.

One evening, while Mahārāja was absorbed in cooking, the peaceful ambiance of the temple was suddenly shattered by a cacophony of shouting and angry voices outside.

Swami Narasiṅgha: I heard a ruckus, so I went outside and there was a bloodbath going on in the street between two groups. They were Cape Colours – a mixed-race community (Boers mixed with Africans) who spoke a language called Bantu. There were about four men and four women, and they were just tearing each other apart with their hands – scratching, clawing. They were all drunk and the fight was just escalating. Their faces were covered in scratch marks and blood, but they were not moving and they were right in front of our house! The rest of the street knew that these guys could get dangerous, so they didn’t want to get involved, so they weren’t even opening their doors. But I wanted to break up the fight and get rid of these people, so what did I do? I got a big bucket of water from inside, came out and doused them all – it didn’t even phase them! They carried on screaming at each other like nothing had happened. They didn’t even look at me. They were so drunk that they just keep on screaming and clawing at each other. You couldn’t even tell who was on who’s side – I don’t think that even they knew any more. Finally, I went back inside, grabbed a mṛdaṅga, came out and started a kīrtana – Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa…’ And suddenly, they all stopped and looked at me. They finally noticed me – I’m standing there, a brahmacārī with a saffron dhoti, shaved head, tilaka…then they all stopped fighting, raised their arms up in the air and stumbled down the street.

Then one morning in early June, as Mahārāja was chanting japa, he heard a car pull up outside the temple. Peering out of the window, he saw a battered old blue Dodge Colt parked outside. Stepping out of it were Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami and two brahmacārīs – Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa and, to his surprise, Janakarāja.

The cavalry had finally arrived.