Chapter 19 – There’s a Dead Man on the Floor!

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja felt relief seeing Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami and his brahmacārīs arriving at the Cape Town temple that morning. One of the brahmacārīs, Pārtha Sārthi Dāsa (now H.H. Pārtha Sārthi Dāsa Goswami) clearly remembers meeting Mahārāja for the first time.

Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa: On knocking at the door, this tall, effulgent, saffron-clad brahmacārī opened the door and with a somewhat heavy American accent welcomed me to Iskcon Cape Town. That was my first darśana of Jagat-Guru Dāsa Brahmacārī (Narasiṅgha Mahārāja).

Not only had Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami brought some brahmacārīs, but he had also brought Deities of Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāī from Navadvīpa. Since Mahārāja had steadily taken care of the temple alone for almost three months, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa considered him to be the most qualified to be the pūjārī for the new Deities. These were the first Deities that Mahārāja ever worshipped.

(Original Gaura Nitai deities in South Africa, 1974)

(Prabhupada and Gaura Nitai, 1975)

Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa: After a short time, Mahārāja started training me in pūjārī services and under his guidance I learned how to worship the Deity. I continued worshiping these Deities, and these are the Deities that Śrīla Prabhupāda took darśana of when he came to South Africa in 1975 for three weeks.

Over the next few weeks, the devotees held regular programs every day, but eventually Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa realised they would have to close the temple in Cape Town. The house was not in the best of shape when they rented it, but as time went on, things in the house got worse – they were spending more time, money and effort simply maintaining the building, which meant less time for saṅkīrtana. He told Brahmānanda Swami his dilemma, and after Brahmānanda wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda about the situation, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa received the following letter from Prabhupāda:

Yes, I think that the advice given by Brahmananda Maharaja is sound, namely not to worry about maintaining a permanent centre in South Africa, but travelling with sankirtana there for distributing books and preaching, which you say is a good field there. We do not have many men; it requires at least five men to maintain a centre, so I approve of your plan to close the centre and travel in South Africa. (Letter, April 27th 1974)

As soon as Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami received Prabhupāda’s letter in May, he promptly instructed Mahārāja to arrange for the Deities to be transported to Durban. Within a few hours, the devotees had packed everything into boxes, stuffed all of it into their old Dodge Colt, squeezed themselves into the car, and set off towards Durban.

On the way, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa decided that they should go to Grahamstown and pay a visit to Greg – an aspiring devotee who had sometimes visited Mahārāja when he was alone in Cape Town. While holding programs at Rhodes University, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa and Janakarāja met Greg and had kept in touch with him ever since. Greg came from an affluent family in South Africa, was a successful student, and had a steady girlfriend. However, his appreciation for Kṛṣṇa consciousness was deep and was growing stronger every day, and he needed little convincing from Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami to join the movement full-time.

Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa: When we arrived at Rhodes University, we met Greg and stayed in his room for a few days. One day, Mahārāja decided he was going to shave Greg’s head. He took Greg into the main student communal bathrooms and in front of many Afrikaner and European students, he shaved Greg’s head. Not caring what people would think or say, or how they would react, he simply shaved Bhakta Greg’s head and let everyone know that hair was simply “stool on the head!”

A resolute Greg grabbed all his belongings, pushed them into the already packed Dodge, and squeezed himself in among the other four devotees and the temple paraphernalia.

Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa: From Rhodes University we travelled to Durban. I remember sleeping in the car with Mahārāja on the beachfront. Around midnight the police came and told us to move the car, so we drove some miles up the Coast. He slept in the car and the rest of us slept on a grass verge on the North Coast of Durban.

The next morning, when the devotees attempted to get the Dodge going, they couldn’t get it started. The vehicle had originally belonged to Kṣudhi Dāsa (one of the original pioneers of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in South Africa) and was already a wreck by the time he purchased it. After Kṣudhi left South Africa, the car had been in constant use by the devotees – how it had lasted so long was anyone’s guess!

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Greg had a friend whose name was Roma – she had come to the Cape Town temple a few times with him. She had an old yellow Volkswagen and she came and picked us up in it. She was also interested in Kṛṣna consciousness, so she let us use her Volkswagen for our preaching – so now we had two crappy vehicles!

In the meantime, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami spoke with one of his contacts, Champak Lal Soni, who let the devotees use his beach house as a base.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Champak Lal Soni had a cottage right out on the beach in a place called La Mercy. We would go from there into downtown Durban. Mr. J.T. Bhoola was the head of the Gujarati community, and he’d set us up. It was really good. The Indian community really supported us. From Durban, we would go on travelling saṅkīrtana down to Chatsworth, which is where the Iskcon temple is today. There was nowhere for the devotees to stay in Chatsworth at that time. People would arrive in Chatsworth on buses before the sun came up, and we would be right there doing saṅkīrtana, selling magazines and doing hari-nāma through the streets and the housing area. I would take the saṅkīrtana party out there in the morning.

There was one area which was quite big on the edge of a forest. There were no houses near it for about a hundred metres. It had high grass, it was clean, and we would go there and take our lunch prasādam on the grass and read. Then we would go back and do a little more hari-nāma in the afternoon. Later, that was the property that Iskcon got from the government where they built the temple.

While they were staying in Champak Lal Soni’s beach cottage, Mahārāja broached the idea of making life-members to Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami. He had met with great success doing this in East Africa and felt that South Africa, with its large Indian community, would be a perfect field. Puṣṭa Kṛṣna agreed and immediately purchased a new Volkswagen for travelling saṅkīrtana.

Pārtha Sārathi Dāsa: Mahārāja stayed in the Durban house for some months and then came up with an exciting idea of making life members. He discussed this with Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami. The idea was we would do a program in a hall and we would show ‘The Hare Krishna People’ film on a 16 mm projector – at that time we only had one film. After the film, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami and sometimes Mahārāja would announce the life membership program and ask if anyone wanted to become a life member. Gradually people would put their hands up. We would rush to them, take their names and give an ovation. The next day, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami and Mahārāja would visit the prospective life members at their offices and sign them up. They usually got them to give post-dated cheques. This was an extremely successful program and Mahārāja and Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami were the inspiration behind this. We made hundreds of life members in five or six cities between Durban and Johannesburg.

For months, the group of travelling devotees led by Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa and Mahārāja went from Durban, to Pietermaritzburg, to the Orange Free State, to Johannesburg, to Pretoria spreading the message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness along the way. Their preaching was a huge success, especially in universities and amongst the Indian communities.

(University campus preaching – Narasiṅgha Mahārāja sitting behind Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Dāsa: In South Africa, he used the experience he had in Kenya to promote preaching programs in town after town, which he helped set up ahead of time. They were very well-attended, enthusiastically received, and led to both the creation of life-members throughout the country, and also massive book distribution. He was serious and focused, but still quite a jolly devotee. 

Hearing that there was a large Indian community in Louis Trichadt (a province in the Limpopo region of South Africa), Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami wanted to go there and make more life-members. When they arrived, Mahārāja approached the head of the Hindu community, reserved the local community hall, advertised the program, and on the day of the event, the devotees were astonished to find over 500 people in attendance when they arrived to set up. It was one of the largest programs they had experienced to date.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Dāsa: During the day, when we were meeting some members of the Indian community, I was informed that one of the most prominent members of the Hindu community, a gentleman with a bad heart, would attend our programme that evening. This gentleman liked to play the tabla. I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to him much before the programme, but I did see him at the front of the audience, sitting with his family. Our Gaura-Nitāi Deities were on a palanquin on the stage. I led the kīrtana and could see that this gentleman was becoming very enthusiastic and with a very beautiful smile he came up and placed his tabla on the stage.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I was tending to the Deities behind the curtain. So, at a point, the kīrtana is supposed to come to a grand finale and then I would open the curtains and the devotees would all pay obeisances. At the side on the stage there was a folding chair with a small table in front of it where this guy was sitting with his tablas. He was huge – big, big belly. He was totally into the kīrtana. At a point, the kīrtana was going around him – there’s two devotees right in his face playing mṛdaṅgas and they’re going faster and faster, and he’s going faster and faster, and his sons are in the front row, telling their father to slow down. I come out to open the curtains, and as the kīrtana is coming to a crescendo – BAM! It suddenly stops and everybody jumps back. There’s a dead man on the floor!

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Dāsa: As I looked on, he fell down at my feet. He was dead. Some members of the audience came up to the stage and took his body to a room where his doctor was waiting. The doctor tried injecting adrenaline into his heart, but it was too late.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: The doctor said he was dead before he hit the floor. Massive heart attack…his heart practically exploded. They dragged him into the back room and one devotee went with him and chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa. The whole audience was quiet, then Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa takes the mic and says, “This man has gone back to Godhead!” and he starts talking about the temporary nature of life. He’s giving this whole lecture and all the people are sitting there thinking, “What the hell just happened?” Meanwhile, you could hear the family in the back room wailing!

Everything was prime! There were over five hundred people, we were gonna make life-members hand over fist – and this guy dies on stage in the first ten minutes of our program in the opening kīrtana! The mood amongst the Hindus was, “Ain’t going there! Ain’t going there! We’ll die! We’ll die!!” No books sold that night, no life members made. It was reported in the saṅkīrtana newsletter also – “Hindu Dies in the Midst of Sankirtana Party.” It’s more like we killed him…
But the next time we printed a book in South Africa – ‘Īśopaniṣad’ or ‘The Topmost Yoga System’, I don’t remember – we printed a dedication to that man.

In December, Mahārāja and Puṣṭa Kṛṣna came to Johannesburg with the idea of opening another centre. Previously, in Cape Town, there was not enough financial support to keep the temple open, but thanks to Mahārāja’s success in the life-membership program, this was no longer an issue. They eventually found a house in the peaceful suburb of Yeoville.

(Devotees outside the Yeoville temple, South Africa – from left to right, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja, Janakarāja, Dhirāṅga, Pārtha-sārathi, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami, Rocanī and Rāmānujācārya)

The activities of travelling saṅkīrtana, university campus preaching and life-membership continued, and as a result, more people came to the temple. During their travels, the devotees went to Kimberly, the largest city of the Northern Cape province. While they were there, the local newspaper took an interest in the devotees and published a two page article about them. Following suit, the Sunday Mail, a newspaper from Rhodesia, came to Yeoville and also interviewed the devotees.

(Newspaper clippings from South Africa preaching, 1974)

Once, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa sent Mahārāja and Janakarāja to make members in a nearby town outside Johannesburg. Janakarāja was driving, and when they reached a desolate stretch of road in the bush, he decided to have some fun and accelerate. Recalling his previous calamitous experience with Cyavana Swami in Zambia, Mahārāja urged Janakarāja to slow down, but Janakarāja only went faster. The more Mahārāja insisted, the faster Janakarāja drove. Finally, Mahārāja’s anger grew so intense that Janakarāja, frightened, immediately pulled over. Mahārāja furiously jumped out of the car, slammed the door, and started walking, leaving Janakarāja stunned and unsure of what to do next. After about twenty minutes, Janakarāja drove down the road, and, spotting Mahārāja in the distance, pulled up beside him and apologised for his reckless driving. Mahārāja got back in and they continued on to their destination.

Although Mahārāja had become very expert in dealing with the Indian community, it was not without its challenges.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I preached to a butcher in Johannesburg – he was a Hindu, but he owned a butchers shop. I made him a member and told him, “For sure, Kṛṣṇa will bless you!” I had to go to his butchers shop to get the cheque – it was horrible! I picked it up with the tips of my fingers and deposited it at the bank.
A few weeks later, I was in a store and I met that man. I asked him, “Oh, how are you, sir?”
He told me, “You said that Kṛṣṇa would bless me.”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Well, He burned my shop down!”
I was expecting him to be angry, but he was happy. He told me that with the insurance money, he was able to start a vegetable business which was much more lucrative.

However, not all the Hindus he encountered were so favourable. Once, in downtown Johannesburg, he met a rich Indian industrialist outside his factory which produced canned food. Mahārāja began to speak to him about the glories of Bhagavad-gītā and tried to convince him to buy one. The man however, was an indignant atheist. “Why I should take a Gītā?” he retorted, “God gives me nothing!” Then, pointing to his factory, he declared, “That is my God! My factory is feeding me! My factory is providing food for millions of people – not God!”
Mahārāja replied, “God is the provider for everyone – not your factory! There is food everywhere!” He then glanced at an overgrown, trash-strewn field across the road from the factory and declared, “I could even find food in that field!”
The Indian chuckled and said, “Oh, really? Prove it!”
Without hesitation, Mahārāja stomped across the road, walked into the field and immediately saw a huge squash growing in the long grass. Grabbing it in both hands, he held it high above his head, and turned to the astonished businessman, exclaiming triumphantly, “KṚṢṆA PROVIDES!!”
The businessman was visibly impressed and purchased a Bhagavad-gītā on the spot!

When Mahārāja was not on hari-nāma, book distribution, or making members, he could be found worshipping Gaura-Nitāī, or in the garden in front of the temple.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Dāsa: He was quite the gardener. He planted marigolds for our Deities several years in a row. It beautified the front yard of our temple which was also pleasant when Śrīla Prabhupāda visited in October, 1975. I remember what a dramatic impact he made upon the preaching in South Africa when he brought the idea of travelling town to town in South Africa doing programs in the halls and making members and selling Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. Still, try as I might, my best memories of him are of planting marigolds in the front yard of the Yeoville centre. He was so happy, simple-hearted, and devotional.