Departed Brijabasi's Memories of the Dham

Radharaman Das ji

 
[PADA: A few of the former kirtaneers of Vrndavana -- and others -- have died in India recently. One of them was being transported around and around -- and he was rejected at three different hospitals for different reasons -- until he died while in transit to the next potential hospital. Yep, getting something organized in India has always been a problem, its just worse now than it was before. 

I saw a photo where a body was in a room and various devotees were doing some poojas for the devotee's body. That might not be the best idea at the present time. My friend who works at a hospital says departed people's bodies there are immediately bagged up in body bags and handled as potentially dangerous materials. And anyone handling these bodies wears masks, gloves, plastic booties on their feet etc. The sentiment of offering poojas is nice, but may not be the best program right now.

By various accounts -- these people were appearing as very healthy only a few days or weeks earlier. It does appear as though the Virus problem is not going away in India, and it may get much worse before it gets better there. It also looks like the hospitals there are not very organized, at least in some sectors. 

Anyway, devotees should be aware of this issue and take precautions as required, either in India or wherever they are. There are still devotees writing PADA telling us the whole virus problem is a hoax. OK, but maybe not. ys pd 

angel108b@yahoo.com]   

Radharaman Dasji, a beloved fruit seller of Loi Bazaar, attained the dust of Vrindavan today. I am told he had COVID-19. A couple years ago, I interviewed him about his life and memories of Vrindavan before development. Here’s what I learned from him...
...

Yesterday I stopped to drink an orange juice at a fruit shop, and the shopkeeper, Radharaman Dasji, said to me, "You have lived here quite a while. Do you like Vrindavan?" I said yes of course, and he asked me why. 

I was just starting to answer when he said, "You know why you like Vrindavan? Because this is Thakurji's own home, and it is full of peace. “The greatest place in the world is Bharat, and in Bharat the greatest place is Vrindavan. You can live simply and peacefully here. You know, I have never even been to Delhi. I only go to Mathura sometimes for business, but I have never left Braj in my life."

His shop, he said, is about sixty years old, and it was started by his father.
"What did your family do before that?" I asked him.

“Well, my parents were from the place that is now called Pakistan. They were visiting Haridwar when the partition happened. They had to leave everything behind and start a new life, so they chose to do that in Vrindavan. I was born here. You know, even thirty or forty years ago, this place was full of trees. 

"The way Tatiya Sthan is - that's how Vrindavan was not so long ago. It was all forest. There were no monkeys in the marketplace. They all lived in the woods by the side of Yamuna Maharani. And the cowherds used to take the cows out to pasture... there was so much pasture land then. In the evening when they would come back, there would be thousands of cows coming in from the pasture around sunset. 

"Thakurji used to bring his cows home at sunset, that's why the Brajwasis did the same. Back then, Raman Reti, where ISKCON is now, was all wilderness. Nobody used to go there after 4pm for fear of robbers. At that time there was only one car in town. Everyone traveled by tonga (bullock cart). Even if you wanted to go to Mathura, you had to take a tonga only.

“Then rich people came and started building guest houses and apartments. They cut down all the trees and bought up all the pasturelands. Where will the monkeys go? What will the cows eat? I feel sad when I think of all this. People have started doing nasty things in Vrindavan, but back then people were afraid of offending the Dham. But you know, I love Vrindavan. I don't want to go anywhere else. There is so much peace here... (he said as horns blared and monkeys banged on the roof overhead)... so much peace here..." 

====================

India Virus Cases:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/asia-today-indias-cases-keep-053331385.html