We Leave Vrindavan

And return to Kolkata

Today Srila Gurudeva and his entourage leave the holy dham and return to Kolkata, via New Delhi. We have been here in Vrindavan for the past eight days.

After an early lunch, we drive to the Indira Ghandi domestic airport in New Delhi. It is almost the end of the monsoon season in India, so the vegetation on the drive through the countryside is luxuriant and green as far as the eye can see, and all the kundas or ponds are full.

It's a scorcher; it was hot last night, too. I hadn't realized how pleasant our days in Vrindavan had been until now; it rained almost every afternoon except for the last two days, and that kept the days fairly cool.

Of course, it pleasant in Vrindavan for other, more spititual reasons — this is, after all, the land where Lord Krishna revealed his most intimate pastimes with the gopas and the gopis.

Srila Gurudeva has not been feeling all that well, so our visit has been subdued. Even so, Vrindavan is just too spiritually intense for me; although we were protected by the shelter of Srila Gurudeva's lotus feet, I'm glad to be returning to the comparative safety of West Bengal, where Krishna displayed His pastimes of searching for Himself...