Having unpacked most of our luggage, fresh out of shower, we go to meet our Baba. Last year we missed the opportunity, as we just crashed out in the afternoon and woke up the next morning, and later learned that Baba had been expecting us, and they had even had some prasad ready. That was a bit embarassing, so we shaped up this year.

As we arrived at Brajananda Ghera, Baba was sitting downstairs and Ekanti Krishna Das from Italy was massaging his feet. Ekanti is expert in giving varieties of treatments and has sensitive hands, as he has been building violins for twenty years. Baba has frequent problems with his feet, and we are happy to see that Radharani has provided for help in the form of many devotees who can help our Baba in his old age.

Baba greeted us happily, and we were also very happy to meet him. He inquired about our travel and health, and also about the weather in our country. Minus twenty degrees and huge piles of snow never cease to amaze him.

As the cold season is also approaching at Radha-kunda, and as the temperatures get close to zero in January, we brought Baba a set of natural woolen knee-, wrist- and shoulder-warmers, the biggest size available in the shop, as Baba is a great personality in many respects. Ekanti put on the knee-warmers right away, and they seemed to serve their purpose. Baba was happy about them.

The news had broken out that Jagadananda was coming to Radha-kunda, and Baba inquired as to whether he had arrived with us. Whenever Jagat is mentioned amidst a conversation, Baba Maharaja begins narrating how Jagadananda was going here and there in West Bengal and Vraja, giving very expert patha, and how he even writes just like the Bengalis do. Sadly we had to inform him that it was a false alarm, and that Jagadananda was not coming right now. We do not know where the news came from. Anyhow, we are trying to get him over for a visit shortly.

Thus ends day one at Radha-kunda. We apologize for the backlog with the diary, we'll try and bring it up to speed today. The idea is to post daily updates at the end of each day. Yesterday I spent the better half of the day fighting with the installation of drivers for the cell phone modem we are using, and finally got it going, and we are back online. Stay tuned.