In the morning, Braja, Rasaraja and Tarun came over to our place to watch us do the morning-puja. I walked them through the abridged archan-paddhati of our param-guru while doing the puja myself, elaborating in places where elaboration was required. After the puja, which was a bit disconcentrated due to an attempt to explain so many things at the same time — and for that I apologize — we headed for Baba's ashram. It was the time for Tarun's diksha, finally. Something he had for long anticipated for.

In went Tarun Kishor, and out came Tarun Govinda Das, happy as ever. Some phala-bhog was given to us, after which Braja and Rasaraja headed for the tempo-stand to meet with their families. A whole bunch of people had come from Vrindavan with Dhanurdhar Swami of ISKCON. Yugal and Tarun headed back to the house to arrange for pictures for worship and the such, and we just headed somewhere without any particular destination. From the sabji-market, we spotted Monika and some of her friends standing right in the middle of sangam, approached from all directions by enthusiastic pandas. To the rescue, we figured, and picking them up, headed to our house at Gaura Dham.

Tarun and Yugal were somewhere else, however, so we just sat down on the roof, chatting for a while and waiting for them to arrive. And soon enough they came. As there was still plenty of time until lunch prasad was to be served out, we set out for parikrama. Moni's friends from Germany purchased a good quantity of various kanthi-malas on the way from some tulsi-wallahs near Lalita-kunda. We bought a bottle of water on the way. A good idea to do before a meal, if your stomach isn't used to local water.

Dina Das was serving prasad, as usual. Amidst the sumptuous meal, one baba respectfully educated us on the difference in style between devotees eating puris and monkeys eating puris. Our guests seemed to be full up to neck towards the end of the meal, but boldly finished it all. Yugal told them how this was a great priviledge, that they were having a meal at the place of the spiritual mayor of the town. He has a selection of interesting analogies, to which I may return in a later entry.

Baba asked about Rasaraja's and Braja's whereabouts. I told that they had gone to meet their families, who had come with one ISKCON sannyasi for Radha-kunda parikrama, and that therefore they could not come for lunch-prasad. Laughing, Baba said that in the ashram, they also serve prasad to saffron-cloth devotees, and that Maharaja would be welcome to take prasad if he wanted. Perhaps next time Maharaja may make a small detour on the parikrama and take darshan of Babaji Maharaja and the beautiful paintings on the wall of the lecture hall, taking some prasad as well.

Returning home as Tarun, Moni and the rest (apologies, I am forgetting the names right now), on the way we bumped into our neighbor, Krishna Das, who enthusiastically showed us his first print-out. A maha-mantra in Hindi, Roman and Bangla letters, which he had managed to lay out on an A4-size paper twice in such a way that he could just cut it in half and have two identical sheets in the end. This he did by printing twice on the paper, while turning it around. Not the most eloquent solution, but it worked, and he was happy about it. Finishing the support session, we returned home and did some bhajan in the evening, as the day had been quite busy. It was already late.