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Village Life in Bangladesh 9

the most amazing and memorable thing that had ever
happened in their lives. No Westerners had ever come to
their villages before, but now here they were — as devotees
of Kṛṣṇa! We foreigners were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, their
religion; wearing dhotīs, their dress; eating rice and dāl,
their food; eating with our hands, as they did; and sitting
on the floor with them.

In the mornings many people would be waiting to talk
to us individually. They were fascinated to see how we
applied tilaka, performed ārati, chanted the names of
Kṛṣṇa on beads, and held classes in which we quoted from
13
Sanskrit and Bengali scriptures. We spoke to them in
Bengali, exhorting them to preserve their traditions and
assuring them that Vaiṣṇavism was better than the affluent
decadence of the West. Our hosts were deeply pleased and
had no reservations about expressing that to us.
Persons who ate simple foods and could barely afford
more would stretch themselves beyond their means to
cook a wonderful prasāda feast and serve it to us with
affection. They would bring out a tiny bottle of homemade
ghee (their entire accumulated stock) to sprinkle on the
rice and add to the already delicious flavors.

I began to understand what Śrīla Prabhupāda meant by
“Bengali mother.” The elderly women would encourage
us to eat more and more, well beyond our capacity. Gala
parjonto, they would say: “Up to the neck!” They would

13. Throughout this book, the term scripture is used to denote
śāstra, i.e. the original Vedic scriptures and later derivative
scriptures that uphold the same teachings.