Sri Sri Gopal's Bhog

Kochu Shak, Daliya , Laur Chal, Green beans Alu Subji, Rasa Malai and Rasa Gulla was on Sri Gopal's lunch menu.
I have attached the photos below so you can take darshan of our home Deities, Sri Madan Gopal, Sri Ladhu Gopal
Sri Sri Jagannath Baladev Subhadra, Sri Sri Nitai Gauranga and Sri Sri Lakshmi Narasimha
This is the first time I have made Bengali sweets in a very long time.. I only made for my friend, promise. I don't eat any sweets anyway.

Special thanks to Parul for sponsoring the organically grown kochu shak which she grows from her own garden.

Rats and Cats

For several months we had a rat problem (they're actually mice but prabhu calls them rats) and tried several methods to rid them. We even trapped them in little cages and released them into the wild (the nearby lake where Prabhupada took his morning walks) thinking that we had rid of those pests forever but there were always more rats in the house, eating bhoga or trying to catch falling pieces of vegetable scraps etc while we cook. During the winter, they became very active and they were scratching up the walls, making holes in the drywall etc., we thought it was weird that the noises would get more intense at night around bedtime up until 12 midnight(it was loud fighting, shrieking and wailing in the walls like someone was putting up a chase). Sometimes we'd bang on the walls to scare them off but the past couple of weeks we noticed that the noise diminished, there have been no more late-night disturbances or screaming coming from the walls at all for the past two weeks or so. Today, I was coming home and I realised why there were no more noises from the attic and walls. I saw three cats living under the house, they came out from under my porch (its actually a deck) and were hanging around the yard.
Several months back, we noticed that someone was coming and eating the maha-prasadam from our backyard, usually we keep those things for the birds, worms and other scavengers hoping to keep raccoons and possums out of the trash bin or porch. One day, Madri saw the neighbors cats were waiting outside for her to throw out vegetable scraps and maha-prasad, sometimes even dogs would come to honor the remnants and they would all eat together without fighting each other, it was as if they had been watching Madri and knew exactly what time Madri comes to throw out the leftovers. This kept happening for several months, meanwhile the cats were getting really fat. During the winter we noticed that the scraps were piling up for two or three days at a time, so I wondered, "Where are the cats?" even though I don't usually like cats or dogs loitering around the area.
Now I realise that we made friends with the cats, we fed them maha-prasadam several months and in return the cats offered a valuable service and got rid of the rats for us. Our solution was staring us in the face the whole time, jivo jivasya jivanam. The question is, "Why the cats didn't eat the rats in the first place instead of the maha-prasadam?" maybe those cats wanted to honor the Lords maha-prasadam and offer some service to us in return.

Hindu Mosque, Muslim Peacock

Okay, two funny stories I want to tell you guys.
The first story is about a mason friend of mine. His name is Kinu Seikh, he's Muslim and works at the ISKCON temple in Sri Mayapur Dham. He carved the lotus on Srila Prabhupada's samadhi, he set all the tiles and carved a lot of the designs on the temple doors, gates etc. He's worked there and other Gaudiya vaishnav temples. He is known as a great carver so his village leaders requested him to carve the designs on their Mosque domes, which is in front of his own house in Mayapur near Yogpith. He started the carving work and everything was going well, nobody realised or figured out what he was doing. After completing the artwork, everyone saw that he carved banana leaves and lotuses on the domes of the Mosque, both Hindu symbols! Then everyone began to tease, "Kinu made a Hindu Mosque, he works for Hindus and now his own artwork has become Hindu-ized!" Kinu related this funny story to me a long time ago in laughter so I also wanted to share the fun. So that is the story about how my friend, Kinu-bhai carved a Hindu Mosque.

Next story is about an Armenian devotee named Sarva Bhavana in Mayapur who fought over a peacock with Rahim mistry, a carpenter for ISKCON Mayapur. Rahim is a great wood carver, he did the carving work for Radha Madhava's altar/shingasan among other things. Sarva Bhavan prabhu gave him a job to carve a peacock on a teakwood door. Teakwood is an expensive wood and Rahim-bhai did the job very dutifully and finely. So when Sarva Bhavana Prabhu saw the final job, he found out that the peacock looks "Muslim" and asked Rahim, "Why did you carve a Muslim peacock?" Rahim replied, "Birds don't have religion(s)." to which Sarva Bhavan prabhu says, "Acche, baba, acche!" That means, "There are, baba, there are!" In fact, if you saw the peacock, you will realise that Sarva Bhavana prabhu is right, the peacock did in fact look Muslim, meaning the artwork is Islamic in design and style. So that is how Rahim-bhai carved a Muslim peacock and was caught by Sarva Bhavana prabhu!

Peacocks are transcendental because they are the Lord's pets in Sri Vrindavan Dham; Mayapur is also gupta-vrindavan so the peacocks in Mayapur are also transcendental although Radha and Krishna's pastimes are not visible there, it remains transcendental..