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..
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