“HE LED US”

Madhudvisa dasa remembered how Tamal Krishna Goswami led the devotees on so many adventures. “When we first went to India in 1970, Tamal Krishna led us up and down the aisles of the Pan American 747 when we were 30,000 feet up in the air, doing sankirtana. We were chanting Hare Krishna at 30,000 feet. He had convinced the stewardess that we were a group of traveling monks performing ‘cultural shows’ all over the world and he wanted to give the people on the airplane the opportunity to see these shows. He led us onto the stage of the Troubadour Night Club, where we chanted and danced the ‘swami step’ with Visnujana on the harmonium. He led us in drama, he led us withJagannatha-priya Natakam. He said he could have done his Ph.D. thesis on Sanskrit drama. He was the leader in academic preaching and he could have gone to any university in America, but he went to the most prestigious university in the world to do his graduate work. Tamal Krishna was the leader, he was the bell-weather, the trend-setter. He set a trend, so that people coming after him would continue in the same line. We slept beside each other; we shared each other’s dhotis; we confronted the demons on the streets together; we came to India forging the Life Membership program under Srila Prabhupada’s guidance; so again and again Tamal Krishna Maharaja was my leader. Yet, because he was so close to Srila Prabhupada, sometimes he was chastised severely by His Divine Grace. But the measure of his greatness was that he didn’t go and sulk. He mustered himself up and continued on.”