The Iskon Temple

After passing out of Engineering College, I stayed at Guwahati for 3-4 months and then went to Delhi with my friends. We have some good memories of our initial stay at Delhi. I, Rajat, Prasu,  Tutul and Sharma da were staying together. So life was back to normal kind of after a pathetic 3-4 months break that I had after passing out of AEC. Sharma da’s stay with us was not planned. Sharma da was also in Guwahati and one day I just met him. When Sharma da came to know that we guys are going to Delhi then he immediately decided to go with us.

In Delhi we stayed at East of Kailash. Our house was just half KM away from the great ISKON Temple. One day we visited the temple. It was actually a very nice visit, although I was never a religious guy.  For us it was more like a hang out place than a worship place as we enjoyed lot of eye candies. After staying for 2 hours we thought it's time to leave. While coming out we saw a big queue at one place and just wondered why so many people in that queue? We came to know that people are queuing to have the free ISKON Prasad. Immediately we also joined the queue. We waited for around 10-15 minutes and finally received the Prasad. In a leaf bowl they had given a small quantity of khichdi. The khichdi was very tasty and it reminded me of the “Saraswati Puja” kind of khichdi we used to have in Assam.  But the quantity was very less and we wanted to have some more. On that Prasu said “It’s only Prasad and we can’t have our lunch here”. Also looking at the queue we changed our mind and left.

We had to cook our own food as nobody among us had the luxury to eat outside. We thought of working together as a team to feed ourselves. Like someone will cook, someone will cut the vegetables and another can wash the utensils. But things were not that simple. One day Tutul complained that he always wash the utensils and sometimes he also want to cook. So one day Tutul cooked for us. We usually used to prepare rice,daal and one sabji. WE had  no idea what Tutul cooked that day. He actually put all the vegetables in daal and made something. To be honest it was horrible to eat. Now our Sharma da always tried to avoid such activities, as we say in typical AEC language “Kaati khaisil”. One day we decided that Sharma da also should take some responsibility. We discussed with Sharma da and said to him “you will also have to do some contribution. What you like to do? Cooking, cleaning utensils, etc? Choice is yours”. Sharma da said that he would do cooking and only once a week. We all were happy that Sharma da will also contribute. 

Now the day came when Sharma da was supposed to prepare lunch. At around 12:30 PM Sharma da went outside and said to us that he's going to buy some cigarettes. We waited for him for a long time and at around 2 PM we felt so hungry that we had to.  We all were very angry prepare food by ourselves. at this but as usual it was only for some time. At night when Sharma da came we asked him “today it was your turn to cook and you were not there?” Sharma da gave an excuse that he had to meet one of his friend and they both went to ISKON temple. We asked where you had lunch? Sharma da replied “At ISKON temple itself, the same khichdi which we had that day”. We were little shocked and said “but the quantity is so less” Sharma da replied “yeah, actually I had 4-5 rounds of that khichdi”. We all had a good laugh and started some leg pulling. “Ki billa be? Nuwari aru? “(What bullshit? How can you do such a thing?)

Sharma da was cool on what he had done and suggested that we should also do the same. He said “the temple is so near from here, why we should waste our time in cooking?" He told us that at least we can have dinner there at ISKON temple as the crowd would be less at night, but Sharma da was not sure whether they  provide the same free khichdi at night?