720323 - Letter to Giriraja written from Bombay

Letters by Date, 1972

Date: March 23, 1972.
Camp: ISKCON Box 387, Fort, Bombay-1.

My dear Giriraj,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of March 13, 1972, and I am very glad to inform you that today we have laid down the cornerstone for our Bombay Center here in Juhu, and the ceremony was very wonderful with many important people attending. I am very much glad that you are doing so nicely in Calcutta by making many Life Members daily, so now I think you should join me in Bombay immediately as you are free, after training up a competent replacement there. We have also a few days back laid the cornerstone for our Vrindaban Temple, and besides they have given me many more rooms at Radha-Damodar Temple for our use. So the program now in India is immense task, so I am very much encouraged that you feel yourself enthusiastic to help me in this way, by taking a bold lead for pushing on this Movement here.
Now Brahmananda is in charge here, and there is a huge land and we are occupying it in tents and small cottages like Mayapur cottage and the work is immense. So Gargamuni is collecting also not less than two Life Members daily, but his collection goes toward our Vrindaban construction work. So now things are not going very nicely in Nairobi because Brahmananda has left, so I shall have to send him back there tomorrow, therefore I wanted that you should come here to assist Madhudvisa and [handwritten] by collecting profusely, and I think there will be no difficulty here because there is such rich population. Madhavananda can go from Mayapur to Calcutta to help Bhavananda collect there, and you shall come here at the soonest.*
Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

* latest by the 27th March 1972 [handwritten]

Giriraj das Brahmachary
3 Albert Road,
Calcutta-1.

ACBS/sda