751115 - Morning Walk - Bombay

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

751115MW-BOMBAY - November 15, 1975 - 14:49 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That new gurukula picture that they had sent you in Illinois, near Chicago? They have taken that.

Brahmānanda: It's a military school.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A military school.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Military school or the military barracks?

Brahmānanda: No, a military school.

Prabhupāda: What is the price?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: 420,000 . . .?

Brahmānanda: Four fifty.

Prabhupāda: So they have paid?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They are going to pay 150,000 in January. It looks perfect for gurukula.

Prabhupāda: How far? It is in Chicago?

Brahmānanda: It's about, I think, an hour and a half from Chicago by car.

Prabhupāda: Oh. It is a village.

Brahmānanda: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . the description?

Brahmānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: There are many buildings?

Brahmānanda: Oh, there's about nine buildings. There's a main administration building and classroom building. There is two new buildings. One is a dining hall that seats two hundred.

Prabhupāda: (to passerby) Hare Kṛṣṇa. (someone's pet dog yaps) (break)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . the Gujaratis would never keep dogs, but now . . .

Prabhupāda: Now they are becoming civilized. (laughter) Advanced. (break) Therefore I made this Trust: fifty percent, fifty percent.

Brahmānanda: So there will always be money for purchasing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And because we are doing that, Kṛṣṇa is giving us facility. (break) . . . beginning how much difficulty we had. We could not purchase that house, number Sixty street?

Brahmānanda: Yes. That was a hundred thousand dollars, that house.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A hundred thousand? That's . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. Not hundred. Sixty. Sixty thousand dollars. Sixty thousand dollars, and still, we could not. Another attempt was made to purchase that bank building. So we had no money, only five thousand, and that was also taken away. (break)

Indian man (1): Do you believe in these ghar-sansar family life and everything?

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man (1): Ghar-sansar. (Family life.)

Prabhupāda: Yes. Why not?

Indian man (1): Do you believe?

Prabhupāda: Why not? There are many gṛhastha devotees. Here is gṛhastha devotee.

Indian man (1): Thank you.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) . . . which you want to set up, they are available, ready-made?

Saurabha: Some of them are ready, but we need about a hundred, so I don't think there will be one hundred ready. But if the order is placed in advance, then they will . . .

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Saurabha: If the order is placed in advance, then they will start making immediately. They can do that very fast.

Prabhupāda: So whatever ready-made we can purchase?

Saurabha: Well, it has to be the proper size also.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Yes. They can do it.

Saurabha: They have many men. They can very quickly carve those.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Brahmānanda: What is it you were saying?

Saurabha: Well, it's . . . fixing has to be done too.

Brahmānanda: Domes?

Saurabha: Domes, yes. Also the time will go in the domes.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Saurabha: Lot of time will go in the domes, because there's many, many towers. The pillars is not so difficult. (break) . . . two men have been making sketches on different designs for panels and columns, and as soon as you decide to pay, then they can start working immediately.

Prabhupāda: So we have decided. Do it.

Saurabha: Yes. It takes them about ten more days, fourteen days to get these drawings done. It will be all done in Makrana. They carve it there. They won't do it here. And then they bring it. Only small carvings will be done. There they have all facilities and many, many people.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They have karigars.

Saurabha: Very quickly that will be done. (break)

Vipramukhya: Would you like to have a temple established in every village?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Vipramukhya: Some other devotees told us when we were establishing the Long Island temple that you did not want to have a temple in every village right now.

Prabhupāda: I did not say anything about Long Island.

Vipramukhya: You'd like many temples, one in every village.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has said. (break)

Vipramukhya: . . . bring Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the people, they don't have to travel long distances to the temples.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) . . . fast, these birds. Aeroplane cannot do that.

Lokanātha: How do they decide the direction and they turn all together?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Lokanātha: How they turn all together, and how do they communicate each other that, "Yes, let's move out away"?

Devotee: Who?

Lokanātha: The birds.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they have got intelligence. You are thinking that they have no intelligence. They have got complete intelligence.

Lokanātha: They have, but how do they all together decide to either turn right or left or . . .

Prabhupāda: That is intelligence. You do not know that. If you are given aeroplane, so many, you'll immediately . . . at least half a dozen will be finished. (laughter) That means you are less intelligent than the birds, at least in the matter of flying.

Indian man (3): Ek sau hone se plane ek sau saat mei hoyega to hundred hone se bhi full ek hafta lagega unka kaam to wo log . . . hain itna pakka hai agar ek sau plane saat me jayega to aur ek saat ghoomega to ek saat aa jayega. (If there are a hundred planes—if a hundred are together and if there are hundred, then it will take a week. They work . . . this is for sure. If a hundred planes go together and fly together, then they will come together.) (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . you wanted to construct apartment house. Is it possible to do now?

Saurabha: No.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Saurabha: Because we don't have the required garden space yet. We have to break down the huts in the back. There's some hutments there, and unless those are removed, we cannot do any other construction.

Prabhupāda: No. We can make plan including hut, but we can begin.

Saurabha: Then we are short of SFI (FSI). We don't have. All these houses have to be broken down to get more space and also the sufficient FSI to plan the building.

Prabhupāda: But we have got sufficient FSI.

Saurabha: Yes, but we need . . . we require a certain area for garden, and that is not there yet. Minimum garden has to be, and we have about three-quarter of that. So unless you make another garden first, we cannot commence, according to the architects. But maybe with, er, by paying some money in advance, that we promise them that, say, after so much time we will break these houses down, then they may agree, like they agreed on the old house that we had to pay six hundred rupees, and as soon as we break the house down we get six hundred rupees back. Then they know that we will break it down.

Prabhupāda: Which one?

Saurabha: The old house.

Prabhupāda: Oh, old house.

Saurabha: Otherwise they wouldn't allow us to build a temple so close to that place. The same problem is with those hutment. In order to build the building, they have be removed, or we have to promise them that within a certain time we will break them down.

Girirāja: If we keep the garden around the back of the temple and the front. Remember we discussed that?

Saurabha: Yes. We have to . . . but as long as that house is there, we can't do that. The old house is there too.

Girirāja: We've already agreed to remove the old house.

Saurabha: Yes, but one has to have the open area as garden in order to do that.

Girirāja: So in the layout there's room?

Saurabha: Yes, but it's not there yet. You either have to break down the old house or the hutments. So it may be now, because the situation is more favorable, that they allow, that they believe us. Then we can try it. We will make a design for the whole building.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Including that . . . and request them to come to our . . . one of the top floor. And as soon as the building is . . . they'll . . . in this way. (break)

Saurabha: . . . plan, and we make everything to submit to the Municipality, and then we will hear from them what is required, and we will try to do that, whatever they want.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Saurabha: Now there is two things. We can make big apartments, for which most people are anxious actually.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Saurabha: Those apartment buildings. Make them very opulent and big. They want . . . some people told me they like to have apartments of 2,000 square feet for one apartment. It should have four big rooms, a kitchen, everything, very opulent. Like this we can have on one floor two of them. We can have 4,000 square feet on one floor. It is possible.

Prabhupāda: Do that. Do.

Saurabha: And then we make five like this, six, five or six. Then put . . . for those buildings one can get about 150. I think here at least 150 rupees per square foot, minimum. And I think it will . . . by the time we are having it built they'll be more even.

Prabhupāda: So try for that.

Saurabha: Some buildings, it's already 175 in Vile Parle, so that they pay more expensive, too.

Prabhupāda: The tenants will advance money. If you open office they will pay advance. You can go on constructing. If not, we shall take money from Bank of America. (break)

Saurabha: . . . make a parking under the building.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Saurabha: Take this building. Lease parking space under there.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Every one of them like that.

Saurabha: The building will be about big like this, this size.

Prabhupāda: So do it. (break) . . . please come and take prasādam. (kīrtana) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Make a plan here?

Saurabha: This one. The other one is very complicated, with very big . . . it's all wood, very big columns. (indistinct comments by devotees) (end)