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'Swami Circuit' In Life Magazine

Aniruddha Dasa: When Prabhupada first arrived, I got a call from a freelance photographer working with Life magazine in New York City. Since public interest in swamis was growing, Life was doing an article on the 'swami circuit', as they called it. The reporter and photographer had gone to our 26 Second Avenue temple, but Prabhupada was in L.A., so they came to L.A. and a woman reporter interviewed Srila Prabhupada. I sat in on it. Prabhupada first described the mission he was on, but she didn't write any of those things down, which was very typical of reporters in those days. Whenever Prabhupada spoke philosophy, they would gloss over it. They wanted to know why we wore tilak and what was the bead bag and so on. At the time, I was a little confused because I didn't know that reporters were like that. I was anxious to see the article. Not a word of what Prabhupada said was in the article. But they did say that of all the groups that they contacted, the song that we sing, the Hare Krishna mantra, stayed in your head. And they did mention something that Prabhupada said, "The Swami said Lord Krishna descended at such-and-such a time to this planet." The fact that they mentioned Lord Krishna, Prabhupada said, was wonderful. And he said that any sincere person who saw the pictures in the magazine would benefit. There was a wonderful picture of Prabhupada, done with filters to make it more attractive. That was very nice.


Reference: Memories Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint - Volume 3 by Siddhanta Dasa