Why is your son always crying?

Hrimati Dasi: A few days my son became very ill from drinking not so good water, playing with dirt. So he was crying, going after me and pulling my saree. In the morning, I used to get milk from the goshala, warm it up and then cool it down to give him. He was having his tiffin with hot milk that I had to cool down in the room. So we came around past the shower stall. You know, in the first room Hari Sauri and Pradyumna were staying, in the middle Prabhupada, and in the third room I was staying with my children and Arundati was my guest.

Just as we came around, kid crying behind me, pulling my saree, being hungry. Boom! Swing doors came bursting opened, and like Narasimha Deva out of the pillar, here comes Prabhupada. Prabhupada had only a gamcha on, he was just about to take a bath and he was shaving. Half of his face was full of shaving cream and the other half was already shaved. He had a razor in his hand and in the other hand he had a lota with water. And he came bursting out, raising the razor blade, "Why is your son always crying twenty-four hours a day? Can't you take care of him."

I didn't know what to say. I was just standing there. I was just stunned, you know. My feeling, I cannot describe how, his Narasimha Deva form. He is chastising me and my reaction was pretty heavy. But my son stopped crying. Arundati explained to me how Srila Prbahupada would always, if he thought that he was a bit too heavy with the devotee, he would make up for it later.

So later in the day, after shower and everything... I suppose he had gotten his oil massage and he was sitting in the chair just off the veranda. He had no shirt on, just his sannyasi dhoti and one leg was up like this. My son was standing there and looking at Prabhupada and Prabhupada was looking at us. I was just standing there. My son immediately ran into the room, got a flower and gave it to Prabhupada. Prabhupada took it, kind of looked at it, but didn't smell it.

My son went back to the veranda, next to me, to see what Prabhupada's reaction would be. Then again he went into the room and got a book - a book that I had made for him just out of pictures, on cardboard, like contact paper. Little Krishna book that little boy could read just with pictures. He took it from the room and he went and gave it to Prabhupada.

At that point Prabhupada rubbed his head, put his arm around the boy and hugged him like this. Both of them, with Prabhupada having the boy in his arms, looked at the book and, "Who is this?" "This is Krishna." Prabhupada was smiling and laughing interacting with the little boy Raghunatha.

I was looking at Prabhupada and I was almost crying, "How could he make this boy so happy and he made me so happy?" I felt much better. Then he looked at me and said, "Just see now, your son is trying to make friends with me."