SP recalled how Govinda dasi had also wanted to massage him and how she had cried when he refused because he was a sannyasi.
Just before giving Srila Prabhupada his evening massage, I began to feel a little weak. I went into Prabhupada's room and His Divine Grace took rest. I climbed up by his side on the bed and began to gently massage his legs. Inexplicably, my temperature suddenly began to soar, and within two or three minutes I became so feeble and incapacitated that I could not continue. I had to ask Srila Prabhupada if I could stop and bring in Akshaya prabhu, who was sitting outside the door on guard duty, to finish.
Srila Prabhupada agreed and I brought him in. Since Akshaya had never massaged Srila Prabhupada before, I stayed by his side to instruct him how to do it. Akshaya was willing, but as soon as he clasped Prabhupada's lotus feet and began pressing his soles, Prabhupada exclaimed to me, "Oh, his hands are wet."
I asked Akshaya and he agreed that it was so. He was nervous and his palms were sweaty. So that was it. I had to send him back out to resume his guard duty?an opportunity lost for him, a dilemma for me, and an inconvenience for Srila Prabhupada. I couldn't think what to do. It was nearly 11 o'clock and there were no other devotees around. Then Prabhupada told me, "Why not bring Gaurasundara? He also used to massage me before." Gaurasundara was Prabhupada's personal servant in 1967. He was asleep, and I wasn't sure how he would react, since he hasn't been intimately connected with ISKCON for many years. But as soon as I woke him up, he readily agreed, and within a minute or two he was back in his old position at Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet. Sick as I was, I went back in with him, not because I thought he might need some help or instruction, but because I didn't want to miss the nectar of his reunion with Prabhupada.
As Gaurasundara rendered the massage, Prabhupada happily reminisced about the early days when Gaurasundara and his wife, Govinda dasi, used to serve him as his servant and secretary. Govinda dasi was cooking and transcribing his tapes, Gaurasundara was giving him his massages, and they were both painting and drawing for his books. Prabhupada happily and appreciatively remembered the drawings that were used in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya. They both began to laugh as he recalled how Govinda dasi had also wanted to massage him and how she had cried when he refused because he was a sannyasi.
Prabhupada never forgets someone who has rendered service to him, and he is always eager to re-engage them, no matter what they may have done since. Gaura-sundara himself seems a polite, quietly-spoken fellow, clean shaven with short hair, and he appears to me a little brighter in his countenance than when we saw him in Hawaii in May. This is no doubt due to his regularly chanting sixteen rounds again; devotional service restores the brightness to the spirit soul.
It was a blissful twenty-minute exchange, and then Prabhupada sent us back to our room to retire for the night while he resumed his most important work of the day?his translation and commentating on Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Reference: Transcendental Diary Volume 5 by Hari Sauri Dasa
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