It was not unpleasant. When I was living alone, doing everything, it was not unpleasant, very nice. Alone everything I was doing. Rather, I had not so much anxiety for management.

This morning I showed Srila Prabhupada a photo taken of him on the day he accepted sannyasa. He is standing to the right of the photo, a Godbrother seated in the center, and another sannyasi is standing to the left. Prabhupada smiled when he saw it, but he didn't think it was such a good photo. He told me that he had taken sannyasa from the Godbrother in the center, Kesava Maharaja, who was the same age as himself. The other devotee was older and had also taken sannyasa on the same day. It was an opportunity for me to relish Prabhupada's earlier pastimes, which I love to do, and I took as much advantage of it as I could. I asked whether, as Harikesa Maharaja had told me, Prabhupada had been gored by a cow the day before he took sannyasa. Prabhupada laughed and shook his head. That incident he said, had occurred in Delhi in 1956, three years before. Prabhupada was in an amenable mood, and shared a few details of his struggles in the 1950s. He said he was living in Delhi as a vanaprastha. "But my paper was going on, Back to Godhead. In Delhi I was alone. I was doing everything-editing, selling, collecting, cooking." I asked if his Godbrothers were helping in any way. "I did not take. They wanted. I did not like." I asked, "Did you ever think at that time that you would be able to expand or ..." "I was trying to do. It was a struggle at that time. At that time, I lived with some of my Godbrothers, but I did not like, and I left their temple, and I was living alone. Then in Imlitala you know here-Imlitala, Seva-kunja there is my Godbrother's temple. He had a temple in Delhi, Karol Bagh. I left Jhansi and came to Mathura. I lived there for few months. Then I went to Delhi. In this way, here, there." I told him that Akshaya has been reading one of his original India-printed Bhagavatams, the 1.1. "And I was looking at the front and it gives your residence in Vrindavana at Radha-Damodara and your office in Delhi." Prabhupada tipped his head from side to side. "It was not unpleasant. When I was living alone, doing everything, it was not unpleasant, very nice. Alone everything I was doing. Rather, I had not so much anxiety for management." He said that his youngest son, Vrindavan De, had come to live with him. But he had not liked that. "I said, 'No, you don't.' They sent, my family, to go and live with me. He came twice, thrice. The reason is that I asked him, 'If you want to live with me then you have to live with me as sannyasi/ brahmacari." "And he couldn't," I concluded. Prabhupada nodded. "Otherwise, I left home 1950. From '50 to '54 I lived in Jhansi." I had noticed that his old Bhagavatam was published by The League of Devotees, and I had also heard that he started the League in Jhansi. So I asked if that were so. "Hmm," Prabhupada acknowledged. "At that time there were many students. They were not my disciples, but they were coming. Like that Prabhakara" "Yes, Prabhakara Acarya." "He was the head," he said. I asked if he was teaching Vaishnavism, and Prabhupada said yes. "I wanted to start from there. It was very nice, big house. But this K. Munshi's wife tactfully wanted me to ... the Governor's wife. That was a very big house. But he peacefully took it. I could have fought but I did not like." He reiterated what he had told us in Hyderabad: how Mrs. Munshi had put pressure on the building's manager by threatening not to renew a cinema license he held, if he didn't give her the building. "The license has to be renewed from the collector. Collector was insisting that 'You give that house, Lilavati Munshi.' Indirectly. 'Otherwise, your license will not be issued.'" "They didn't leave you very much choice," I said. "I thought, 'I could not do something tangible.' That's a fact. 'somehow or other,' I thought, 'let me go to Vrindavana. What is the use of fighting?' Otherwise, all the big lawyers in Jhansi, they were my friends. They said that 'You not go. We shall arrange.' I thought that 'I have left my home, for this reason I am going to, again litigation. I don't want this house. Let her do something.'" I was still curious as to what The League of Devotees actually was. "Was that some Godbrothers that you joined up with, or was that just ..." "No, after leaving Jhansi I went to this Godbrother," he said, pointing to the photo of Keshava Maharaja. "I lived there for few months. Then I went to another Godbrother, that Imlitala, Delhi. Then I left there. I used to live alone in Delhi. Then I took one house in Kesi-ghata. Then the Radha-Damodara men they called me that 'You can live here. We give you two rooms. We don't charge. We give you the place.' I came to Radha-Damodara. And from Radha-Damodara temple I went U.S.A." "I was just wondering what exactly the League of Devotees was." Prabhupada started smiling. "Oh, League, that was ... I was trying to collect some devotees. Some of them, they were medical students. So they came and used to live with me. But still, I lived there for two years, from 1954 to '56. I had some surgical operation in my testicles there, they were taking care. This Prabhakara and ... They were not full time, they were students, that's all. They were living with me." "But your Bhagavatams," I asked, "it says they were published by The League of Devotees. Does that just mean yourself or there were others?" Prabhupada started laughing. "League of Devotees was my organization. Therefore I gave that name. That League of Devotees-I was alone doing." "But actually it was just you. Oh. I was trying to understand who it could be." Prabhupada went on. "I am everything at that time. There were some students, but they were not any active. I was doing everything. That League of Devotees means I am everything. I wanted to organize with this Prabhakara Misra and others, but they were not interested to devote whole time. They were ... Just like Prabhakara comes still, but if you ask him to do full time work, that he'll not do. Therefore I did not initiate others. He was initiated, Haridasa. But they were all learned scholars, Sanskrit." I asked if any of them apart from Prabhakara still came to see him. "No, they are practicing as medical men. They were medical students. Now they are practicing. Sometime they came, long time it is passed. That was in 1956 or '55. No, '54. So, twenty years past, more than twenty years."