Srutakirti Dasa alas Sruto
Srutakirti : In Dallas, during the first week that I was his servant, Prabhupada called me into his quarters after lunch one afternoon. I offered my obeisances, and he said, "Srutakirti, your name is too long. I'll call you Sruto." Srutakirti certainly isn't one of the longest names that Prabhupada gave, but I thought it was wonderful that Prabhupada started calling me Sruto. For the next few days, he would look at me, smile, and say "Sruto." Since I was a totally incompetent and silly little kid, Prabhupada found me amusing and gave me an amusing name. Sruto is a Sanskrit word and a bona fide name. Prabhupada said, "Do you take a nap after lunch?" Whenever Prabhupada asked these kinds of questions, I'd get tense, because I thought it was a test. I had to give the right answer because I didn't want to fail Prabhupada's test. I thought that if I gave the wrong answer I wasn't a good devotee. I considered, "Srila Prabhupada takes naps because he stays up late. Since I don't stay up late I shouldn't take naps," so I said, "Oh, no, Srila Prabhupada, I don't take naps." He said, "Oh, that's very good. I'm an old man, so I have to nap sometimes, like after I eat lunch." It was wonderful. I had no question about what Srila Prabhupada did, but he explained to me why he napped after lunch. Everything he did made you love him more and more. Prabhupada patiently took care of me, instructed me, and even explained his schedule to me. He was amazingly humble. Srila Prabhupada would call me into his room and say, "Can you give me a massage now?" My twenty-four-hour-a-day job was to wait for his bell to ring, but it wasn't that I walked into his room, offered obeisances, and he said, "Let's go, massage time." That wasn't his mood. He would say, "Can you give me a massage now?" In the morning it was, "Can we go on the morning walk now?" Srila Prabhupada had a marvelous way of making us more and more attracted to him. Every word he said endeared us to him.
Reference: Memories Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint - Volume 2 by Siddhanta Dasa
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