Mayapur - Bhaktivinod Thakur House

Across the ganges from the Radha-Madhav temple complex, is Bhaktivinod Thakur's house. When he served as a magistrate, the government offered him a private railway track and a small two boogie train so that he could travel to work and back home conveniently.

We can only imagine how much they wanted him to work as a magistrate... His daily schedule was well-planned and timed. He would sleep a maximum of three hours at night.

The remaining time was spent solving and preparing analysis of cases, reading Srimad Bhagvatam, constructing poetry, worshiping his deities, reading the local newspaper for a bit, eating breakfast and leaving for work, returning in the afternoon, checking mail and replying to letters, evening was spent meeting people who needed to speak with him.

Later he would invite vaishnavas for bhajan and dinner prasad. He is a pure devotee.

We cannot understand how he lived life as a family man, serving in a mundane job, sleeping just a few hours everyday, and still remained absorbed in devotional thoughts all the time. I should learn from him, how to live the perfect grihasta life. His samadhi is in the same place as his home. There is a samadhi mandir, opposite to it is a bhajan hall.

Behind the hall is a stairway to the bedrooms upstairs. One room is for Thakur Bhaktivinode and one room is for Srila Siddhanta Sarawati Goswami Maharaj, his son. The balcony is large outside his bedroom and presents a nice view. I am sure he could see the ganges flowing swiftly from where he stood. The bed has a photo of him on it, and it's difficult for me to imagine how a delicate and beautiful beyond imagination manjari like her took the body of a man and served in her mission here as Lord Chaitanya's servant to spread the Holy Names in this world. Manjari's are twelve year olds who serve in Sri Vrindavan under the guidance of Sri Radhika and her Sakhi's, who are all teenagers.

Pleased with my visit here, I reflected on how I had first read about Prabhupad, then the entire parampara linking him with Lord Chaitanya, and how I had read about Bhaktivinoda Thakur in particular. The bhajan, "Ohe Vaishnava Thakura.." reminded me how the six good qualities automatically develop in a servant aspiring for devotional service by the mercy of a pure devotee like Bhaktivinoda.