Help from friendly muslims & children line up for darsan.
Aurangabad, the capital city of the infamous Aurangzeb, is where he lived for more than fifty years, and it's an important city in Maharashtra. ISKCON has a flourishing center there, and the devotees in jest call the city Gaurangabad. Here a story from last year's marathon.
Bh. Rajiv Puri recalls:
It was Christmas Eve, and holidayers were in Aurangabad were visiting historical sites.
"Why not go to Daulatabad Fort for book distribution?" I suggested.
It was far from the city, but the matajis had confidence and wanted to finish book distribution with a good score. But they had to leave home earlier in the morning than usual. After they finished their routine home chores they were dropped at Ptin-travel Hotel Square, to catch a transport for Daulatabad.
But setting up the stall was not easy; there were lots of troubles. The Archeological Survey of India did not allow them to set up a stall near the fort entrance. They were left stranding with heavy book boxes and nowhere to go. Confused and helpless they prayed to the Lord for help. Suddenly some vendors came to their help. They had stalls in the vicinity of the fort.
"Sir," they said to pacify the ASI Staff manager, "this is a promotional activity for a few days only; kindly allow them."
These vendors were young Muslims, and they turned out to be most helpful and cooperative in all ways. In the mornings they would promptly take the heavy book packages from the transport vehicle and keep them safely in their stalls till the matajis properly set up their stalls. Then they would protect the stall from any visiting ASI officer objecting to it. The whole day they would attract tourists by calling everybody to the stall. They had learned that the ISKCON ladies are called "matajis" and they addressed them like that. Our matajis were thus kept entertained and were never bored, even if there were no visitors at the stall.
Daulatabad is en route to the world-famous Ellora caves, so all the tourists visiting Ellora stop at Daulatabad, both coming and going. There are tourists from all over India and abroad, so the matajis had to keep books in many languages: Bengali, Kannad, Telgu, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujrati. Many foreign tourists stopped at the stall and appreciated the books. Some bought "The Science of Self-Realization."
Many times there were school children, and when the devotees told kids, "Please take some gifts for your parents," many students bought Bhagavad-gita. In between the school staff would call the kids for some activity, but the students would run away and quickly return, as they found ISKCON stall more interesting. The teachers were difficult to preach to, but the kids were more receptive. A girl from a Gujarati school had to run to her teacher's call in the midst of her book stall visit, but she returned afterwards to buy a Gujarati Krishna book for her mother.
One day, in a joking spirit, the vendors asked the students to pay obeisances to the Lord at our stall, where all the books displayed Krishna in many forms. The children immediately formed a line and took turns in taking darshan. This confused the school teachers, who themselves joined the queue and stood to take darshan; some even bought books. Overall there was a good response to the book stall at Daulatabad. The matajis were happy and satisfied, as their efforts had given results. They also learned that it is easier to preach to children.
