Winnipeg to Calgary

July 19, Thursday - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Today is our second day in Winnipeg. We had planned this day as a day of "rest and relaxation" (R&R), while the buses would go to a mechanic to get some maintenance. So we asked our host, Mother Vrinda, for suggestions on the best park to drop everyone off at, with bathroom facilities and large open spaces to play sports. We decided on Assiniboine Park. The yellow greyhound bus went in for maintenance on the jake brake (engine retarder) that helps brake the bus on long downhill grades. The boys' school bus (Garuda 3) dropped everyone off at the park, where most of the youth played "ultimate frisbee," which is basically like playing American Football with a frisbee.



Around 5 p.m., after trying several mechanics, news that the big yellow bus could not be repaired in Winnipeg because the mechanics thought it might take them all weekend to tweak with the jake brakes. So we called ahead and reserved an appointment with some mechanics in Regina (the next city we were heading to after Winnipeg.) Jaya Radhe made sandwiches for everyone for dinner, with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, and some seet sandwiches with peanut butter and jam / jelly.

In the evening, two young Sikh gentlemen found us at the park and talked to us about doing some bhajans. They were very enthusiastic. We told them that we'd be happy to, and they then went home to get their drums and harmonium. When they returned, Bhaktimarga Swami and the bhajaneers on our tour engaged in an enthusiastic Hare Krishna bhajan in the park, with the two Sikh gentlemen playing harmonium and tablas respectively. Afterwards, they thanked us profusely and explained to us that they had little opportunity in Winniepeg to do bhajans like this, with so many young people, and that they had an awesome time. We exchanged contact information.

As we were about to leave, I noticed that the girls' bus septic tank had not been emptied in a while. So decided to empty it myself, into the park toilets. (We have a portable septic tank on each bus that can be rolled to a "dump station" or toilet to be emptied.) As I was about to disconnect the tank I noticed a small leak in one of the hoses. It seemed like the sewage hoses were under pressure. One problem led to another, and the short story is that soon I found myself covered in raw sewage, trying to unclog the bus septic system that was clogged with toilet paper. The sun was setting. The park was closing and we were under time constraints to pack the bus and get out before the gates closed. The Canadian mosquitoes were coming out and nibbling at me from all sides. And here I was, covered in sewage, trying to serve the Vaishnavis by repairing their septic tank. Jai. Haribol. Realizations about the gross-ness of material bodies came to mind. I told some of the boys who were helping me, "this is great service to get rid of your material desires. You'll never look at material bodies the same way again."


July 20, Friday - Regina, Saskatchewan

We drove through the night and arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan, by 5:30 a.m. We parked at a Husky truck stop, filled our bus shower water tanks, and woke up the youth in shifts to take turns in the on-board bus showers. We had spent lots of time and money prior to the bus tour to put in these showers, and today was another opportunity to use them. I asked our bus counselors to continue waking up the youth and getting them ready, and decided to walk to the Regina temple with Bhaktimarga Swami and Rasikananda Prabhu.

Bhaktimarga Swami has been traveling with us for a couple of weeks. He is the Swami who walks across Canada. He's on his third walk and has interrupted it to join our Canadian section of the festival bus tour. Needless to say, sometimes Bhaktimarga Swami feels a bit cramped on our bus and just feels the urge to take a long japa walk and let the buses catch up with him. Especially here in Canada where the "Trans Canada Highway" (TCH) is just one long road across the continent. So Rasikananda and I join him for a japa walk about 5 kilometers to the Regina temple.

We walk on the edge of the road that slants towards the ditch. I ask Maharaja how he deals with walking at an angle for long distances. He acknowledges that it is a problem for his posture and explains that he switches sides from time to time, so he will walk on the right shoulder of the highway, then switch to the left shoulder, back and forth a few times during the day. We chant some Maha-mantra japa (the holy names of Krishna) on our beads, our morning meditation. At some point, we come into the downtown and past a beautiful park that Maharaja says would be an excellent location for Harinama (kirtana) and for festivals.

The conversation turns to how to spread Krishna consciousness throughout Canada. That there are so few cities along this highway. That if we had vibrant, youth-led temples, so many people could benefit from our kirtana and prasadam distribution. Bhaktimarga Swami expresses concern about the old age of the current generation of devotees that lead these temples. Jagannatha Prabhu, the Regina temple president, is in his mid 60s, retired, and some of his children have moved away to more popular cities across the world. How can we inspire our younger generation to take up the missionary work of spreading Krishna consciousness? How can we inspire them to spend time in a place like Regina and develop the university preaching here? We talk about how it takes people of character to live in a place like this which gets extremely cold in the winter (for about 6 months of the year), but is quite pleasant in the summer.

Once all the youth arrive at our ISKCON Regina temple, we serve them breakfast, and then send them to laundromats. Today is laundry day, our weekly opportunity to wash dirty clothes and re-organize our bags. The girls walk to one laundromat, about 7 blocks away. The boys walk to another. Once again, the buses go in for maintenance at the local bus mechanics. Hopefully this time around, the mechanics can repair our jake brake (on the big yellow bus), and the transmission issue on the boys' bus (the school bus, Garuda 3).

While the youth are at the laundromats, the local matriarch, Mother Chintamani, prepares lunch for us in the temple kitchen. Her husband, the temple president, Jagannath Prabhu, meets with me about the details for this evening's hall performance. He is about to be interviewed by the local television news station about the performance. He leaves for his interview. I catch a few minutes of peace and quiet and honor a belated granola breakfast in the back yard. Finally a moment of quiet. I'm all by myself. A rare occasion on the festival tour.

Soon, the youth return from the laundromats and it is time for lunch. They are excited. There were televisions at the laundromat, and all of a sudden, while they were washing their laundry, the news came on and Jagannatha Prabhu was being interviewed. He told viewers that we were an international group of students who traveled across North America to perform Krishna Culture Festivals. That our performers came from places as far away as Venezuela, Poland, Australia, the Philippines, etc. That it would be a delightful cultural presentation with dance, drama, and live music. That everyone should come and that there were only a few tickets left.

After lunch, Bhaktimarga Swami engages us in a thorough run-through of the drama portions of our performance. He works with several of the actors to perfect their moods and expressions during certain scenes. He helps re-write the dialogue of the Jagannath scene to make it flow more naturally and give it more emotional appeal.

Around 4:30 p.m., we get ready to board our buses to head off to our upcoming hall performance, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum Auditorium in downtown Regina. We get to the auditorium around 5:00 p.m., unload the props, costumes, lighting and sound equipment. While the actors and dancers and musicians get ready, Markendeya (lights) and Nitai Prana (sound) and I meet with the venue's sound and lighting technicians to go over the technical equipment needed for tonight's performance. They supply us with six wired microphones. We will use our own wireless headset mics. We set up our own spotlight to give more definition to the actor's faces during the performance.

The Royal Saskatchewan Museum Auditorium seats around 250 people. At around 6:30 p.m., the place starts to fill up. At this venue we are getting a lot of Indian families. Expats who have settled in the Regina area. Jagannatha Prabhu seems to have advertised to the congregation and they seem to have brought their friends. The show starts promptly at 7:00 p.m. Everything goes well during the first half, up until the intermission. I go upstairs to the enclosed technical booth at the back of the auditorium to congratulate the sound and lighting engineers on the good job they've been doing.



During the second half of our performance, however, things take a turn for the worse. The wireless headset mics are feeding back. Nitai is struggling with the gain levels. As the actors walk along the stage, they're hitting "hot spots" that cause instant feedback. During the critical Queen Kunti scene, when all four headset mics are being used at once by the actors, the sound disintegrates to a distorted rumble mixed with feedback squeals. Somehow we make our way through the second half of the performance alive. The forgiving audience gives us a standing ovation, an "A" for effort. I inquire as to why we had so many sound problems during the second half, and am told that apparently the wireless mics had reset themselves to frequencies that conflicted with one another. Live and learn.

As people exit the auditorium, they pass our book table. Some stop to look, and a few people buy some books. Our enthusiastic book distributing brahmachari, Yamuna Jivana Prabhu, strikes up a conversation with the curious onlookers standing around the book table to get their interest. I position myself with a video camera near the exit door to ask a few people to give us some video testimonials on how they liked our performance. Varshana Prabhu, one of our bus drivers, finds her way over to where I am standing. I ask her to help me ask people. She approaches a middle-aged couple, both caucasian (white) looking. She prods to find out what they thought about the content being all about devotional service to Krishna. The husband says that he is from Australia, and that the only reason he came tonight was because one of his friends is into Indian culture and brought him along to see our performance. That usually, this would not be his kind of thing. But, he adds, he enjoyed himself thoroughly. Although he is a skeptic when it comes to religion, he could see the love that these youth had put into this production. He enjoyed the music, the colors, the dancing. He mentions had never seen anything like this before.


July 21, Saturday - Calgary, Alberta - Ratha-yatra

We arrive in Calgary around 7:00 a.m. The two buses pull up at the Talisman Sports Center in downtown. Chaitanya Hari Prabhu, the local youth who helps coordinate the Ratha-yatra festival in this city, meets us in his car. He is paying for us to take nice, hot showers at this sports center. After showing the youth where to go for showers, I head to the back of the big yellow bus where we have a full kitchen set up... with commercial stove, oven, sink, etc. Today's breakfast is oatmeal. I fill one of our 6-gallon stainless steel pots half full with water, bring it to the boil, stir in about one kilo of powdered milk, add a pound of butter, a couple handfulls of salt, a handful of sugar, and then add about 2.5 kilos of rolled quick oats. I ponder the sticky substance, watching it get thicker and thicker as I stir away. The youth are going to be thirsty. We need some lemonade. Quickly I look for some concentrated lemon juice, a bucket, and begin filling it with water from our water filter on the bus' kitchen sink. A half a packet of sugar, some stirring with a large whisk.... and the lemonade is ready. I offer the breakfast... and just I finish offering, the first youth are coming back from the showers. We serve the breakfast next to the buses, in the parking lot.

Calgary Ratha-yatra parade is following a different route this year. We are pulling Lord Jagannatha down the main shopping street, 8th Avenue, which is a pedestrian zone for about five blocks, and then turns into a normal avenue all the way to Millennium Park, where the Festival of India is set up. Our traveling festival tour youth have been asked to lead the kirtana (chanting) procession in front of Lord Jagannatha's chariot. The dancers take up position in front of the kirtana party. The chanters begin to lead an up-beat maha-mantra melody. The dancers swing their bodies back and forth in coordinated steps. Slowly, the auspicious procession moves down 8th Avenue, amidst chain store windows and gawking onlookers...



Calgary is known for its annual rodeo and stampede, and for being the beef capital of Canada. Today Lord Jagannatha is bestowing His sidelong glances on the people of Calgary, bestowing His special mercy. About 300 people are in the procession, pulling the ropes that are attached to Lord Jagannatha's chariot. They call out the Holy Names in call-and-response. The bus tour youth switch kirtana leaders several times, each chanting for about ten minutes. Jahnavi, Amal, Kumari, Kalindi and Rasikananda each lead a portion of the parade kirtana.

Back at the festival site, the "Free Feast" volunteers get ready to receive the crowd. You can hear the parade kirtana approaching in the distance. The organizers bring a local talent on stage to entertain the people who are starting to arrive. I am informed that we are running about a half hour late. By now, the parade is here and most people are lining up for the free feast. I walk around the festival site to gather our performers and ask them to get ready. I find a group of them behind one of the exhibits, in the shade, gobbling down some free food.

We perform the dance drama... DEVOTION. It's a little difficult to use our spotlight in the outdoors, in the middle of the hot afternoon. Markendeya tries his best to light up some of the cast member's faces with our 650-watt ARRI spotlight. (Some of the festival stage set-ups are definitely in need of improvement in regards to lighting.) The performance goes well.

That evening we take down the festival in about one and a half hours. Afterwards, we head to the Calgary temple, obtain darshan of Sri Sri Radha-Madhava, and celebrate Jaya Radhe's birthday (my wife, one of the tour organizers) with ice cream cake. We take rest on the bus bunk beds at around 10:30 p.m. At around 3:00 a.m. the bus drivers wake up and start driving the buses to our next destination.

Tour Diary, First Installment, June 24 - July 18

June 25 - 29, Atlanta, Georgia - ISKCON Atlanta Temple

We started the 2007 summer festival tour with intensive performance rehearsals at the Atlanta temple. For one week, 45 youth from around the world spent the first days of the tour absorbed in auditioning for the various roles in the play, dance and live music band. Mother Anapayini and Balarama Chandra Prabhu are directing the performance this year. They are both experienced and talented actors and we are fortunate to have them on the tour.

This year's performance is a dance drama with live music called DEVOTION. We start the show with an introductory dance and narration that establishes that everything we do in our Krishna culture is an expression of devotion to Krishna. The dancers begin with Pushpanjali dance, followed by mudras that introduce the nine processes of devotional service to Krishna.

Scene 1 (Hearing - Shravanam) depicts the meeting of Maharaja Pariksit and Shukadeva Goswami. Pariksit inquires about the best course of action for a person about to die. Shukadeva Goswami begins to tell Pariksit about the nine processes of devotional service to Krishna.
Interlude: Anapayini acts out mudras over the narration that introduces the next scene.

Scene 2 - (Remembering - Smaranam) depicts how Lord Narasimhadeva defeats Hiranyakshipu and protects Prahlad. We have Mohini from Australia acting as Hiranyakashipu. She (yes, she) blew us away during auditions as having the best stage presence and really giving life to the demon king. And since we have 30 young ladies and only 17 young men on the tour this year, some of the ladies are playing men roles. So far it is working out nicely.

Scene 3 - (Serving the Lotus Feet - Pada Sevanam) depicts Lord Narayana and Lakshmi, who is constantly engaged in serving the lotus feet of the Lord. This scene is performed by the dancers, with mixture of Bharatanatyam elements, mudras, and dramatic expression. Lord Vishnu reclines on His bed of Ananta Shesha, comprised of dancers acting as serpent heads... There is live music of violin, flute, harmonium, dolak and mridanga, and kartals tastefully arranged to accompany the performance.

We decided to use only live music this year to give the performance a boost in class and quality, just like watching a broadway performance with live orchestra. Jahnavi from England (Kripamoya's daughter) plays the violin, Uddhava from Montreal plays the flute, Jaya from Alachua plays the harmonium and sings, Balarama Chandra plays the dolak, Amala Purana (Apurva and Kamalini's son) plays the mridanga, and Anapayini and her sister Komala Kumari sing and play the kartals.

Scene 4 - (Worshiping the Deity - Archanam) depicts the story behind India's oldest festival, Jagannatha Rathayatra. As you will have noticed, these scenes are mini stories in and of themselves and the narration helps to set the scene and establish time, place and circumstance in a way that uninitiated audiences can try to understand. So in this scene, the narration tells the history of India's oldest festival, about King Indradyumna and his quest to see the Lord face to face, which eventually leads to the carving of the Jagannatha Deity. The actors depict how Indradyumna has the Deities carved, of Jagannatha (Krishna), Baladeva, and Subhadra, and Krishna speaks to Indradyumna (voice from the sky) towards the end of the scene to inform him about the special nature of His appearance as Lord Jagannatha.

Scene 5 - (Dasyam - Servitude) depicts Hanuman as the messenger of Rama, who finds Sita and restores her hope that Rama is coming to her rescue. Hanuman is played by a very enthusastic young lady from Hawaii named Sundari. During auditions she was the natural choice for Hanuman and played him very convincingly and with a charm that was irresistible.

Scene 6 - (Sakhyam - Friendship) depicts Krishna instructing Arjuna on the battlefield. Arjuna approaches Krishna as his dearmost friend and asks for advice. Krishna instructs Arjuna about the imperishable nature of the soul, and to do his duty.

Scene 7 - (Offering Prayers - Vandanam) depicts Queen Kunti mourning the loss of Karna, surrounded by the Pandavas and Krishna. She recounts the various clamities that happened to them, and offers beautiful prayers to Lord Krishna. The scene emotionally draws in the viewers as we discover that Karna was her first-born son. By the end of this scene it is hard for people to contain their tears.

Scene 8 - (Complete Surrender - Atma-nivedanam) depicts Bali Maharaja surrendering to Vamanadeva. Bali is played by Balaram Poddar, Radha Jivan Prabhu's son, in a very regal and classy manner. Vamanadeva is expertly portrayed by Komala Kumari. Ganga Prabhu does a good job at portraying the skeptical Shukracharya, with a long matted red haired wig....

Scene 9 - (Chanting - Kirtanam) depicts a short mridanga presentation (Manipuri style) followed by Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda appearing on the scene with a kirtana party and dancers. Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda explain the significance of chanting the Holy Names and begin a melodious, choreographed stage kirtana.


June 30, Saturday - Prabhupada Village, North Carolina

Our first performance in Prabhupada Village in front of a test audience of senior devotees and some guests was well received. One senior Prabhupada disciple approached me and said he was very, very upset. I responded, "Oh no, what have we done to offend you?" And then he told me that he was upset because he was crying the entire duration of the play and his tears were getting in the way of being able to watch the performance. Naturally we take these comments with a grain of salt. Devotees are trying to praise us and make us feel good. But it shows that the many hours of rehearsals have paid off... that people's emotional strings are being pulled by this performance and they feel moved after watching it. A couple of guests new to Krishna consciousness approached us and mentioned that they were completely amazed. And we're, like - great! That is what we wanted to achieve. Amaze people with the amazing colors, music, dance, and Krishna culture stories from the Bhagavatam.

We have several important hall / auditorium programs booked for this summer and so performance rehearsals intensify as we try to make the presentation better and better. We are trying to put on mini Krishna Culture Festivals at hall programs in between the Ratha-yatra weekends. In Toronto, for example, devotees have booked a prestigious 500-seat theater for us, where people are coming to see us and are paying $62 per seat (for front and center), and $42 for other seats. There is an orchestra pit and everything. We are also scheduled to be performing in auditoriums at Lakehurst University in Thunder Bay, Royal Saskatchewan Auditorium in Regina, Ashcroft Opera House, Boise State University Auditorium, Ferst Theatre for Arts at Georgia Tech University, and two back-to-back performances at theaters in Miami.


July 1, Sunday - Prabhupada Village, North Carolina

After some deliberation, we decided to cut our upcoming camping trip short and spend an extra day in Prabhupada Village, where Dravinaksa and I have electricity to continue making last minute fixes to the bathrooms on the buses. Shower water lines are being hooked up, PVC pipes are being glued, sinks are being installed, etc. A local devotee plumber named Ranchor helps us.

After breakfast, a devotee couple, Chitra and her husband Mathura along with their 2-year old son, Devavrata, invite us to participate in a hands-on seminar on how to help build their house out of cobb - a mixture of straw, clay, and sand. Happily we accept this unusual invitation and send the boys down the hill to dig in the cobb mixture and pound it with their feet, and apply it to the foundation of their house. The girls go swimming to the local pond. Halfway through the day, we switch. The boys go swimming and the girls help build the cobb house. Later that day we participate in the Sunday feast program.


July 2-3, Monday - Tuesday, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

We camp for two days at Shenandoah National Park to give the youth some time to relax and rest. We go on a couple of hikes to waterfalls, spend some time around the campfire in the evening singing bhajans and eating campfire baked potatoes. Tuesday night we drive to Washington DC.


July 4, Wednesday, Washington D.C. Ratha-yatra and Independence Day Parade

Washington DC Ratha-yatra is our first for this summer's tour. So the youth are introduced to the various services they will perform at the festivals. In rotation, teams of youth staff the Free Feast tent, the Questions and Answers tent, the book tables, and the Prasadam-for-sale tent. Our youth provide the bulk of the entertainment for the Ratha-yatra festival, and, as it turns out, the bulk of devotee presence at the festival. Except for a brief dance performance by Vrinda, and some filler music by Sankarshan Prabhu with his keyboard, our bus tour youth led Kirtanas at the beginning and end of the festival on the main stage, and peformed DEVOTION during prime time in the middle of the afternoon.

The microphone situation didn't work out so well in DC at our first open-air performance. The wireless microphones we had just bought for $2,000 dollars were equipped with clip-on lapel mics, that were not close enough to the actors' mouths and caused feedback and picked up a lot of wind. Made note to self to stop by B&H (music store) in NYC and inquire as to solutions to this.

At about 5:00 p.m., a severe thunderstorm rolled in and the police asked the crowds to take shelter in the nearby museums. The boys stayed behind with Madhuha Prabhu to protect the festival tents, exhibits, stage and sound equipment. As the storm intensifies, we hurriedly take down the exhibits and stack them flat on top of each other, and climb up the tents and take down the various banners that are acting like sails, catching the wind. Then we gather under the main tent and have Maha-mantra Kirtana while Indra and his rain clouds put on a grand performance, washing away the sins of the capital city of the US. (We are set up right in front of the US Capitol building - quite an amazing location for Lord Jagannatha's Ratha-yatra festival.)


July 5, Thursday, New York City (ISKCON 26 2nd Ave and ISKCON Brooklyn)

This morning we arrive in New York City with our bright yellow greyhound bus, and the orange school bus, dubbed Garuda 2 and Garuda 3 respectively. We take our showers at ISKCON Brooklyn temple. After taking darshan of Sri Sri Radha-Govinda, we hurry across the Manhattan bridge to 26 2nd Avenue, where H.H. Radhanatha Swami and H.H. Jayadvaita Swami join us for a late morning program, kirtana, and discussion.





Afterwards we head on a blissful Harinama to Tompkins Square Park, where Jayadvaita Swami shares significance of this holy tirtha where everything began. This is the spot where Srila Prabhupada would come and sit under a tree, play a bongo drum, and hold kirtana in the early days of the movement in the West.




In the afternoon, the youth break up into teams with chaperones and go sight-seeing and shopping around NYC. I personally took the subway to B&H Photo Video, the big electronics superstore, to figure out the micorphone situation and get some sort of headworn, skin-color microphones that would work better for outdoor performances. After several hours of consultation and sorting through the best of what is available, I walk out with four head-worn over-the-ear microphones that professional performers use in outdoor situations, as well as with one stage spotlight / flood light, that will serve to illuminate the performance a little bit, and give it some brightness, some sparkle. The total for our wireless stage microphones thus far adds up to $4,060 on my credit card without any budget to cover this additional expense. Time to talk to Krishna and ask Him to inspire some donors to come forward and help make this festival tour happen.

Many times on this tour we come into a situation where we have to spend money that we do not have in our budget and we throw our hands up in the air and have to depend on Krishna:

"My dear Lord Krishna, You are the husband of the Goddess of Fortune, and if it is Your desire, please send the laksmi needed to carry on this festival tour, which is meant to glorify you and your devotees."

Unbudgeted Additional Expenses Thus Far:

$4,060 for wireless microphone systems and one stage spot light.


$13,000 needed for sponsoring individuals who are essential to making the festival tour a success.

Our expenses for the tour are budgeted very tightly and then divided between the youth participants. Our budget for this summer tour is $89,000. Every bunk bed counts. The above individuals do not have the resources to pay for their bunk beds on the buses but are essential to make the summer tour happen. If you're interested in sponsoring someone, I'll gladly send you the list of their names. Contact me at bustour2007@krishna.com.

July 6, Friday evening. ISKCON Montreal temple.


We arrived in Montreal (360 miles from NYC) on Friday evening, at around 8 p.m. Upon arrival, we were greeted by enthusiastic local devotees who handed us a box with about 2000 invitations to the Ratha-yatra festival, asking us if we would mind going out on Harianama and distributing the invitations so that people would come to the festival the next day.

After some consultation with the bus tour organizing team members, we rounded up the youth and tried our best to give an inspirational speech to encourage them to go on a late-night Harinama in downtown Montreal... that went something like this. (We took the big box of invitations and dropped it into the circle, inbetween the huddle of youth and said...)

"Here are nuggets of love of Godhead that have yet to find their way into the hands of the people of Montreal. Right now there is a Jazz Festival going on in Montreal, and there are hundreds and thousands of people in the streets. We want to give out each one of these invitations so these people come to the Ratha-yatra festival tomorrow. ... I know it's late. I know you're tired. But..."

And that is all we had to say. The youth on the tour this year are especially sweet. So many of them were enthusiastic to go on the late night Harinama that Bhaktimarga Swami agreed to come along. We filled the two buses with our youth and some local devotees and packed in as many mridangas and kartals as we could find (both our own and the temple's) and then headed to Saint Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, right into the heart of the Jazz festival crowd.




Within an hour we had distributed all the invitations. The kirtana kept on going. The dancing intensified. We took over the courtyard of a large cathedral. People gathered around us and watched. Lots of people asked questions. One person asked Toshan Krishna Prabhu's son, Govinda, "How do I become a Hare Krishna? No.. I am really interested. Please tell me." Niladri was preaching incessantly in French, which she had been learning in college. (The people of Montreal are French speaking....).




After the Harinama, the youth had a lively kirtana on the buses all the way back to the temple. There's something about going out on a limb for Krishna. It definitely seems like He reciprocates. He gives us a glimpse of a taste for chanting His names.


July 7 - 8, Saturday - Sunday, Montreal Ratha-yatra

Saturday morning we performed a run-through of the dance-drama performance in the temple room with H.H. Bhaktimarga Swami watching, to give us his feedback on how to improve the production. At 11:30 we boarded the buses to head downtown for the Ratha-yatra parade of Lord Jagannatha. This year the parade went down a different route, Avenue du Parc, but passed by the old temple. There were two carts. One for Lord Jagannatha. One for Srila Prabhupada. The carts and devotees stopped in front of the old temple for about 10 minutes to pay hommage, and an ecstatic kirtana ensued.

We performed our second outdoor performance of DEVOTION here in Montreal at the Ratha-yatra festival in Jeanne Mance Park. It was the first time we tried the new headworn, over-the-ear microphones I had purchased from B&H Photo Video in New York. After following the simple instructions for setting up several wireless mics on separate frequencies, and some adjustment of the ear-pieces, the actors were on their way. The sound was much improved. FINALLY we could hear the actors on an outdoor stage without feedback and interference. My faith in wireless mics was restored. Now, Krishna, please kindly inspire someone to sponsor the $4,060 for these wireless microphones.

After the performance, the youth (still dressed up in full play costumes) went around the crowds and collected donations amounting to $555 Canadian dollars. Our bus driver noted that this was very nice and that this amount would cover our next tank of gas. These days one tank of gas for the yellow greyhound bus costs about that much.

On Sunday we again perform during the afternoon at the festival site, and then in the evening, help take down the festival along with the Festival of India crew and Madhuha Prabhu.

We're about to leave when we try to start the yellow greyhound bus that the girls are using for the tour... we turn the ignition swith and nothing happens. Nothing at all.


July 9, Monday - Still in Montreal.

We assume the batteries are dead. We pull up the second bus, our trusty school bus that the boys are using. We connect jumper cables between the two buses and attempt to charge the much larger batteries of the greyhound bus. Hours pass. Evening turns into night. Night turns into day. By 6:00 a.m., the bus still won't start. We call MCI (the manufacturer of our greyhound bus) and they send a local mechanic to our rescue.

The mechanic arrives and has his assistant use a hammer on the starter block in the engine compartment. "Whack it hard with the hammer," the mechanic tells his assistant in French. After a few whacks, and some help with ethanol starting fluid, the bus coughs up black smoke and begins to churn the engine belts. Gradually it comes back to life. The mechanic says that our starter has gone bad. We follow him to the repair shop. On the way, Dravinaksa Prabhu (our main bus driver) attempts to switch on the air conditioning. This causes the bus to turn off and stop in the middle of the road. The mechanic, who is leading the bus with his vehicle ahead of us, turns around and comes tour rescue again. He fiddles with the cables. He bangs on the starter. He tries to drive the bus himself to figure out what is wrong. The bus stops again. He tightens the connections on the batteries, and it seems to be alright from here on. He now says that we don't have a bad starter, but that the connections on our batteries were loose. He sends us on our way after we pay him $125 for his services. Hmmmmm.... If all that was wrong was a loose cable connection on the batteries, why did he have to whack the starter with a hammer in the morning to get the bus started? Something doesn't add up. For now, we're happy that things are working again.

Our greyhound coach bus is already 15 years old. The school bus is six years old. By the time we finish paying off the loans on these used buses, we will need new ones. Sometimes people ask us how we cover the expense for this tour... how we pay for the buses, etc. The answer is one donation at a time. One sponsorship at a time. We still owe about $41,000 on these older, used buses. Gradually, year after year, we collect donations and pay off the buses.



Nobody gets paid to do this tour. Everyone contributes and pays to come the tour, to help render devotional service all summer long. And that's the way we like it. We are attempting to serve Lord Jagannatha from our heart, with devotion, not expecting anything in return.

Anyhow, today, after the early morning episodes of the yellow greyhound bus not starting, we hear that there is some transmission problem on the school bus. Premanjana reports that as he was driving, the transmission would get stuck in a particular gear and revv up to 2700 rpm without switching into the next higher gear. Not good. As we speak, Premanjana and Dattatreya are on the phone to Detroit Diesel Allison dealers in the Montreal area, trying to find someone who will look at our school bus transmission to see if it is okay.

The fun begins. We're two weeks into the festival tour and already both buses are refusing to work properly, once again, one starter motor and one transmission at a time. A continous test of patience and faith. Meanwhile, trying to keep 45 youth happy and on track, Bhaktimarga Swami continues intensive play rehearsals drawing out acting skills from our untrained, non-professional talents, and in a few hours from now we will be heading to the Olympic Swimming Pool for some much needed R&R.


July 10 - Tuesday - Canoeing at Silver Lake, Ontario

Today we're at Silver Lake, one of the many lakes in the province of Ontario. It's about halfway between Montreal and Toronto, not far off the main highway. We have a morning program and after breakfast, get into study groups to read various Prabhupada's books. Some are studying Teachings of Lord Chaitanya. Others Nectar of Instruction. Others join a Bhagavad-gita study group, facilitated by His Holiness Jayadvaita Swami. After lunch, we rent some canoes and most of the youth paddle out onto the lake. In the evening we get together again for dinner and then head out on the road again. It's an overnight drive to our first big hall performance of the tour, in a Toronto suburb called Mississauga. The young men fall asleep on their bunk beds on the men's bus after a long day of physical activity.


July 11 - Wednesday - Performance at Meadowvale Theater, Mississauga, Toronto

We're nervous. This is an important hall program on the summer tour this year. People are paying up to $62 per seat to come and see us perform a show on bhakti / devotion to Krishna.
We arrive at the theater in the middle of the afternoon and are soon greeted by the technical supervisor and the lights operator, who give us the guided tour. There are five changing rooms, each with individual chairs, dressers, mirrors and lights for each performer, and with showers and toilets attached to each changing room. Wow. When our young performers enter the changing rooms their faces light up with smiles. Nadia squals with excitement. She is one of the Bharata-natyam dancers and has never had this nice of a facility to get ready in. They cannot believe it. It seems just like what you would expect to find in a high quality Hollywood movie studio.

The technician shows us the main stage, which is larger than anything we've ever performed on. Several layers of curtains. An orchestra pit. Front, center, side, and balcony seats dot the auditorium in front of the stage. The sound system consists of a 64-channel Allen & Heath mixer, 8 wireless mics, up to 56 regular mics... (wow) and when we go into the lights control room, we have so many lights and options to choose from, it becomes difficult for our lighting operator, Markendeya, to keep track of what each button and fader does. Eagerly he marks the most important light faders with masking tape and writes a description on each.

The performers get ready for the show. The local devotees who have organized and promoted this program come to speak with us and make sure we have everything we need. They bring prasadam for the youth. Promptly at 7:00 p.m. the show begins.

A local devotee dance troupe from ISKCON Toronto opens with a 10-minute performance of theirs that they have been rehearsing for the upcoming Ratha-yatra festival. Then our troupe begins. The lights dim. The live music begins. Accompanied by the sounds of live flute, violin, dholak, kartals and harmonium, Anapayini announces the show: "Welcome to Devotion..."
The dancers enter. The lights fade up. The show begins.

I'm videotaping the performance for posterity. Apart from a few glitches with the live sound (short bursts of feedback when a person gets too close to a speaker with their wireless headset microphone), the performance goes well. We've survived our first big show. The audience is mostly Indian bodied. About 300 people fill the auditorium.

After the performance, the guests exit the auditorioum into the foyer, where they are greeted by our performers and where local devotees begin to serve out plates of a vegetarian prasadam feast. Each guest receives a plate. And there are several tables filled with Srila Prabhupada's books displayed prominently in the middle of the reception / foyer hall.

I overhear some of the feedback that the guests are giving the youth. Professor O'Connel was in the audience. He comments on the sincere devotion that he saw within these young actors. Several older Indian ladies hug the girls and compliment them on their beautiful costumes and dancing. After some time as the crowd disspates, we clean up and then go back to the buses to celebrate our first successful hall performance of the season with all-you-can-eat ice cream.


July 12 - Thursday - Niagara Falls

We do the tourist thing and visit nearby Niagara Falls, in the spot where Lake Erie drains into Lake Ontario. They're not the tallest falls -- there are 500 falls taller than Niagara -- but they are voluminous, magnificent. 36 million gallons of water per minute flow across this waterfall that streches for about 600 feet on the Canadian side, then flows around an island and falls another 200 or so feet of a giant sheet of water on the American side (the falls are right on the border between the US and Canada.)

We take the youth on the "Journey Behind the Falls" tour. We get complimentary rain coats and descend down an elevator to a tunnel behind the falls, which has openings that allow you to peek out at the falls from behind to see a blinding sheet of thick, white water falling like torrential rains, rumbling, pounding loudly past the opening in the tunnel wall. We continue along the tunnel to an outlook platform right beside the falls, where we realize the importance of the complimentary rain coats we received earlier. The spray from the falling water covers us from head to toe. There are gusts of wind billowing at us from the falling water, mixed with spray that covers any camera lens in seconds. Some of our youth attempt to take a picture of us standing in front / at the base of the falls.

We head back to the buses for dinner, cooked by our faithful cook for this part of our journey, Shyamanada Prabhu from Ireland. On the way, we walk past an Indian food store and some of us enter. Soon the entire bus tour youth are crowding into the storefront. The Indian lady greets us with enthusiasm. We see Limca, Thumbs Up, and Frootie juices in the refrigertated section. Mangoes are $7 per case. We buy miscellaneous items and strike up a conversation with the Indian shopkeeper lady. She is a Jain, but her brother is a Krishna devotee. The family travels to the "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" (ISKCON) temple in Toronto every few months. She says that they have sponsored the Sunday Feast three times. She inquires about where we are all from and is amazed to see so many people from around the world, from different countries and different backgrounds taking up her Indian Vaishnava culture. She says that she has visited our ISKCON temple in New Vrindavan twice, and that both her and her husband are enamoured by that place. They look forward to going there again for a weekend, away from the hustle and bustle of their busy lives running an Indian grocery store / Asian food mart in a predominantly white tourist town of Niagara Falls.

Later, while we are sitting around our buses eating dinner, an Indian gentleman pulls up in his jeep. He had seen the writing on the side of our bus, "Hare Krishna Youth Ministry", and was offering his services. He asks if we need anything and is willing to make runs to the local supermarket to help us improve our dinner.


July 13 - Friday - Toronto

Today is laundry day. And it is also a very busy day at the ISKCON Toronto temple, as the local devotees run about the place, making last-minute preparations for the Ratha-yatra festival. The coordinators for the temple services are local youth who have grown up in the Toronto community, headed by Keshava and Vrindavan Vinodini Prabhus.

We're asked to help with Ratha-yatra preparations. In rotating shifts of 15 young people, we help peel and cut about 20 large bags of potatoes (the 50 lbs kind that are almost as tall as a person). Then we mince ginger, chop fresh coriander, and load the trucks that will transport food and dry goods to Centre Island where the two-day weekend Ratha-yatra festival will be held.

While some are peeling potatoes, some are loading trucks, and others go to do their laundy at the nearby laundromat. At around 8 p.m. we board our big yellow bus for Harinama in downtown Toronto. We're joined by Their Holinesses Bhakti-bhringa Govinda Swami, Bhaktivaibhava Swami, and Bhaktimarga Swami. I end up driving the yellow bus back and forth twice to transport more devotees. I'm told the Harinama was warmly received. There were certainly lots of people in the streets on a Friday night in downtown Toronto, on the square of Younge Street and Dundas. One devotee commented that the people of Toronto are so much more friendly and receptive than those we had encountered in New York City.


July 14 - Saturday - Toronto Ratha-yatra

At 7:00 a.m. I help Dravinaksa Prabhu get our big bus onto the ferry to Centre Island. We usually park the big bus on the island, at the festival site during the two-day event. It holds all of our performance gear, and serves as changing room and repose for the youth. Around 10:00 a.m. I take the passenger ferry back across the water to Toronto, and am joined by Shammy, a local youth who grew up in the ISKCON Toronto community and is now a manager at Monster.ca (the job placement website.) We talk about preaching on the Internet. I share my experiences of working at Krishna.com. He tells me about his work in sales, marketing and advertising on Monster.ca. We talk about branding the Ratha-yatra festival / Festival of India / Festival of Chariots. One of the names we came up with on the ferry ride was "K-Fest" with the subtitle "Krishna Culture Festival" as a catchy title to market the festival to a non-Hindu audience. We envision large posters advertising the festival all over Toronto.

Soon we re-enter the bustling world of bay-side Toronto and catch a Taxi cab back to the temple. The taxi driver, an older Canadian gentleman in his 50s, shares his woes about driving a taxi and that he is retiring soon. He says he used to live next door to Hare Krishnas in the 70s and that he has seen a few of our Ratha-yatra festivals on Yonge street.

Back at the temple on Avenue Road, the devotees are getting ready to walk to the start of the Ratha-yatra parade, at the intersection of Yonge and Bloor streets. We all head over there on foot... about a 2-round japa walk.

Toronto's Ratha-yatra parade is one of the largest in North America. It is promoted in the major Toronto newspapers weeks in advance. We are joined by several hundred guests in pulling the three chariots of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra. The youth lead the kirtana in front of Lord Jagannatha's chariot throughout the 2-hour parade, which ends at the ferry docks on the bayside. I take lots of video footage of the youth dancing and leading the parade kirtana, as well as the crowd reactions along the sidewalk, who watch the parade intently.

The bus tour organizers carry walkie-talkies, synchronized on channel 11 (family radio band frequency). We pick up the conversation of some local tourists on the same channel, who are apparently watching the parade. They radio each other. "Hey, did you see that?" - "Yeah!' - "It's better than the gay pride parade..." - "Yeah!"

Hmmm. Not sure if that was a compliment or not.

After the parade, all the youth gather quickly to lign up at the ferry ticket counters to be ahead of the flood of people rushing to Centre Island for the rest of the festival. We buy group tickets and catch the next available ferry. We arrive on the island about 20 minutes later, and rush over to the Festival of India site to get ready for our performance. Actually, most of us rush to the free feast tent first to get something to eat before getting ready for the peformance.

We're supposed to perform on the open stage at about 2:45 p.m. By 2:00 p.m. it starts to rain. The rain turns into showers. The sky is grey with rain clouds in all directions. We ask Keshava about the weather forecast. He checks his Blackberry PDA. Bad news. Rain for the rest of the day. We head over to the covered stage (under a large tent) to see if we can re-arrange the stage performance schedule to fit the youth in on the covered stage. Keshava Prabhu works his magic. Somehow or other he squeezes time and cuts short some of the other acts to squeeze us in. We perform at around 5:30 p.m. to a packed tent (a captive audience trying to get out of the rain.)


July 15 - Sunday - Toronto Festival of India on Centre Island

Today is the second of two days of the Festival of India on Centre Island, in Toronto. Not a cloud in the sky this morning. The boys stayed on the island last night to guard the festival site, without incident. We woke up early and took our showers at a small shower stall on the other side of the little river that passes by the festival site.

This morning H.H. Bhaktimarga Swami is performing initiations in front of Lord Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra. Shammy, the boy who works for Monster.ca and shared with me his ideas about marketing and promoting Festival of India, becomes Savya Sacin Dasa. Darshan Doug from Winnipeg becomes Daruka Dasa. Jagannatha Puri Dhama Dasa from the Festival of India crew gets second (brahmin) initiation. A handful of other devotees got initiated but I do not remember all of their names.

Bhaktimarga Swami lectures on the responsibilities of taking initiation into ISKCON. He quotes the first purpose of ISKCON as established by Srila Prabhupada, to systematically propagate the Krishna consciousness movement. He encourages the new initiates to take this mission to heart and try to give Krishna to others in a way that is pleasing to the public.

I see Mother Vishakha sitting near the Free Feast tent. I take the opportunity to speak with her about our upcoming visit to Sharanagati Farm community, 4 hours northeast of Vancouver. We discuss the plans for various devotees to host the youth for meals, and activities to do during the day, including a "barn raising"... helping a local devotee build his home.

Mother Vishakha comments on the fact that we have about 95 percent Indian bodied people at the Festival of India... about 10,000 people on each of the festival days. She points out that there are about 95 percent non-Indian people walking past the festival site - but they are not coming in and joining in the festivities. Hmmm... yes. We talk about that for a few minutes. Again the discussion turns to branding and marketing Festival of India in such a way as to make it attractive to a non-Hindu audience.

We perform again today, the entire 1.5-hour production of our dance drama, DEVOTION. Festival of India crowds are fickle. After the first couple of scenes, the chairs are filled. The space in front of the chairs, between the stage and the first row of chairs, is filled with children and their parents... eagerly looking up at the bus tour actors and dancers. The second scene portrays Hiranyakashipu arguing with his son, Prahlad, about the existence of God. Suddenly Nrsimhadeva appears. The kids shriek. It's confirmed. We've got a good play :-)

After the performance, two well-dressed Indian men come to see us behind the stage. One of them is introduced to us as the Hindu Council leader of Pakistan, and member of the Pakistani parliament. He hands us his business card - he seems legit. He invites us to tour Pakistan next year, all-expenses-paid. We talk about the challenges of preaching Krishna consciousness and "Hindu Dharma" in Pakistan. Some time later he proposes to marry one of our 17-year old dancers and take her back with him. We lose all respect for the man. There go our short-lived hopes of touring Pakistan.

At about 5:00 p.m. we all help take down the festival. By 7:30 we're done.


July 16 - Monday - Serpent River, Ontario

We take a pit-stop at a beautiful nature spot halfway between Toronto and Thunder Bay. It's a rest area on the side of Highway 17 called Serpent River. As the name suggests, a river runs around the back of the rest area, through luscious mixed forest of pines and deciduous trees that covers this part of Ontario. The river cascades over a natural rock slide, which the youth soon discover and utilize to its fullest extent.

First though, we have a morning program by the side of the river with our bus tour Gaura Nitai deities and His Holiness Jayadvaita Swami. It's an open question-and-answer session. Any Krishna consicous topic is game. The youth have a chance to ask about anything that's on their mind. Any doubt or question they may have about our philosophy. This morning's topic seems to revolve around kirtana standards. What should be the mood of a person leading kirtana? How did Srila Prabhupada lead kirtana? Interesting discussion ensues. ... "What's wrong with singing certain songs if we are having fun doing so?"

The day is spent by the river, relaxing. Again, some of the youth break up into their reading / study groups to read through the various books by Srila Prabhupada that they have chosen to read during the bus tour. Some help prepare the meals. Others help clean up afterwards. That evening we depart for Thunder Bay, anticipating another important hall performance coming up at Lakehead University.

It's a six-hour drive through the night, along a winding Highway 17 with nary a town in between. Just long stretches of forest and a few hills as we make our way around the eastern perimeter of Lake Superior. We notice that it never quite gets dark this far north of the equator. There's always a shimmer of light in the north, it gets a little darker by about 10:00 p.m. and begins to get light at around 4:00 a.m. By the time the sun rises at 6:36 a.m. it has already been daylight for a couple of hours. A strange phenomenon for all those of us who are not used to these long days in the northern summer. For instance, you'll be driving down the highway in daylight and feeling really tired and you'll look at your watch and it's 9:30 in the evening. But the intensity of the daylight makes you feel like it's in the middle of the day.


July 17 - Tuesday - Thunder Bay - Performance at Lakehead University

This morning we arrive at a campsite in Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park, just outside the city of Thunder Bay, on the northwestern edge of Lake Superior, in the province of Ontario, Canada. The falls are billed as the "Niagara of the North." They are not as impresive as the real Niagara Falls, but still reflect a spark of Krishna's splendor. We are greeted by Premkishor Prabhu, the devotee doctor who lives here and who has arranged and promoted our hall program at Lakehead University. He brings with him lots of bhoga for us to cook for the youth, as well as for the hall program tonight.

We have another morning program with H.H. Jayadvaita Swami, and some more enthusiastic discussions. This time the youth ask questions such as why we don't eat chocolate, why certain foods like onions and garlic are in the mode of ignorance, etc.

The bulk of the day is taken up with drama rehearsals, bus cleanup, and preparing the prasadam for the hall program this evening. We plan on distributing prasadam to all the guests who come to see our performance.

By about 4:00 p.m. we drive to Lakehead University. We're performing at Bora Laskin Auditorium, in the same location we've performed last year. It's an average size auditorium, seating about 300 people. Prem Kishor Prabhu has promoted the event as a charitable benefit to help raise funds for the local cancer research foundation. Because of this tie to a charitable cause, the local newspaper has been sponsoring a quarter-page color advertisement for the show for the past five weeks. He's charging only $10 per seat, and hopes to fill the auditorium. Here's an example of how one man in a remote city can rent a hall, promote the event, and do so in his spare time, without much effort.

In the end, over 200 people show up for the event. The newspaper advertisements have generated enough interest to almost fill the hall to full capacity. To our surprise, they're not Hindus nor Indian bodied. The hall fills with mostly caucasian descendants of the Scots who settled this area of Canada. Students. Teachers. Parents. Along with some native "First Nation" people, many of whom live in the Thunder Bay area (the Canadian counterpart to what we call Native Americans in the US.)

About five minutes before the show I meet with our volunteer sound engineer, Nitai Pran Prabhu, and go over the importance of trying for 99 percent perfection in making the live sound and microphones sound as good as possible... to avoid mistakes such as forgetting to switch on certain wireless mics with performers who have only one or two lines of dialogue. He reassures me he'll try his best.... and lo and behold... the performance goes well and the sound is almost perfect.

As the guests come out of the performance into the lobby, we greet them and hand them plates of delicious prasadam that we have cooked for them, with the help of Shyamamanda Prabhu. Pakoras with tomato chutney, roasted nut halavah, and mango nectar drink. They're again presented with a book table filled with Srila Prabhupada's books, staffed by Bhaktimarga Swami's assistant, Yamuna Jivana Prabhu.

I'm especially eager to get feedback from the "white" audience about our cultural performance all about various expressions of devotion to Krishna. I wait outside the main door of the venue, with a core team of three others who help me ask people as they come out what they thought about our performance. We didn't get much out of the ordinary. It seems that most people genuinely liked it.

"I loved the dance."

"The dancing was fantastic."

"The food... I really liked the food."

"What do you call that drum that you were playing? I really enjoyed the drumming segment."

One native ("first nation") lady remarked how she came because she was attracted by the title of our show, DEVOTION. She was a practicing spiritual healer who supposedly travels on the astral plane... and she says that when she does so, the sound of our kirtana on stage is what she hears at that time... and she was instantly attracted by the devotion and natural spirituality that our youth supposedly carry with them.

Another lady, age 30, who teachers at a local Waldorf school, inquired how she could join the festival tour next summer. She said that she just felt overwhelmed by the happiness that these youth expressed, and she could think of nothing better to do with her summer than to travel with us.

One caucasian couple expressed hesitation to comment on any of the acting, but diplomatically commented that "the dancing was good," giving me the sense that the play portion of the performance was a little too "preachy" for this family, since every scene revolved around devotion to Krishna. It may have been that they were devout Christians and were a little surprised by our heavy focus on devotion to Krishna.

Overall, all the people we asked gave encouraging, positive comments. Next time maybe it would be good to have someone who seemingly seems neutral and not connected to our performance to ask the same questions, and get some more constructive feedback.


July 18 - Wednesday - Winnipeg

Today we're in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the longitudinal center of Canada, and the windiest city in North America. We shower at the downtown YMCA, and head to Mother Vrinda's house for breakfast and planning the day's activities. Mother Vrinda has been hosting a temple in her home in this part of Canada for many years. She cultivates a small congregation whom she has invited for a kirtana / dance party in her back yard this evening, to mingle with all of us.
After breakfast, the big yellow bus goes into service at a local bus repair place. We're attempting to fix an issue with the low air pressure warning buzzer signal not coming on when it is supposed to.

At noon time we go on a Harinama through the busy section of downtown Winnipeg. We encounter many office workers sitting outside the office buildings eating their lunch packs. They look at us incredulously. I see a lot of blank stares. I often wonder what people must think about us when we go out on Harinamas in places that are not used to seeing devotees, and how we can make a positive impression on them.

Towards the end of lunch hour we sit down on a grassy area in a park in front of the government buildings of Winnipeg. We sing maha-mantra melodies in themes. One of our bus tour girls, Gaura Nitai, is feeling homesick. She's from Poland and so we pick Polish Festival Tour melodies and sing several tunes that Sri Prahlad Prabhu has made famous. Parijata sings some melodies from her Hillsborough, North Carolina devotee community. Then Bhaktimarga Swami teaches us a typical Toronto tune. Finally, Maharaja leads us on another Harinama across town as we walk back to Mother Vrinda's house for lunch prasadam. As Maharaja meets people standing in their shop doors, looking out at us, he greets them, says hello, even while he is in the middle of leading the kirtana. Often, if he's close enough, he walks up to the people and shakes their hand... "Hello. How are you?" I like that. Very personal. A way to connect with people on Harinama and break down the barrier of blank stares versus seemingly happy, dancing, chanting youth.

Later that afternoon, the bus tour girls meet with Mother Malati, who is following behind the tour in her own van. She spends about an hour and a half with the girls, discussing how to deal with issues that young women typically encounter in ISKCON. At the same time, the young men spend time with Jayadvaita Swami, who will be leaving the tour tomorrow. The guys talk about guy topics, such as the importance of brahmacari training in order to be a good householder. What's wrong with just having several girlfriends to check out who you're compatible with instead of marrying someone right away. And the importance of the Vanaprastha Ashram to guide the younger generation. Important topics.

In the evening, at 6:30 p.m., we perform a shortened version of our program for the assembled guests that Mother Vrinda has invited. She has built a small stage for us to perform on, in her back yard. The yard soon fills up with guests. The youth shine once again. They are real troopers. Almost every other day they're performing, doing service, etc. The program goes late into the evening, as guests mingle with the youth, ask questions, and take prasadam together.

By about midnight, everyone has gone home, our clean-up teams have cleaned as much as they could, and the youth finally tuck into bed on their respective buses. Tomorrow we'll have a relaxed day in Winnipeg, before heading out further West across Canada.

If you are interested to correspond with us about this tour, or have any questions or comments, please email us:

bustour2007@krishna.com

Preview: Next, we're heading to Regina, Saskatchewan, for a hall program at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. Then we go to Calgary, Alberta, for Ratha-yatra. Then hiking in Banff National Park, whitewater rafting in Golden, and onto Sharanagati Farm near Ashcroft, British Columbia. Stay tuned for more adventures from the 2007 festival bus tour.