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he maintained throughout his life until the very end. He always travelled with a minimum of personal requirements; usually everything went into a small bag, as he didnt like to collect too many personal possessions and belongings, though he did have a passion for articles which could be utilised in his preaching programme. Yet he was a very generous person, always ready to give things to someone who he considered in need for whatever he had. You just couldnt help but admire his sense of detachment from ownership of the usual ISKCON devotee trappings like expensive watches, sleeping bags, coats etc. You see, often it was a bit of a status symbol to display your new Seiko watch or latest Sony Walkman and Samsonite briefcase to show how successful a collector you were, which of course by todays standards of owning belongings is kind of silly and trivial, but in those days where Western goods were in short supply, it seemed prestigious to be in possession of something that was perceived as being valuable. Tribhuvanath Prabhu considered the only thing of any real value was the chanting of the Holy Names and service to his Spiritual Master Srila Prabhupada. During 1978, I had returned to England, having spent some years stationed in India and previously in Africa; now at the recently acquired Soho Street Temple and was going out occasionally distributing books on the street and enrolling new life members for the movement, when Tribhuvanath came along

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Wandering Maverick
By: Mahakratu Das A tribute and true story with some personal recollections on some of Tribhuvanath Prabhus adventures in Preaching.
To me, Tribhuvanath prabhu always seemed a larger than life character, full of energy, tremendous stamina, always on the go with some idea or another for preaching and spreading the message of chanting the Holy Names of Krishna. He was an extremely inspiring personality, who wouldnt allow anything or anyone to deter him from the mission of his spiritual leader and teacher, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. During the early Seventies my only contact with Tribhuvanath was to see him at the front of a Hari-nama party always out in front leading with an almost wild but ecstatic look on his face, with veins almost bursting while beating his mrdanga drum with his unique rhythm until his fingers were bleeding and sore. He would be out on the street chanting and dancing for up to eight hours, almost without a break. Every opportunity to be in kirtan, he would be there. Over the years his passion for kirtan just increased more and more. And with his passion and enthusiasm he would inspire others to get a taste for the process of chanting and dancing, to become more enthused in the sankirtana mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In the mid Seventies he went to India and became involved in the Vrindavana Krishna Balaram Temple project, becoming a fundraiser and preacher. He worked hard, overcame many difficult obstacles and underwent great personal difficulties adjusting to the Indian climate, frequent sickness and all the difficulties of travelling in India, usually by train, bus or rickshaw. He enrolled new Life Members for I.S.K.CON, he went out onto the streets to perform sankirtana, he gave public lectures when and wherever he could. These were difficult times with very little if any personal comfort or amenities. Temples were under construction, so had very little living accommodation. Despite the difficulties he would persevere with great determination and almost unlimited enthusiasm for performing devotional service. This was to set the standard that

Middle East Era

With wide eyes and lots of enthusiastic persuasion, he had this idea to go to the Middle East and spread Lord Caitanyas Sankirtan movement. He had purchased a Mercedes Benz car in Germany which he wanted me to drive to Beirut and Jordan for him. I was to be accompanied by other devotees he had recruited, namely Padma Pani Das from Canada, Nikhilananda Prabhu and Avinas Chandra Prabhu, both were from Germany. Tribhuvanath had also acquired a small touring caravan, which was to become home for the next few months. There was a great sense of urgency with Tribhuvanath, so I had to leave England very soon and drive across Europe to Turkey and into Syria, then to Lebanon. Throughout the journey through Europe we would stop occasionally and go on a street chanting party to break the monotony of constant driving, though Tribhuvanath felt it necessary to push on to our intended destination in the Middle East. When we reached Greece, he urged us to go out and raise some travel money by distributing some kirtan cassettes and incense around the shops, needless to say the Greeks couldnt really understand what these shaven-headed young people were offering them, so became somewhat suspicious, prompting us to leave quickly before the local police showed up. The Turkish-Syrian border was quite bleak with almost non-existent amenities like water and toilets, what to speak of supplies

and food. Here we met our first major obstacle. The customs authority wanted some documentation of ownership and registration of the caravan, which of course we did not have. Tribhuvanath decided he would go back in the car and get the required documents, telling us he wouldnt be longer than a couple of days. Little did we imagine he intended driving all the way back to England. In those days there were no mobile phones or Internet, so things had to be done the old fashioned way.

The Greeks couldnt really understand what these shavenheaded young people were offering them, prompting us to leave before the local police showed up
There was just Padma and myself left to take care of the caravan; we had a small bag of potatoes, some blocks of cheese and a bag of dried fruit for food. We had to befriend the border guards in order to get a supply of drinking water; bathing water wasnt available though we did manage to sneak some from a well in the early hours of the morning while the guards slept. I managed to cook the potatoes in different ways: boiled, mashed and grilled with cheese for two days. Our spirits were still quite high, full of expectation, we would tell each other stories or read from our small supply of Srila Prabhupadas books. As the days rolled on we were left with a few bites of dried fruit and were begging the guards to keep supplying us with drinking water, which they became quite reluctant to do as they were in short supply themselves. They must have thought that these foreigners were totally mad, and maybe they were right, depending how you might look at our plight. It never crossed either of our minds that we should leave this caravan and find a more hospitable place to spend our long hours of waiting and hoping that Tribhuvanath would return at any hour He finally returned and laughingly apologised for his delay, though he had brought a box of prasadam from some place and some very much-needed supplies to relieve us of our suffering. He then related his story of how he had to return to England and go through all sorts of registration procedures in order to gain the correct papers for travelling in that part of the world. It was all a great learning experience of what not to do when travelling with a caravan.

Not too long after arriving in Syria, the caravan had become a liability and impractical, so he arranged to sell it to someone in Damascus. This was quite an amazing city, with its multitude of markets and a remarkable maze soukes, where you could purchase just about anything you might imagine. A couple of us tried going around shops with incense and cassette tapes, with little success. Then we tried houses, mostly high rise apartments, which proved to be quite dangerous, due to the way people were already quite suspicious of foreigners, what to speak of someone knocking on their door, claiming to be students, selling books and incense. It wasnt very long before meeting some pretty tough looking characters who wanted to know what we were up to. No amount of smiling and gesturing would convince them that we were not some sort of spies from some foreign government. When they started showing us their guns, I certainly started to feel quite nervous and begged them to allow us to leave peacefully, which after some time they did. We sprinted back to our hotel, totally flushed and gulping for air, as we told Tribhuvanath our story. He looked fairly grim and thoughtful, so decided we should move on. We continued on into Lebanon and Beirut after spending some days in Damascus. Tribhuvanath was always busy running here and there, getting things fixed, arranging programmes or on the phone, so we saw little of him. He suggested we go door to door with the tapes and incense to feel out the locals. Well that was some experience, almost surreal, not knowing the language or customs and trying to convince them to give a donation for some incenses or a tape which they always wanted to hear first and usually didnt buy, because it sounded strange to them to hear someone singing in an Indian language. The people often seemed dubious or suspicious as to what these foreigners were doing knocking at their doors trying to convince them to take their little gifts in exchange for a donation.

for our purposes, so off we went to Amman the capitol of Jordan, where we hung around a customs station for a few days. The system then was that an Arab would notice you sitting in, polishing or just parking your car, he would then amble over and start looking the car over. He would then ask if it was for sale, to which I would reply, Not really, as it is my only means of transport. After a couple of days had past, the Arab man returned and made an offer to purchase the car. It was an offer he knew I couldnt resist, the only catch being that we would complete the transaction in Saudi Arabia as he was from there and it would be less complex for him if I were to drive it across the border.

Not knowing the language or customs and trying to convince them to give a donation or a tape, which they always wanted to hear first and usually didnt buy
Avinas Chandra accompanied me along with our Arab gentleman buyer. On the Saudi Border things got a little complicated due to my carrying pictures of Radha and Krishna and Srila Prabhupada, which incidentally, totally distracted the customs from the vehicle! After some hours with the border guards and customs, who ended up joking and drinking tea with us (a necessary local custom to show friendship), they allowed us entry into this most fascinating and mysterious desert country. We drove a few miles into the desert to an isolated restaurant, where our friend bought us a meal of rice and bread. Here the transaction and further negotiation took place. He of course wanted to change his original offer as there now was some apparent fault in the car. After long bargaining we finally came to an agreement, where he tossed a pile of Saudi Riyals on the table, took the car keys, went out to the car and asked us to remove our belongings. It was getting dark already and we hadnt the faintest idea how we were to get back to the border from such a deserted outpost. We ended up sleeping out in the desert which was really weird, with our Arab man returning in the car well rested and in a better mood, to take us to the border, where he dropped us off and let us find a passing car to take us back to Amman. To be continued

Tribuvanath was a very generous person, you just couldnt help but admire his sense of detachment from ownership
Tribhuvanath asked me to take the Mercedes to Jordan and see if I could sell it as he now considered it too ostentatious