(3/4) Hurry Up, Lala Babu

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vrindavan Dham parikrama,
1 November 2019, part 3
Translated from Bengali

Hari bol! Continuing our parikrama, we have come to the temple of a Bengali landowner Lala Babu. You know that there are temples of Lala Babu in many other places in India (Kandi, Jashore and other places).

Lala Babu was a rich man who was very fond of fish. People from Basirhat, Bangladesh and Mednipore like fish very much. They can wear Tulasi neckbeads and chant the Holy Name on the beads, but they also eat fish... So, Lala Babu was a big zamindar. He would ask a fisherman to come and bring a lot of fish to his house. Actually, he often thought, 'Oh, I should visit Vrindavan,' but he never got time to go there because he was always very busy with his material work. One day, when the fisherman brought fish to his house and was sitting, waiting for the money, Lala Babu kept talking to him about all the other things. The fisherman became annoyed. In the end, he could not wait anymore, so he said, 'Sir, it is getting late (bela baye gela, বেলা বয়ে গেল)...' Hearing this, Lala Babu came to his senses – he thought, 'My God, it is true! It is getting late – my days are coming to an end...' Then he left everything and ran to Vrindavan.

Lala Babu had a lot of money, so he built a big temple in Vrindavan (this temple here where we are seated now). But then there was a big problem with the local king: Lala Babu had built a big fence around his temple, and the king did not like it. There began a long dispute over the property, and the court cases reached the Supreme Court in Delhi. Then, one night, Lord Sri Krishna came to Lalu Babu in a dream, saying, 'O Lala Babu! Have you come to Vrindavan to file court cases and fight with lawyers?' After that dream, Lala Babu gave up all court cases and became a beggar.

Both the king and Lala Babu had fought so much that they did not even want to see each other's faces, but one day, Lala Babu came to the king's house to beg alms. Seeing Lala Babu standing at his gate as a beggar, the king felt sorry for him and wanted to give him several kilograms of gold. But Lala Babu said, 'Prabhu, I have not come for gold. Please give me the remainder of the rotis that you ate yesterday. I only want half of a remainder roti from you.' The king gave Lala Babu what he had asked for, and the whole dispute over the temple property was finished. The king said that there was no need to worry about anything.

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Size: 2 Mb
Length: 4 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Exclusive Aspiration
2) Midnight Flutter
3) Hurry Up, Lala Babu!
4) Concluding Parikrama Day