Malati Devi Dasi remembers that Srila Prabhupada was also always “so incredibly kind to the children.”
In 1969, when her daughter Saraswati was a little over two years old, Malati and other pioneers of ISKCON in the UK were staying at John Lennon’s Tittenhurst Park estate in a former horse stables that had been converted into small apartments. While cooking breakfast for the devotees, Malati would open the top half of the stable doors, while the bottom remained closed, so that she could see and hear Srila Prabhupada as he walked past on his morning walk.
“One morning, little Saraswati was jumping up and down, trying to see over the top of the door,” she recalls. “Somehow, she must have grabbed onto the handle in such a way that the door opened, and she ran out just when Prabhupada was going by, and grabbed his hand.”
It was a cold morning, and Srila Prabhupada wore a heavy wool coat and rubber boots. Concerned about Saraswati, who didn’t have a jacket or boots on, he said, “Saraswati, you’re not properly dressed.”
“She wouldn’t let go of his hand, so I brought her boots and coat,” Malati says. “I was trying to put them on her, but she would only extend one arm, while holding on to Prabhupada’s hand with the other. And when the coat sleeve was on one arm, then she would grab his hand and let go with the other so I could put the coat on the other arm. She was determined not to let go of him. Then off she went with him on the morning walk, holding his hand.”
