Ever since Campaka and I were children we saw ourselves moving to Vraja to do some service. We finally moved to Govardhana in 2005 with our daughter and now live near the village of Anyor in Govardhana (this is where the Annakut festival took place during Krsna’s time).

 

At first our service was to take people on parikrama around Govardhana Hill, and to host our Guru Maharaja, Bir Krsna Das Goswami, on his frequent visits. For a time, we were also involved in Go seva (feeding a great many street cows their morning and evening meals).

 

We conceived this cleaning project when we undertook a daily vrata for Purusottama Masa, in April of 2010, of going around Govardhana and stopping at Radha Kunda to chant japa.
We felt great pain seeing how people come to Govardhana and Radha Kunda to become purified, and then dump trash everywhere. The crowds of devotees that come from all over India to do prikrama are amazing and wonderful, but the amount of physical trash that they leave behind is also amazing. It seemed like no one cared. It broke our hearts every time we walked outside.

 

We were sitting at Radha kunda one morning chanting japa and wondering what we could do that would actually make some difference. As we prayed to Srimati Radharani to be instruments in helping to keep Her special place clean and Govardhan clean, the idea came to us that we could find sponsors for different spots. Right then, we saw a local Baba working with the people from his ashram attentively cleaning the platform surrounding Radha Kunda. All of the sudden the idea flashed into our minds to ask the Baba if he could manage the work of hiring extra workers for neglected areas if we found sponsors for cleaning.

 

Now we are organizing not only daily cleaning but also beautification and employing local vrajavasis who would otherwise be street beggars. Check the other sections of this site for how the service is progressing and how you can be a part of it.

 

---Mayapurcandra Dasa