Au Naturel!

Ever since I saw the Abhay Charan series and how the devotees in the early days took Jagannath out for a day at the park, I have been envisioning taking my Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra out in our garden during summer. Have Them rest on a charpai, while we fan them gently with chamaras and peacock feather fans, feed Them natural, homemade mango ice cream, topped with golden yellow slices of mango. The surprising thing (well actually not so surprising, I guess my desire was strong) is that one of our local grcocery stores has in stock this very cute looking miniature charpai, just the right size for our deities. Will get it this summer...

Charpai- its a bed woven with jute ropes, found in the Indian villages, where they rest mid-day after a hard morning's labor.

Anyway, much before the arrival of summer, to honor Guru maharaj, on his Vyasapuja I decided to make some ice cream. Anyone who has served him knows how child like his tastes are. I still remember his words when he visited our home. The two of us, not even inititated then, were so excited that we did not even know how to serve him properly. We served him the focaccia and forgot the fork and the knife. While speaking to him about our then 18 month old daughter who liked to have a cup of ice cream every single day my husband was mentioning how she would gravitate towards the kitchen with bowl in hand, exactly at 3 PM asking for 'aakeesh.' Guru Maharaj heard us out patiently and after he was done with his dessert of lemon cake and apple pie, he turned around and said " If someone asks for ice cream at 10:30 in the night, will it be available ?" I felt as if I were Cassie of Dragon tales, slowly shrinking in size and as if I had turned into some microscopic entity, because on that day I had NO ice cream. Apologizing for the bad planning we bid him farewell with a heavy heart that summer night in 2004.

I like to meditate on the pastimes of the Lord in relation to the preparation, just my own small endeavor to replace my own lusty desire and bring Krishna into the picture. Jagannath loves jackfruit, so meditating on a pastime of His that I had heard, I decided to try out a tropical flavor of mango and jackfruit. Slicing some jackfruit, pureeing some I mixed up the mango pulp and added the cream, milk and sugar and fed it it all in my ice cream maker. Not so much a fan of ice cream myself I was happy with the resulting creamy rich and exotic flavor.

Anyone who has lived in Bombay or Bangalore knows that the best tasting ice cream in not Baskin robins but Natural. They have amazingly unique flavors including tender coconut- the best, watermelon, custard apple or sitaphal, sapodilla etc...Its eggless and Au Naturel! and what we made at home was one scoop better being prasadam.

Raghu Dasa:There was once a great devotee of Lord Ramachandra named Raghu Dasa. He lived in Puri under a big umbrella near the Lion Gate of the Jagannath temple. He was very famous and known among the people as the friend of Lord Jagannath. Once Jagannath came to Raghu and told him to go with Him to steal jackfruit from the Kings garden. Raghu said, "Why do You want to steal jackfruit? If You have a desire to eat jackfruit, then let me know and I will get a nice jackfruit for You." Lord Jagannath replied, "In this way I am getting everything from My devotee. In fact, I have everything. Mother Yasoda would feed Me so much butter and give Me pleasure. But still I go to the homes of others for the purpose of stealing butter. There is a special pleasure in eating stolen things. Today I want you to experience that pleasure of stealing. Please come with Me!" Helpless, Raghu agreed to the Lord's proposal and accompanied Him. Both of them entered the King's garden. Jagannath told Raghu, "You should climb the tree. I will stand on the ground. You will pluck the best and biggest jackfruit and throw it down. I will stand here and catch it. Then both of us will run away." Raghu followed the order of the Lord exactly as He had in¬structed. He climbed the jackfruit tree and located the best and biggest jackfruit and plucked it. "Jagannath!" he called out. "Are You ready?" Jagannath replied, "Yes! I am ready, throw it!" Raghu threw the jackfruit down, expecting Jagannath to catch it. But where was Jagannath? He had run away. No one was there to catch the jackfruit. It crashed to the ground, making a big sound and split open. When the King's gardener heard the sound, he understood that someone had entered the garden to steal jackfruit. He immediately ran to the spot and found the big jackfruit lying split open on the ground, yet he didn't see anyone around. When he looked up he saw Raghu Dasa sitting in the tree. The gardener immediately ran to the King and told him that Raghu Dasa was stealing jackfruit from his garden. "He is still there sitting on the top of the tree!" he told the King excitedly. The King could not believe that Raghu had entered his garden to steal jackfruit. So the King gathered his ministers and went to the spot where the gardener in¬dicated. He was surprised to see Raghu Dasa sitting in the tree and the jackfruit lying on the ground. On the request of the King, Raghu came down from the tree. The King asked Raghu, "My dear . Prabhu, if you desired to eat jackfruit, why have you gone to the trouble of coming to my garden in the middle of the night and climbing a tree? You could have told me. I would have picked the jackfruit and sent it to your house." Raghu told the King the whole story about how he was cheated by Lord Jagannath. Everyone enjoyed hearing the pastime of the Lord, and they all laughed. They glorified Raghu for his greatness. In this way, Raghu would have pastimes with Lord Jagannath in the mood of friendship. A devotee gave an eye witness account of one lila of Raghu Dasa with Lord Jagannath. Once during the Ratha-yatra, the Lords had taken Their seats on the chariot. After the King swept the road, everything was ready for the chariot to move. Thousands of people pulled the rope, but the chariot would not move. Seeing the situation, the British Saheva arranged for a powerful elephant to pull the chariot. Still the chariot would not move. The Saheva told Raghu Dasa, "Raghu Dasji, what kind of Lord is this? I have engaged elephants, yet this chariot will not move." Hearing this, Raghu climbed the chariot and went close to Lord Jagannath. He spoke into the Lord's ear. Immediately the chariot started to move. Saheva was surprised to see this. He told Raghu Dasa, "You are perfect and your Lord is also perfect." Wherever Raghu Dasa lived he would leave a pot full of prasada outside for anyone to take. He would take prasada from the same pot the animals and birds took from. This was his wonderful nature. He was very dear to Lord Jagannath.

For those who want to try this tropical flavor you need:

3/4 cup of whole milk

3/4 cup of sugar

1 can of jackfruit-

slice half the contents and puree half with some milk

1/4 cup of mango puree

2 cups of heavy cream.

whisk them all to together and feed it into your cuisinart ice-cream maker.
Highly fattening, try it- Remember we are not this body ;-)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating!