Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare


Hurrican Katrina

ISKCON has a temple in New Orleans that is situated in the heart of the flooded parts of the city. For the last few days there was no communication with the devotees and grave concerns were held for the welfare of the Deities and the devotees.

Here is an email just received today which tells all.....

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In the dark flooded city of New Orleans, Daruka with his swat squad of
devotees headed by Keshava, stormed into the temple to save the day.
Daruka owns a long distance trucking company and drove one of his
Peterbuilt eighteen wheelers and Ramachandra drove a van with a few devotees to assist in saving the New Orleans temple.

Daruka said they had some close calls in New Orleans, but knew Krishna would protect them.. Keshava rode shotgun and was armed. They went through a few check points. The water was about 2 1/2 feet -3 feet and sometimes deeper.

They had to drive through about 25 blocks of water to reach the temple.
Outside the temple there was about 4 feet of water and it stank. There were
guys with automatic weapons walking around. Daruka is a little over 6 feet
tall, has a dark south Indian complexion and is from Fiji. In his Peterbuilt
tractor trailer he looked like a big tough black guy. He said the scariest moment call was from the police who wanted to commandeer his truck
but found another truck to use instead.

From the New Orleans temple he picked up all the alter deities, Radha Krishna, Nityananda and Lord Caitanya, Jaganatha, Subadra and Balarama, and about 6 smaller deities that were on the alter. He also brought to Dallas the Srila Prabhupada murti and a dozen devotees. He never would have driven his truck through such deep water but this was his loving service to Krishna. Back in Dallas Daruka smiled laughed and shrugged off his lifesaving rescue.
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attached is a picture of Daruka and Ramachandra who headed up the daring
rescue-there is also a picture of the deities rescued and in the Dallas
temple -Prabhupada's old quarters being worshipped