We arrived back in Melbourne last night and were picked up by Krsna Katha prabhu who whipped us quickly to his place for a quick meal before dropping us at home.

Gaura-arati in Noida

It's great to be back after what was an extremely busy four weeks of hard work. I'm going to write a piece about the meetings as I am often asked what exactly we do.

We spent Saturday and Sunday with Buddhimanta and family. Acintya Rupa went shopping for curtain material for the prasadam hall and Buddhimanta and I spent Saturday going over plans for the wrought iron sections for the front fence. Tomorrow I hope to receive a quote and design from which we can conclude negotiations with the manufacturer.

Sunday night in Mumbai was quiet and uneventful. We caught up with a lot of the Mumbai devotees at the morning program on Monday before flying out to Singapore to arrive Tuesday evening. We had three day flights in a row. Yesterday was spent flying all day from Singapore to Melbourne. Today we spent resting and tidying the house up. Tomorrow I've got doctors appointments and check ups.

We had a nice kirtana on Saturday night with Parth and Prthvi. Parth is a fantastic kartala player and Prthvi is very good with the mrdanga and harmonium. He has a very good ear and can pick up a tune very quickly usually better than I can sing it. You can see them against a backdrop of cardboard boxes above. They still have many of their possessions in boxes while they wait to move to their permanent residence. Buddhimanta plans to begin building after Gaura Purnima. He was doing the arati, I was playing the mrdanga and Saktimanta took the picture.

I gave the Sunday Feast lecture at Noida temple. Since Gaura Purnima is coming up and they are celebrating Ratha-yatra on the 19th I spoke on Lord Caitanya, Lord Jagannatha, who They are and what is the relationship between Them and us. That gave me a chance to study the Caitanya Caritamrta for a few hours on Sunday which was great.

I also spoke on the Bhagavatam in Vrndavana. After almost three weeks of meetings in Mayapur I was happy to just go to the program and chant my rounds with the devotees, something which is hard to do in Mayapur when the meetings are on. They have an hour long mangala-arati and greeting which means japa time is too squeezed up. I often stay in my room to make sure I get all my rounds done and am ready for the days round of meetings. Vrndavana and Noida were a bit of a break for us after the intensity of the meetings and the humidity of West Bengal.