BY IKSVAKU DASA
PENANG - Late in 1990 the ISKCON Malaysian Yatra asked me and a handful of South American devotees to take care of the Penang Centre since Janananda Maharaja (a brahmacari at that time) was going to India for a few months. Having lived in Mayapur for the last three years, I was thrilled with the opportunity to be on the preaching field again. We accepted the request and happily headed to the island in the north of Malaysia.
Almost daily we would go out on Harinama and Book Distribution. People were extremely friendly and generous, and the local devotees were supportive of our “Latin flavor” of Krishna Consciousness. We chanted and chanted day after day in every single market selling books and giving invitations and Mantra cards. Our small group of devotees became a somewhat known feature of the town for the couple of years that we stayed there.
The local devotees were very active. Lead by Kalesha prabhu, they had a couple of regular programs in local Krishna Temples twice a week. Then we would have Saturday “Maha Harinama” (generally a maximum of 10 devotees or so) and a small, but fired-up Sunday feast.
Time went by and we became busier and busier. Devotees would arrange programs at different devotees’ homes and at Demigod Temples. Malaysian devotees are expert cooks, and we were enamored with their passion for preparing Krishna Prasadam. At the end of our permanency, we recommended a few devotees for initiation and left our local friends to return back to South America. It was one of my best preaching-experiences in my limited spiritual life.
After we left, different local devotees took up responsibility and developed the program further to a great extent. From time to time I would hear about how much the preaching had expanded but never went back until last month when the opportunity to return came up. It has been 22 years since I left Penang in 1992.
This time I found that the temples have grown beyond my calculations. Instead of a tiny mixed town house of cement and wood in a dingy neighbourhood, there were several comfortable centres in the island and nearby mainland (Bukit Mertajam and Butterworth). A beautiful temple complex named Bhaktivedanta Cultural Centre (BCC) was being built with a multipurpose hall and ample facilities for guests. I was truly impressed.
All what I could say when asked about my impressions of “the new Penang Yatra” at the end of one class I gave to a packed temple room of 60 enthusiastic new devotees, was “It’s all Prabhupada’s magic”
Hari Naam Diksha Ceremony 
