Devotee: You were staying in the YMCA.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) So I did not say anything seriously, but perhaps he took it very seriously, Gopal's father. So he might have written to Gopal that, "Swami Bhaktivedanta wants to go to America. If you sponsor, then he can go." So whatever the correspondence was there between the father and son, I did not know. I simply asked him, "Why don't you ask your son Gopal to sponsor so that I can go there? I want to preach there." So after some months, three, four months, the No-Objection Certificate from the Indian embassy in New York, Gopal sent to me, yes, that he had already sponsored my arrival there for one month. So all of a sudden I got the paper, No-Objection Certificate, by the Indian embassy. After so much inquiry, I learned that so much inquiry was done and so on, so on. Then I tried to take a passport and paper process. So I got the passport. Then I approached that Sumati Morarji. She once gave me five hundred rupees in exchange of my Bhāgavata book, so I approached her that, "Give me one ticket." They have got their shipping company, Scindia Navigation. So she said: "Swāmījī, you are so old, you are taking this so responsibility. Do you think it is right?" "No, it is all right." (laughs) At that time, I was seventy years old. So all the secretary, they thought that, "Swāmījī is going to die there." Anyway, they gave me the ticket, one return free ticket by their ship. Then arrangement was going on. So there is another process to get a P-form. You know.
Indian man: P-form.
Prabhupāda: P-form sanctioned by the state government, yes, state government. So it was applied for. It was . . . no sanction was coming. Then I went to the State Bank of India, the officer Mr. Bhattacari. So he told me: "Swāmījī, you are sponsored by private man, so we cannot accept it. If you are invited by some institution, then we could consider, but you are invited by a private man for one month, and, after one month, if you are in difficulty, and there will be so much obstacles and so on." "Well, I have already prepared everything to go." So I said that, "You . . . what you have done?" "No, I have decided not to sanction your P-form." "No, no, don't do this. You better send to your superior. It should not be done like that." So he took my request, and he sent the file to Chief Officer of Foreign Exchange, something like that. Anyway, he is the supreme man in the State Bank of India. So I went to see him. So I asked his secretary that, "You have got such file? You kindly put to Mr . . ."—his name was Mr. Rao—"I want to see him." So the secretary agreed, and he put the file and put my slip that I wanted to see him. I was waiting. So Mr. Rao came personally. He said: "Swāmījī, I have passed your case. Don't worry." (laughs) In this way.
Hari-śauri: He knew you from before, or . . .?
Prabhupāda: No. He did not know me. So somebody saw him in Bombay, so he reminded that, "I know Swāmījī when he went to USA." Somebody was telling me.
Hari-śauri: He remembered.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. The name is there, he remembered. After all, he is officer. He knows so many things. So it is a great history. (laughs) There was two days I was attacked in heart on the ship. So hardship.
Trivikrama: Then you had a dream?
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Hari-śauri: What was that, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: That is . . . (laughs) The dream was I must come here.
Hari-śauri: It was some instruction that you got?
Prabhupāda: The dream was that Kṛṣṇa in His many forms was bowing the row . . . what is called?
Hari-śauri: Rowing the boat.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Trivikrama: Jaya.
Prabhupāda: And when I arrived in Boston I wrote that poetry.