Who is he ?

Iskcon is one of my favorite temples. I love how beautiful the place and idols are. I can not take my eyes off the idols everytime I visit. I get such positive energy from the temple, and the prasad that we get is also tasty. I often visit Iskcon! I love visiting temples. I was invited to an event taking place for Lord Krishna. I was visiting Iskcon with my family. When we reached the temple, a few volunteers were waiting to receive us. As I walk inside, I recognize a few people. The volunteers there usually interchange sections. There were so many Pooja’s taking place. While the volunteers were accompanying us, two of them had to leave because they were needed elsewhere. So, we were following the two volunteers in front of us, and another one was trailing behind us.

We stopped to pray to god. One of the volunteers seemed very excited and took a lot of pictures of me while I was doing aarthi, sitting, or praying. After the Pooja, they took us to the private VIP hall, where we spent time with the guru and sought his guidance. Usually, the volunteers drop us to the dining table and leave, but one of the volunteers stayed back and sat next to my brother. I was a little confused. Volunteers never follow us here as we talk about professional and private matters of the family too. We started devouring our favourite prasadam and the same volunteer started clicking pictures again. I hate it when someone clicks pictures of me while I’m eating, so I decided to ask Guruji about who the volunteer was out of curiosity. So I go ahead and ask Guruji, “Guruji, I’m sorry to interrupt, but may I know who that volunteer is? You did not introduce him.” He looked at me confused and said, ” I thought he was with you…who is he?” We all suddenly stood up. My brother questions the boy about who he is. He had been following us from the car, so we thought he was a volunteer. My brother decided to check his mobile, and on his mobile, we found thousands of pictures of me. He had captured all the moments since I got out of the car. The security guards rushed in to take him out because they did not want to compromise on safety. He continued to lie until he finally confessed.

We later found out he was a fan and wanted a picture. He told us that he knew I was coming, and wanted to talk to me, that’s why he followed us around. We left him with a warning and made him understand what he had done was wrong and could have got him in big trouble. The volunteers were also apologetic, but I did not blame them. They had no idea, they had assumed he was with me. We decided to leave and got into the car. Suddenly, all our mobiles started buzzing. The media had got the news about what had happened , it was all over the news and were calling to check on me. I gave a statement, letting everyone know that I’m fine (Thank you for the love everyone). I understand that he was a fan, but if he wanted a picture, he could have just asked me for it. Incidents like these makes us wary.

-Hariprriya