By now, I was used to these exchanges, understanding on the one hand that there is some difference, yet having personal experience that Srila Prabhupada overlooked this and accepted the devotional service of any aspiring servitor – always seeing to the welfare of the soul, regardless of the body he or she inhabited. So Srila Prabhupada and the men were speaking and joking in Hindi in this crowded car, with me crowded in there with them. Then, just as they were getting out of the car, he spoke about the terrible politics in India and again quoted the Chanakya Pandit shloka that a politician or woman cannot be trusted. Everyone was laughing in a very jovial way and then, all of a sudden, Srila Prabhupada turned around, looked at me and said, “What do you think, Yamuna?” “Of course, I totally agree,” I replied. “A woman’s nature is discussed in so many places in the Srimad-Bhagavatam. She has many things that she must try to consciously conquer in this lifetime to go back to Godhead. It is the truth.” I was also laughing.
But then Srila Prabhupada again became a little serious and said, “But you – you are not a woman. You are cent percent a devotee,” and then the laughing stopped. Srila Prabhupada and I had a close relationship over the years, and I was present several times when he teased me in this way. He would always look over at me to check my reaction to his statements, and this was another such time.
