Hare Krishna! On the Bowery
One day in April, 1966, someone broke into Srila Prabhupada’s room on Seventy-second Street and stole his typewriter and tape recorder. As Prabhupada returned to the building, the janitor informed him of the theft. An unknown burglar had broken the transom glass above the door, climbed through, taken the valuables, and escaped. As Prabhupada heard the details of the crime, he became convinced that it was the janitor himself who had broken in and stolen his things, and that the man was now offering a fictitious account of a thief who had gone through the transom. Knowing there was no way he could prove this, Srila Prabhupada simply accepted his loss with disappointment. In a letter to India, he described the theft as a loss of more than one thousand rupees ($125.00). It is understood [he wrote] that such crime as has been committed in my room is very common in New York. This is the way of material nature. American people have everything in ample, and the worker gets about Rs. 100 as daily wages. And still there are thieves for want of character. The social condition is not very good.
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