Once I got quite sick and could not digest the Math prasad in Mathura anymore. I would go to her room daily for a while to get some boiled vegetable prasad and like a loving caring mother she made sure I got better very soon after.
One day after a summer Sunday program she was chanting outside the London Plaistow temple, walking up and down. I asked if she’d like to bless my home which was very nearby. She walked with me and told me many things to console me as Srila Gurudev had only recently become physically unmanifest and none of the “develop-an-internal-relationship” talk made sense to me. Among other instructions, she told me it’s not going to be easy and to be patient and keep chanting my rounds and mantras. I appreciated her response because she didn't try to make it sound like everything will just magically be fine, without doing the work myself.
For many years, she’d visit us in London and stay for a while at the Gangamata Gaudiya Math and lovingly feed us the most excellent Hari-katha, kirtan and prasadam. I would receive a call while at work and would be told she asked me to come there for prasad after work. Many other devotees arrived having received the same call and she would personally arrange for us to be fed. She taught us how we should honour prasad, how to serve it, and how to serve out prasad.
Some time later I was told by Yashodhari that Uma didi used to hide some prasad under her bed while she was in London, saying that it was for me, because she knew I really liked her prasad. Indeed I was always overjoyed to receive prasad from her, but when I found out that she would also keep some prasad aside for me, I couldn't believe it! I don't know all the names of the different preparations, but they all tasted out of this world and furthermore you could feel it was like medicine too, having a direct effect on your mind and consciousness. The idea of not being able to taste or experience this anymore creates a strong longing, fueled by her affection, to try and please her, which she explicitly repeated over and over again, was in serving and pleasing Srila Gurudev.
She was very easily pleased, but would also always chastise me to do more. She always brings kirtan to another level, simply by her presence. Sometimes even from another floor in another room, while singing along to bhajans from her room. But when she would come down, sit in kirtan herself and sing too, indescribable. It reminded me of what it felt like being in a kirtan with Srila Bhaktiballabha Tirtha Gosvami Maharaj. Perhaps it's no exaggeration to say that, just as Sri Advaita Acarya's call brought Sriman Mahaprabhu to this world, likewise in kirtan, Uma didi's call brought Srila Gurudev into the room.
A friend of mine, who was burned out by devotees, got inspired again by her because she reminded her so much of Gurudev. She even took her chastisement (which is big after already being burned out) and expressed how the feeling of being at a festival with Gurudev was somehow recreated by Srimati Uma didi. And many of us could feel it too.
Being like a mother to so many devotees, including senior-most leaders in Gurudev’s family, she would chastise even them. What to speak of the little ones, like me. She always reminds us of our service to Srila Gurudev.
She took extra care of kirtaniyas, saying how Mahaprabhu knows how much energy is used by kirtaniyas in singing, dancing and playing Mrdanga. She always made us feel appreciated, and rewarded us with more dessert prasad, thereby inspiring us to do even more kirtan.
Chastising like Srila Trivikram Gosvami Maharaj, inspiring like Srila Vaman Gosvami Maharaj and nourishing like Srila Gurudev, Srila Narayan Gosvami Maharaj, she was filling the gaps of emptiness we were experiencing all over the world in separation from these three pillars of the mana-mandir. Which is also why the emptiness felt in her absence feels triple as hard on the heart.
She questioned why Sripad Tirtha Maharaj and Sripad Krsna das Prabhu left before her. Now she has also moved on. I like to believe they all joined Gurudev in his next preaching mission in another universe, but because I have no realization of this, I can’t make any definite claims about that. What I do know is that her Gurudevs take care of her and she’s in a much better place compared to the even darker world we live in today.
Last year she was singing “pranamāmi sadā prabhupāda padam” on Bhakti Zoom and it felt very similar to when Sriman Kiśorimohan Prabhu was singing “Vraja Jana man” in Italy 2010 for Gurudev on the last day of the festival and some of us knew that from that kirtan onwards things would change or that we even may never sit together in kirtan like that again. A different era would begin. And so it did on Valentines Day 2023. And one year later, we can already see how much has changed, externally. I pray she continues to inspire me and us all in one-pointedness to Srila Gurudev and his instructions.
—Ramananda Dasa
