Giriraj Swami: Here we see Vairagi Baba meeting Srila Prabhupada on the harinam procession at Kumbha Mela, and he was a devotee of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He had huge kartals that we call whompers, and he would chant “haribol, haribol” and clash the whompers together. Srila Prabhupada had met Vairagi Baba earlier in Bombay at Prem Kutir, and then again Srila Prabhupada met him at the Gita Jayanti samelan in Indore.
One evening Vairagi Baba joined Srila Prabhupada and the devotees on the stage and Srila Prabhupada got up off the vyasasana and came right in front of Vairagi Baba and began to jump up and down and dance in an effort to encourage him also to jump up and down and dance, and there were the two of them jumping up and down and dancing before thousands of people. Then at the Kumbha Mela Srila Prabhupada encouraged Vairagi Baba to join us, and some of the evenings at the pandal program Vairagi Baba would also come on stage and he would chant and dance with the devotees and we could see that Srila Prabhupada really wanted to engage him. He was very enthusiastic about sankirtan and Mahaprabhu, and he was also enlivened to be part of Srila Prabhupada’s work.