All
glories to Sri Guru and Sri GaurangaNew Air Conditioner
for Srila Govinda Maharaj's sitting room
Dum Dum Park, Kolkata. Sree Chaitanya Saraswata Krishnanushilana Sangha.
Sripad B.K. Giri Maharaj manages, and witnesses the ins-and-outs of, the installation of Srila Gurudev's new a/c.
Summer heat
and humidity in Kolkata prove too much for the single 1.5 ton air conditioner
serving in Srila Govinda Maharaj's large sitting room for the last five
years or so. In addition to the sitting area, there are several other
overheated rooms including one for Sripad Goswami Maharaj, Sriman Ranajit
Prabhu and presently Sripad Ashram Maharaj. The floor of the office almost
directly above the kitchen constantly radiates that heat into the room
where devotees such as Srimati Bhakti Lalita Devi and Srimati Jamuna Priya
Devi carry on their daily secretarial duties and services to His Divine
Grace and the devotees. Sriman Mahananda das Bhakti Ranjan Prabhu is also
found to be working there furiously when service dictates he be in Kolkata.
While Srila Govinda Maharaj made it clear that the old A/C was sufficient
for him. He kindly allowed that some additional cooling was acceptable
for the devotees and guests working and visiting there. He also conceded
that a backup unit would be useful in case the old one broke down. That,
he said, was "Srila Guru Maharaj's system." The following photo journal
outlines the installation process along with more than you'll ever want
to know about the workings of an air conditioner.
The air
conditioner installer begins unpacking the new 'LG, 2 ton split A/C system'
for the sitting room.
This split
system incorporates an indoor 'blower' and a compressor/heat exchanger
that goes outside the building. This is a very efficient system with these
advantages: since the compressor is located outside, the only noise inside
is that of the squirrel-cage fan in the blower unit. This type of fan
is very quiet and efficient. The outside compressor can be made larger
and heavier since it doesn't have to fit in a small window. This makes
for a more efficient heat exchange. The largest part of the service required
is also for the compressor portion, which is easily accessible to the
technician and doesn't disturb those indoors.
Lines carrying
coolant to and from the blower are attached by the installer.
Here the
technician's assistant helps to route the lines through the wall to the
compressor unit outside.
Nimai Prabhu,
one of the devotees of the Kolkata Math connects new power lines from
the main service entrance to a new dedicated outlet for the A/C. He also
installed many new electrical outlets to supply the ever growing needs
of the power hungry Western devotees with their computers, cameras, phones,
battery chargers and so forth.
Here, the installer is running one of the coolant lines to the compressor.