Prabhupāda: Hundred dollars. What is the average expenditure here?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Depends on how one lives; it is quite expensive. Eight thousand, ten thousand rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: For rent?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No. Just for food, it is per head, simple devotee food, per person, about five hundred rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: Oh. In India... India, two hundred rupees per month. And it has increased very recently. In 1930, we were paying servant twelve to fourteen rupees per month, and they were satisfied. With food, six rupees. And without food, twelve rupees, fourteen.
Nava-yauvana: That means it cost only six rupees per month for food.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In the hotel also they were charging six rupees. Means third-class hotel, not first class for cooking dāl, vegetables. Rice was, first-class rice, six rupees per month. Dāl, twelve annas for kg, flour, five annas for two and a half kgs. And from 1942, all of a sudden the price increased, artificially. Milk, two annas per kg. Now three rupees, four rupees. Ghee, first-class ghee, one rupee per kg. First-class ghee. (break) ...paying for the clerks thirty rupees per month. And head clerk, sixty rupees. Officers, hundred to two hundred rupees. High-court judges, four thousand rupees. High-court judges were highly paid.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Iran at that time was even cheaper, much cheaper. Because you had the British in India, you were...
Prabhupāda: Yes, when India was native state, they were cheaper. In India, this inflation was caused by Mr. Churchill. During the war he wanted men to join the fighting, so people were not coming. So artificially...