By Muralimohan Dasa
The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of ISKCON which was founded in 1966 by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. We, the devotees of Ahmedabad, Gujarat decided that we would be the first to offer one out of fifty padayatras which have been planned for this year to celebrate ISKCON’s anniversary. This was our first time organizing a padayatra. Lokanath Swami assured us that if there were more than fifty devotees walking on this padayatra he would also join us. So with this in mind and our congregational devotees ready to follow this instruction, we expected that we would have around fifty to fifty-five devotees in attendance. The next step was to plan our route which we started doing a month ago. We decided that the padayatra would last for five days starting at Ahmedabad’s ISKCON temple and ending at Dakor Dham.
This padayatra was our humble attempt to please Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and our dear Srila Prabhupada. We took on the service with guidance from Jasomatinandan Dasa and Lokanath Swami. The Ahmedabad padayatra was inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony by Jasomatinandan Dasa and we were set to begin. We had initially planned on having bullock carts on the padayatra and had already acquired strong bulls, much like those on the ‘All India Padayatra’. Unfortunately the noise of the kirtana and the crowd of people dancing frightened them so much that they started running here and there in an attempt to escape. This went on for about an hour until we decided that it would be too much of a risk to have them walking on the roads with us. We left them at the temple to ensure a safe padayatra. The devotees were disturbed when we told them that the bulls would not be joining us. A further concern and even more worrying was what was to be done with the cart, not having any bulls to pull it. Everyone was so determined that we started pulling the cart ourselves! Kirtana started and we all sang “Krishna Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Krishna he” and meditated on how Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had sung this as He left for South India. We then sang the Nrsimhadev prayers and off we went. This was the only hurdle we had encountered and it occurred right at the start, the rest of the five days of the padayatra went very smoothly and blissfully. We did not receive any complaints from any of the devotees and by the mercy of Sri Sri Radha Govindaji, Gaura Nitai and all the vaisnavas, everything went accordingly.
Our five day plan began on January 15th from Ahmedabad. We travelled to Maninagar Swami Narayan temple and then to Hathijana Swami Narayan temple where we spent the night. On this day we had about twenty-five to thirty devotees who joined us from different groups, some even staying for two or three days on padayatra. On January 16th we left Hathijana and travelled to Ranachod Rai temple in Kaniz –we then made a pit stop at Siddhi Vinayak temple in Mehemdabad and stayed the night there. We left Mehemdabad on January 17th and travelled to Ranchod Rai Trust in Vanthvadi and then ended the day in Radha Krishna Trust in Sihunj.
The 18th of January saw us travelling from Sihunj to Nani Khadol and later that day we travelled to Alina and spent the night there. Lokanath Swami met us at the Radha Krishna Trust in Sihunj. On that day he led the guru-puja kirtana and gave morning class until 9:10 a.m. After that he sang kirtana and walked with us for 7 to 8 kilometres before leaving. Maharaj then joined us again that evening singing kirtana all the way to Alina village, a place populated by many Muslim people. We distributed BTG’s (Back to Godhead magazines) and small books for free and a lot of kitchiri prasadam was distributed compared to the other four days on padayatra.
On the last day, the 19th of January, we travelled from Alina to Vrundavan Dham which was about 4 to 5 kilometres away. We left early that morning, around 6:30 a.m. after guru-puja, morning class and breakfast. Lokanath Swami gave the morning class –there were also a few female disciples of Jain Maharaj who attended. After travelling for about 10 to 11 kilometres we ended padayatra in Dakor Dham at 1:30 that afternoon. Lokanath Swami sang kirtana distributing the holy names to everyone along the way. In total there were about seventy-five to eighty devotees walking with us consistently during all five days of the padayatra together with a few devotees who also joined and then left intermittently. In all we had a grand total of a hundred plus devotees walking every day. On the last two days we noticed that even more people had joined us and on the final day we counted three hundred and fifty devotees who walked with us to Dakor.
After reaching Dakor we served a prasadam feast which went on until 3.30 that afternoon. An hour later we held an ‘ending’ ceremony attended by three disciples of Srila Prabhupada , Lokanath Swami, Jasomatinandan Dasa and Sarvopama Dasa who sang a wonderful kirtana and gave krsna- katha. Many other senior devotees also graced the occasion. At the end of the program Harshad Dasa, a disciple of Ranchod Rai (Krsna), a Dakor dham–vasi gave a detailed katha on Ranachod Rai. We ended at 6.00 p.m. with all the devotees taking darsana of Dakor Rai.
Our routine on padayatra was simple, every day we would rise at 3:30 in the morning, take bath and get ready for mangala-arati at 5:15 followed by Nrsimha arati and tulsi puja. After which we had japa time for forty-five minutes, then Guru puja for Srila Prabhupada and morning class from 7:30 to 8:15 a.m. We then had milk and breakfast and at 9:00 a.m. we would start walking. We kept to this routine sadhana for all five days. Devotees would chant the mahamantra constantly either on their beads or in kirtana. Lunch was usually served at 1.00 p.m. every day. Thereafter we would rest for one and a half hours before walking again at 4.00 p.m. to reach our destination for that day. After reaching the place where we would spend the evening, devotees would prepare for sandhya-arati followed by Nrsimha–arti. Dinner prasadam would be then served and everyone would take rest. Not a single devotee became tired from walking because they were chanting their respective rounds the entire journey and were fully engaged in kirtana.
Throughout the course of the padayatra we also distributed books and after five days the total number of books distributed was more than eight hundred and fifty big books, hundreds of small books and more than a thousand BTGs (Back to Godhead magazines). On the way we also continuously distributed prasadam such as teel laddhus and sesame sweets and in the evenings we distributed our famous ISKCON kitchiri. Madhavmohini Dasi and her team were in charge of the cooking during padayatra and described the experience as a short five day Vraj Mandala Parikrama or Navadwipa Mandala Parikrama. I myself also felt like it was training for Vraj Mandala Parikrama.
We were happy to see padayatra featured in the Divya Bhaskar newspaper, Anand edition in Dakor. This newspaper has one of the highest circulations in Gujarati. There was also a feature in Ahmedabad which appeared on the 22nd to the 25th. I am very thankful to all those devotees who had extended their helping hands to make the Ahmedabad padayatra a memorable and successful event, for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada and his anugas.
