June 15, 2013: On December 5, 2012 three devotees (Visnuswamy das, Srinivas Sevananda das and Bhoopathi das) organised a bullock cart padayatra in the state of Andhra Pradesh. They started from Yadagirigutta, around 60kms from Hyderabad. From the beginning they have gone through about 84 villages and towns in the districts of Nalgonda and Warangal. They are now in Zafargadh, in the Warangal District, and are heading towards Bhadrachala. Our three padayatris have not yet set a limit to their adventures on the road.
Visnuswami das: In every village we stay 2 to 3 days, depending on the villagers’ response and the size of the village. In every village we do nagar sankirtana, book distribution, explain the maha-mantra and show The World of Hare Krisna. While passing through the first 37 villages we distributed 250 big books, 75 medium and 1800 small.
All kinds of people are approaching us to listen to our message. Recently in one village many Hanuman bhaktas participated in our kirtans. Villagers give us rice and staples and grass for the oxen. On padayatra every day is new experience. In each village we both find good responses and also different kind of problems. Sometimes we don’t get electricity, or there is no water, proper shelter or grass for the oxen. Of course we sometimes face rakshasas. In some villages drunken persons misbehave with us. At times people criticize us, saying that we doing this for a livelihood, or earning money. We also face different weather conditions; first it was the cold, then hot waves and now rains. This padayatra is a life of austerity.