By Acarya dasa, All-India Padayatra leader
Having spent forty-five days at Bharkawada in Gujarat through India’s second coronavirus lockdown the All-India Padayatra continued its journey on June 9.
We were getting ready for mangal arati that morning when we saw that up to eighty people were waiting for us eager to attend their last mangal arati of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar. All of them had japa malas and chanted with us. After the morning programme many started crying because Nitai-Gaurasundar had been with them for so many days for mangal arati, prasadam, darshan and sandhya arati, but now They were leaving.
Before departing we performed a nagar sankirtan till noon joined by everyone. The villagers had made 25kg of sweet halwa as maha prasad and they distributed it along with 100 tulsi plants. A banyan tree was also planted in memory of padayatra. They also offered a garland to Srila Prabhupada and performed arati of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar. The village sarpanch, Laksman Bhai, along with Taka Bhai, Bhika Bhai and Khilji Bhai offered their gratitude to padayatra and gave donations towards the journey. We left Bharkawada giving the residents instructions to chant, read Srila Prabhupada’s books and serve the Lord. Almost 800 of them then walked with Their Lordships’ chariot for 4km while chanting the holy name of the Lord and dancing.
Our first stop was at Vijayapura village where our arrival was expected. Unfortunately, the roads were so narrow that our cart could not enter the village so the villagers took our deities in an open jeep and in front of Gram panchayat we did sankirtan and book distribution and took prasadam. Nearly forty people took a Bhagavad-gita and later joined us and a large group of Bharkawada villagers at our next destination.
Chanting and dancing we were now moving towards Rajasthan, but nobody wanted to go back. They wanted to go with the deities and continued to follow us for some time. I discussed with them Lord Krishna’s pastime where Akrura was taking Krishna and Balaram to Mathura from Vrindavan and the gopis were not allowing Their Lordships to leave. Similarly, the Bharkawada people never wanted to leave Their Lordships. Daily up to 200 of them used to come for satsang, sometimes 250, and they had become attached to Their Lordships. They said they would no longer get satsang, so we gave them our contact phone numbers. Murlimohan dasa and the Palanpur devotees would stay in touch with them, but they were upset that padayatra would not return for ten years.
Book distribution score: 130 Bhagavad-gita, 150 small books.
All glories to Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
