By Muralimohan dasa
With the desire to maximize book distribution, ISKCON’s Ahmedabad temple devotees planned our thirty-second one-day padayatra to follow a route covering as diverse a cross-section of Indian society as possible. We contacted our groups regarding date, time and venue, but events then compelled me to think that this padayatra should include something special. On padayatra day many of our temple devotees were going to perform harinam sankirtan on the streets of Ahmedabad for the Indian soldiers martyred in the Kashmir terrorist attack, and on the afternoon before the walk the decision was taken to dedicate padayatra to the fallen soldiers. Our team immediately had a black-and-white banner printed to that effect and messaged our padayatris headed “Walk for Peace.” We were now set for the next day’s march.
On February 17 the devotees gathered at 8am at Amul Garden in Memnagar for the 7km walk. The party began with seventy-five padayatris, within which a small team of fifteen devotees distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books would act as an instrument of outreach. To encourage and strengthen our padayatris’ spiritual consciousness, Bhakta Jayesh Rathod served breakfast prasadam and welcomed the deities of Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai, after which our sankirtan army marched forward to the melodious singing of Antaratma dasa.
Our path took us through a variety of socio-economic neighbourhoods, stopping at every house and shop touching everyone’s hearts and encouraging them to raise their hands and chant the maha-mantra. On every street we announced that loudly chanting the maha-mantra would bring peace to our martyred soldiers. Responding positively, the people enthusiastically chanted for those departed souls. I realized it was because Lord Nityananada’s causeless mercy was being showered on them that the householders and shopkeepers were boldly chanting louder than us. Of course, our books are also in their homes set to explode like time-bombs.
Padayatra ended at 12:30pm at Auda Garden. Everyone gathered under a huge neem tree, taking shelter in its shade in a cheerful mood as the book distribution scores of 128 maha big books and 150 small books were announced. Pushkar dasa then gave a twenty-minute class on “The Reason for Sri Nityananda Prabhu’s Appearance,” and Sahishnu Krishna dasa spoke on “Guru Tattva and the Importance of Instructions of Guru.” Our team is very grateful to them for giving their valuable association to all of us. A lunchtime prasadam feast for the padayatris was then served as the mercy of Lord Nityananda.
While walking I had been thinking how we could view our padayatra in relation to our martyred soldiers, apart from just a dedication, and was trying to associate the verse in the “Sri Caitanya-caritamrta” with respect to Srila Prabhupada: yadi papi chadi dharma dure dese yaya mora senapati-bhakta yaibe tathaya – “If some sinful people escape and giving up religious principles go to far-off countries, then my Senapati Bhakta will come at that time to give them Krishna consciousness.” Senapati is a commander-in-chief of all soldiers, and eventually the correlation between Srila Prabhupada’s soldiers and our Indian soldiers became clear.
I didn’t have much time to speak after lunch, but with regard to how the soldiers who are protecting our country are also protecting the Lord’s devotees, I asked the devotees to pray: “May Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu bless these soldiers with Krishna consciousness in their next life and engage them in His own service as His own soldiers for propagating Srila Prabhupada’s mission, just as Lord Nityananda made His causeless mercy appear and gave all of us a chance to make so many people, house to house and street to street, loudly chant the holy names with raised hands.” Our one-day commemorative padayatra was successful, and I’m sure Mahaprabhu will listen to our prayers. Srila Prabhupada’s mission ki jai.
