ISKCON AHMEDABAD HOLDS 2019’S FIRST ONE-DAY WALK

By Muralimohan dasa

Continuing the successful model of doing a one-day padayatra every month, the ISKCON Ahmedabad devotees celebrated this year’s first padayatra on January 13. Padayatra began at 8am at the Boot-Bhavani temple with forty-five devotees, Srila Prabhupada, and the beautifully dressed Sri Sri Nimai-Nitai and headed for upmarket Bakeri City in Vejalpur, where the devotees performed sankirtan and distributed Bhagavad-gitas to the neighbourhood’s well-informed residents. Magnetized by the mercy of the Lord, one family expressed their desire to attend Bhagavad-gita classes at the ISKCON temple regularly. The devotees did kirtan at Shishir prabhu’s house at Bakeri City after he had performed arati to Nimai-Nitai and Srila Prabhupada, and everyone then honoured the breakfast prasadam that Shishir had sponsored.

Kirtan continued throughout the walk, the exciting spectacle compelling the public at every square to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra loudly and raise their hands. From Bakeri City padayatra made its way past the R. R. Trivedi School, the Krsna-nagar society, the Chandrashekar society, the Hotel Cambay, Jivraj Square and Vejalpur Lane and ended at Srinanda-nagar in Vejalpur at 12pm, the party now 150 strong. The residential devotees welcomed padayatra’s sankirtan and garlanded Gaura-Nitai, Srila Prabhupada and a few devotees. Sanjay Krishna dasa, a disciple of Kavichandra Swami Maharaja, and Sahishnu Krishna dasa, a disciple of Jayapataka Swami Maharaja, then addressed the devotees for twenty minutes each on the importance of padayatra and chanting the holy names on the streets.

Ashok Wala prabhu, from the family of Jagatjanani devi dasi, sponsored the prasadam feast to conclude our one-day padayatra. We honoured the family by garland and everyone calling out the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Such fruitful events invigorate us to continue organizing padayatras, thus fulfilling the mission of Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

Book Distribution: Eleven devotees distributed Srila Prabhupada’s books on the padayatra and the final book score was eighty big books, three maha-big books and twenty-two small books, along with some donations. All glories to the book distributors. We also announced a surprise gift for the distributor with the highest score, Padmaradha devi dasi.