By Jayabhadra devi dasi, IGF preacher ISKCON Amravati
After the one-day padayatra at Malegaon our ISKCON Girls’ Forum was searching for a location to hold our next padayatra. Being a District Tuberculosis Officer at Amravati, I have to go on visits throughout the area and I thought of doing padayatra in the nearby village of Masod where we have Mrs Usha as our health worker. I called her on December 24 to discuss the possibility and she agreed saying, “Madam, I will keep the mahila mandal group ready to join padayatra.”
With a few congregation devotees and Amravati temple’s Ramavatar dasa we headed to Masod the following day. The local matajis were waiting at the Anganwadi centre to welcome us with flowers and from there we proceeded on padayatra covering the whole village. The ladies were dressed in a common-colour sari that made our walk special, all of them had kartals and all were devotees of Lord Krishna.
As the sankirtan went on the children were holding our padayatra banner and the ladies performed fugadi, a Maharashtra folk dance for religious occasions. I also joined the folk dancing and enjoyed it immensely. After an hour of sankirtan the ladies then sang their local bhajans about Krishna and danced, and padayatra came to an end at a local Krishna temple. By the Lord’s arrangement it was the opening date of that temple so the villagers were happy to receive Krishna devotees.
At the temple we had sankirtan, worshipped the Bhagavad-gita and drona prasadam was distributed to all. The ladies then shared their realizations about padayatra, the consensus being “whenever there is any programme, please call us and we will join.” Finally, we honoured Mrs Usha who made all the arrangements for us, and gifted a Bhagavad-gita to the mahila mandal group to thank them for their help.
Bhagavad-gita distribution score: 20
Srila Prabhupada, ki jai.
