By Acarya Dasa
On February 13th we reached Thyagaraya Nagar, a neighborhood in the city of Chennai most popularly known as T. Nagar. Our party had entered the city a few days before, and we had begun doing programs in many of its different areas. The news of padayatra’s arrival here had reached local newspapers which began publishing articles about us. A devotee of Jayapataka Maharaj had also heard that we were in the city. She taught the Bhakta Prahlad classes in a government school in T. Nagar. She went to the principal of her school and told him that padayatra was in town and that he should invite us to the school to allow the children an opportunity to take darsana of Their Lordships. Her hope was also that the principal would become inclined towards worshipping God by inviting us. She further believedthat he would be able to inculcate a good spiritual culture in his school. The principal readily agreed and invited us to the school to host a program.
We arrived at the school with Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar wearing Their festival outfits. The students had decorated the floors to the entrance with rangoli to welcome Their Lordships. We had a small talk where one of the devotees introduced the students to Prahlad Maharaj and Dhruva Maharaj the real heroes. We also explained to the 1 100 students attending the program about the concept of taking shelter of the Lord. After the class we had a question and answer session with the students and then for the pleasure of the Lord a few students recited Bhagavad-Gita slokas[1] , they knew them well because they are offered Bhagavad-Gita at school as part of the curriculum. All the students then offered obesiances and flowers to the Lord. At the end of the program, we told the students that the best way to call the Lord is through chanting of the ‘Hare Krishna mahamantra’ . We then had kirtana and all the students began dancing which they enjoyed very much. These school children were thus blessed with the darsana of Sri Nitai Gaurasundar.
Apart from the school program we also held sankirtana in T. Nagar close to a Sri Sampradaya Temple. The devotees there were very happy to see us doing sankirtana on the streets and approached us to discuss our padayatra program. They were very impressed by our method of traveling to each and every town and village with Their Lordships and how we also did sankirtana and book distribution along the way. These devotees were so happy and joined us on kirtana and danced for the pleasure of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar. We distributed 225 Bhagavad-Gitas on sankirtana that day. It was wonderful experiencing two groups coming together and having kirtana with the same motivation –pleasing the Lord. If each person on Earth had this same motivation then surely a universal brotherhood can easily be forged.
[1] Verses from the Bhagavad-Gita
