By Sadbhuja Gauranga dasa
ISKCON Alibag’s Nama-hatta centre devotees recently held a one-day padayatra in Zirad village about 15km from Alibag. Everyone assembled at Zirad’s Siddhi Vinayak temple, where padayatra was inaugurated by Mr Bhagawan Mhatre and his family.
The special part of this walk was that schoolchildren joined us along with the villagers, the students wearing traditional Marathi attire that added colour to our padayatra. The students also performed Maharashtra’s Lezim folk dance, in which the participants carry small musical instruments with jingling cymbals, blending with our kirtan and Saint Tukaram Maharaja’s abhangs.
Walking through Zirad we reached the home of Mr Dilip Bhoir, the district head of the BJP political party, where he and his family had arranged breakfast prasadam for us. After prasadam we resumed our journey, stopping at four temples along the way and performing a grand sankirtan. We also went to an Adiwasi wadi in a part of the village where tribal people live, distributing sixty plates of khichadi prasadam to the residents. With the villagers still happily walking and dancing with us as they sang abhangs, we thus completed our one-day padayatra by the mercy of Guru and Gauranga.
The event was attended by twenty Nama-hatta devotees including centre president Giriraja dasa and attracted about 300 fortunate villagers. Forty-five Bhagavad-gitas and twelve BTG magazines were distributed and prasadam was provided by Mr Bhoir and Mr Mhatre.
We are very grateful to all who supported padayatra.
