(Report of Padayatra India traveling in Andhra Pradesh: June 5th to 26th, 2015)
Grand welcome to Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara
On June 19th June we arrived in the village of Konati, dancing while singing the holy names. The villagers were amazed to see the padayatra party and the Deities. Most of them started following us and paying obeisances to Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara, and within a very short time almost all the villagers had come for darsana. Then the sarpancha (or panchayat, the head of the village), Mr Suresh Gayake, came with his wife, carrying an arati tray, fruits and garlands, which they offered to the deities. After inquiring about our residence they did all the necessary arrangements for our party.
After taking some rest we went for nagar sankirtana. As we moved along with the ratha, we were surprised to see that at every door ladies were standing with an arati tray, fruits and garlands to welcome Gaura-Nitai. We stopped at each and every house for arati, and the ladies even washed the feet of two oxen, Jaya and Ghanshyam. The villagers had swept the road, put water and flowers in the streets to welcome Their Lordships. When it was time for Krishna katha, they were all there, eager to hear. When we were about to depart from the village they all offered dandavats to the deities and followed the procession till the last house in the village. « Please, come again with the Lord to our village, they said, we will be waiting for you ! »
There we meet a devotee named Smith Krishna; he’s a student who has been in contact with Rupa Goswami Dasa on Facebook. He had never met Rupa Goswami, but as a result on his internet association he had started to chant 16 rounds a day and putting on tilak. This boy was very happy to see us and attended all the programs, including mangala-arati the next day.
Sometimes we are not as fortunate as in Konati and we have no proper place for residence. In one village we had to stay an entire night under a tree while our oxen were standing in the rain. We tried to cover them with a plastic sheet, but in vain. Somehow we are being sustained by the mercy of Gaura Nitai, Srila Prabhupada and Gurudev, and we have full faith that our merciful Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara will always protect us.
Gaura Nitai give all protection to Their devotees
Every day after the Srimad-Bhagavatam class devotees tell their realizations of padayatra and how they see the ways in which Gaura Nitai are protecting Their devotees. It seems that as any calamity comes, They jump on the devotees to protect them. We can cite the example of Sri Ranganath Dasa who has been on Padayatra India for many years. Once he went to his home town in Amritsar and had a severe accident. He stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for one month, and his family members had started to loose hope, but he recovered, by the mercy of Gaura Nitai. Since June 20 he’s back with us, serving Nitai-Gaurasundara with love and devotion.
ISKCON Narasaraopet ‘s president coming to the rescue when Vijay the ox got injured
In the village of Merikapudi we faced a untoward incident while one padayatri was fixing the metal shoe on the hoof of Vijay, one of our oxen. His blood vessel got cut during that procedure, and he could not walk any longer. We did the necessary treatment and kept two devotees to take care of him. We have two pairs of oxen : Nandu-Nrsimha and Kaliya-Krishna, and Jaya and Vijay. The challenge was to get a new ox to replace Vijay, but how to do it ? By the mercy of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai we got an immediate answer to our question : the goshala of the Narasaraopet ISKCON temple ! The temple president, Rupeshwar Gaurachandra Prabhu, had brought a pair of oxen from Gujarat as he wanted to start a padayatra in Andra Pradesh. But it did not happen and the oxen were just kept idle, waiting there to serve Sri Sri Gaura Nitai. Rupeshwar Gaurachandra gave us Ghanshyam, a strong, healthy and beautiful ox, similar to Vijay. After 8 days Vijay was shifted to the goshala of the Narasaraopet temple, where he remained under the loving care of the devotees. We want to warmly thank Rupeshwar Gaurachandra who very very helpful during the whole episode.
PS : Since the beginning of their travels in Andhra Pradesh the padayatris have distributed about 100,000 pamphlets in telugu language.
