By Ritudvipa dasa and Rasutsava dasa
Due to the coronavirus lockdown in India our padayatra has been confined to a village about 30km from Lucknow for five months. However, by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja, we continue all our programmes and festivals while strictly observing social distancing.
This is the first Janmastami of the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra. Last year we started our padayatra on Radhastami. When we were in the All-India Padayatra, we always celebrated Janmastmi in an ISKCON temple and, therefore, had to depend on them and whatever service they gave to us we would carry out that seva. Mostly we would get kirtan seva or cooking seva. It was great, but I always had the desire that we padayatris would celebrate our own independent Janmastami where we could offer fifty-six bhogas to our Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar and dress Them very nicely.
Because of the lockdown that desire of mine has been fulfilled: for the first time we celebrated our own Janmastami. Though we lacked resources, our hearts were filled with desire to serve more and more. Our day started with mangala-arati of Their Lordships, then throughout the day each one of us had one or another seva and kirtan was continuously going on. Asimgaura dasa dressed Their Lordships wonderfully, as if They were ready for the birthday celebration. At 10pm there was an abhishek of padayatra’s Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar in which we all participated abhishek.
After abhishek 156 bhogas were offered to Their Lordships. All of us were fasting and eagerly waiting for the moment when Lord Krishna would appear. At midnight everyone made a tumultuous sound – nanda ke ananda bhayo jai kanahiya lal ki – in the sankirtan and maha-arati of Their Lordships. Then to engage the youth we had planned a dahi handi programme. A pot was tied high up with ropes and boys made two or three circles and broke the pot. We made them loudly sing the maha-mantra so that their enthusiasm would multiply. All of them liked it. Then there was a cake cutting programme and maha-prasdam distribution.
The next day we celebrated Srila Prabhupada’s appearance day, a very auspicious day for followers of ISKCON. He is the one who made us devotees, what to speak of padayatra. He is the one who made us fortunate to walk and preach village to village to make Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s prediction come true. He made us instrumental to serve the mission. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Our day began with his darshan as he is always with us on the ratha guiding and helping us all the time. After the morning programme we sang Vaishnava bhajans and each of us glorified Srila Prabhupada. Then we had katha glorifying Srila Prabhupada that brought us even closer to him. At noon we had puspanjali and pushpa-abhishek. Fifty-six bhogas were offered, and we had especially made kachori as Srila Prabhupada liked it so much. Finally, we had maha-arati and prasad distribution.
