By Yudhistir Govinda Das
Dear Maharajas and Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The President of Mauritius H.E Mr. Kailash Purryag along with his wife Mrs. Aneetah Purryag, Dr. Arye Kumar Jagessur (Mauritian ambassador to India) and the officials from the embassy visited ISKCON Delhi yesterday evening. A brief report recounting their visit is presented below.
The President who was on a personal visit to India was greeted at the temple entrance by Raghava Pandit Prabhu (who had arranged and coordinated this visit) and other senior devotees of the temple. All the while a team of 20 devotees kept performing sankirtan in the background. Then a svasti vachan was performed to invoke auspiciousness for the President’s visit.
Mr. Purryag (photographed in white kurta) and the guests were first taken to the temple hall for the darsan of Their Lordships wherein they were greeted by HH Gopal Krishna Maharaja and participated in the entire Gaura Arati after which the President along with his wife offered an arati to Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi.
Gopal Krishna Maharaj then took the dignitaries on a tour of the temple hall which houses several beautiful paintings of Krishna lila painted by the Russian and Uzbek devotees. The President was impressed by the paintings and acknowledged the global presence and the “great activities” performed by ISKCON.
Mr. Purryag and the delegation were then taken to Vedic Expo which began with a tour of the ‘Bhagavad Gita Experience’ followed by the Mahabharat exhibit and the Ramayana art gallery. In the art gallery the President was particularly impressed and requested to stay for a while to ‘relish the paintings of Lord Rama’.
The guests were then brought to the meeting room for honoring dinner prasadam. Over the dinner, Gopal Krishna Maharaja and Mr. Purryag engaged in a lively conversation with the President remembering his visit to ISKCON Juhu few years ago.
Maharaja narrated Srila Prabhupada’s first visit to Mauritius and the comment of how Mauritian people are naturally pious and can become the first Krishna consciousness country. Maharaja later on described the activities of ISKCON around the world and elucidated on how all the problems of the world can be solved by providing spiritual knowledge to the society as was done in the time of Maharaja Yudhistira. Mr. Purryag acknowledged this “as a fact”.
He also spoke about the programs that ISKCON Delhi has been carrying on in schools and showed the spiritual books that the resident devotees had prepared for children. Mrs. Aneetah Purryag (wife of the President) liked the entire concept and requested a copy of the book.
Later on HH Kesava Bharati Maharaja came in and joined the table. He invited Mr. Purryag and his wife to visit Govardan on their next visit. Gopal Krishna Maharaja offered to make all the arrangements for a Govardan parikrama by Mr. Purryag and his wife. They were happy to hear this and assured that they will try to do it on their next visit to India.
During the entire visit of the dignitaries, they were accompanied and served by a group of Mauritian devotees along with few CIS devotees who stay at ISKCON Delhi. Mr. Purryag joked with the Mauritian devotees and enjoyed their presence calling the temple as ‘mini Mauritius’.
After the dinner as the dignitaries prepared to leave, Gopal Krishna Maharaja presented Mr. Purryag a BBT Darsan Book and a photograph of Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi which they very much appreciated. He along with his wife bowed down requesting the blessings of Maharaja and to pray for them.
Mr. Purryag and the Mauritian Ambassador promised to visit again and invited Gopal Krishna Maharaja to Mauritius.
The photograph of the visit can be accessed at the below link:
Thank you.
Your servant,
Yudhistir Govinda Das