By Basu Ghosh Das
Pictures of the festival appear on the internet (Google Plus) at: http://tinyurl.com/pbeasfv
On Saturday, December 20, 2014, a grand Jagannath Rathayatra festival was organized by the ISKCON Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarakadish Temple of Triolet, Mauritius, at nearby Grand Bay.
Grand Bay (Grand-Baie, in French), is a tourist town on the far Northwest coast of Mauritius, situated in the Rivière du Rempart District of the Island nation. There is a large waterfront, with white sand beaches, where numerous European and other tourists come during their winter – now summer here in the Southern Hemisphere – to escape the cold and enjoy the paradise like atmosphere of warm weather and deep blue seas.
Srila Prabhupada visited Mauritius during 1975, and met with the then Prime Minister and founding father of newly independent Mauritius, Sir Seewoosagur (“Shivsaagar”) Ramgulam. (“gulam” is from the Hindi “ghulam”, in English “slave”. The clear sense is “servant of Lord Ramachandra”). Prabhupada remarked that Mauritius could become the first Krishna Conscious nation in the world! The Grand Bay Rathayatra surely is part of the effort to bring Prabhupada’s vision to fruition.
Mauritius is a multilingual nation, where English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, and French Creole are commonly spoken languages. The present population of Mauritius is more than five hundred thousand.
The Rathayatra procession began at Pointe aux Cannoniers, on the Western side of the bay, and moved gradually Eastward – the entire procession went for more than three hours, from 4 PM until after 7 PM – on the main Grand Bay Beach Road, passing by shops, the business district, the large winding beach area on the bay, the South Indian Subramaniam Swami (Kartikeya) temple, until culminating at the Kamalnath Mahadev Mandir grounds, where prasad was distributed to all.
There was a large decorated Rath with medium large size Deities of Their Lordships Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadradevi, and Sudharshan chakra, that was the center of attraction for the procession.
Many tourists, most of the from France and other European places, saw the procession, took part in pulling the Rath cart, took pictures of the procession, and took prasad at the conclusion of the festival at the Mahadev temple grounds.
Joyful and enthusiastic harinam sankirtan was performed throught the procession. The kirtan was led by senior ISKCON devotees Bhakti Narasimha Swami of South Africa, and Prabhupada disciples Mahatma Das, Shastivar Das, and Basu Ghosh Das, all of whom are presently visiting Mauritius.
Mukta Purush Das, the head of the Rukmini Dwarkadish Temple at Triolet was the main organizer of the festival. He was assisted by a number of volunteers in various aspects of the festival, including preparing prasad for the many festival participants.
Other Mauritian devotees who participated in the festival were Guru Shakti Das, Kunjabihari Das, his wife Kalindi Devi Dasi, Adya Das, Rishabh Das, Bhugarbha Das, Prithu Das, Narasimha Das, Vijay Das, Shikshataka Das, Raghunath Das, Jagatjivan Das, Svayam Bhagavan Das, and Sachi Dasi, wife of Shastivar Das, who is visiting with her husband from Washinton, DC, in the USA.
Jagannath Rathayatra festival ki jaya!
Thank you, Prabhus, for what seems like a very nice Rathayatra Festival that you had. How many plates of prasadam were distributed? and how many books sold? And how much did it cost? How many people attended? and what are the plans for next year?