By Samba Das
By the blessings of Srila Prabhupad and all the vaishnavas our maiden Rathayatra festival turned out to be very successful with thousands of people attending the program.
The 30 ft high Ratham with a collapsible canopy was tastefully decorated with very beautiful flowers and balloons. There were five different kirtan mandalis apart from our local devotees singing kirtans. There was also Nadaswaram parties, kolatam dances, people dressed as different characters from Ramayan and Mahabharath entertaining the crowds, decorated horses and Continuous mass prasadam distribution of Pulihara, laddu, Sweet pongal, bananas etc. was part of the procession. 600 Rajasthani Sanskritik mandal members distributed Water Pkts, Butter milk, soft drinks through out the procession. More than 200 police personel and 8 bomb squad were present all through the program. The procession ended at the Gurujada kalakshetram were the deities were taken on the stage and offered Chappan bhoga and arrati followed by Bhajan program, Discourse and feast Prasadam for life members.
This programme was covered by all the print and electronic media. Some newspapers gave full page, half page, quarter page article with colour picture. Many TV Channels gave Live Telecast. Four M. L. A. s of Visakhapatnam city inaugurated the festival.
You can paste the below given link in your browser to see how one of the English daily “THE HINDU” has reported about our rathayatra, also see attached the scanned images of other telugu newspapers along with some Rathayatra photos.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/25/stories/2009062557840200.htm
you can paste this picasa url in your browser to see few pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/Bhaktin.Neha/Gurudev? feat=directlink
Jai Jagannath !!
your servant, Samba Das