Old memories of shoeing the Padayatra bulls, which was so “challenging”. This was my greatest WORRY while managing Padayatra: The bulls feet!!! This was a few days before reaching Mayapur in 1996!
Photography by Angelo Francis Dinoto
Svetadvip Das: “Dandavat Pranam. The only reason that Jaya Vijay Prabhu and a few other padayatris learned the skill because it was soooooo difficult to get a ‘naalwalla’ in some states of India. A few inexperienced ones came and hurt our devotee-bullocks. And they would limp. It was very painful to see our catur-pada devotees suffering. Without them our Padayatra around India would have been impossible. We loved them too much. We all used to serve them as much as we could. We all used to protect them from being attacked by the local bulls (sanrrr). Locals considered them Nandi. But our Padayatra warriors were always ready to chase them away with sticks.”