By Kavicandra Swami
Just after the Berlin Ratha Yatra I flew to Singapore for Janmastami. Since that was the last thing, I will write about it first. I will cover the Berlin Rahta Yatra soon.
In Singapore the devotees celebrated KRSNA JANMASTAMI in a big way. They are all nama hatta and bhakta vrksa members who hold a lot of regular big programs. Janmastami was obesrved at three differents venues. I was only to attend one of them but I got the reports from everyone.
Devakinandana Das organized one program at the Gujarti hall which is in the middle of Singapore’s famous “Little India”. Over two hundred devotees attended and most stayed until the end. There was lots of kirtan and a very nice drama of the story of SAKSI GOPAL.
The highlight was that the nearby LAXMI NARAYANA MANDIR invited the devotees for kirtan. They were having a very nice program with many highly qualified dancers and other performers. There were many hundreds of guests there.
They gave us from 22.45 until 23.15, which was prime time and a longer period than anyone else had. The President of Singapore was present, so television and other news media were covering everything.
Haladhara Priya Prabhu had a mela at a temple in Yishun, which is a far suburb of Singapore. He regularly uses that temple and has a very big and active congregation. Over three hundred devotees stayed until past 2am. The temple priests, after closing the temple, all came and joined in.
Their drama of KSIRA CHORA GOPINATHA lasted for one and one half hours. Haladhara Priya is expert at engaging the children, who performed a very nice dance.
Bhadra Govinda Prabhu had another mela at another temple in the suburbs. He has just started using that place, which is newly constructed and provides beautiful facilities, so the attendance was about 100. That will increase as more devotees know about the place and they attract more new devotees.
Considering that it was a working day the attendance was very good. Many devotees took days off from their jobs for this. The next day the attendance at Srila Prabhupada’s vyasa puja mela was almost as big.
All of these leaders are making new devotees and training them very nicely…
I stayed for the Friday and Saturday night programs, and for the Sunday morning satsang, and then flew to Bali. As usual, many devotees were at the airport holding up HARE KRSNA and GAURANGA signs. We went to a well attended program. The next morning I got an unexpected call for a yajna at one of the our temples. After the yajna and lecture one 9 year girl started playing the harmonium and before I knew it a big group of children were playing instruments and singing the NAMA HATTA song by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura. That turned into a long kirtan. It is a special feature of Bali that the children love to lead kirtan, even without being asked.
That evening we had satsang at Mahavirya Prabhu’s house. Again many devotees were there and 7 year old Radha dasi lead an ecstatic kirtan for one and one half hours. At first she played a full sized mrdanga, even standing up with it. She is a most charming little girl and a great singer. I hope to take her and a group of young BALI kirtaneers for a world tour.