Ludhiana Rathayatra

[Guest guest]

My dear Maharajas and Prabhujis,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

If one wants to see a really magnificent Rathayatra that shakes the whole city,

then one has to come to see the Ludhiana Rathayatra. It comes every year some

weekend in October, so you should start making your plans to not miss this

truly amazing event next year.

 

This year for the first time, there were three rathas. The entire city was

covered with banners, posters, and billboards proclaiming the ISKCON Rathaytra

on October 2nd. If anyone didn't know there was Rathayatra in Ludhiana, he must

live in a cave somewhere.

 

Ludhiana is in Punjab in the Northern part of India. As Punjabis are very

energetic, enthusiastic, and industrious, Ludhiana has become one of the

fastest growing cities in India. During Centenial celebrations, one of our

ISKCON preachers, Saksi Gopal das, inspired some of the biggest people in

Ludhiana that they should organize Rathayatra in Ludhiana. Now eight years

later, it has become the biggest Rathayatra in ISKCON and second only to

Jagannatha Puri.

 

This year the ISKCON Rathayatra committee decided to publicize Rathayatra with

22 days of prabhat feri, or morning sankirtan. It is actually part of the old

Punjabi culture to assemble early in the morning and walk around the

neighborhood singing kirtans. This was revived by them. They had a small

ten-foot rath with two small sets of Jagannatha Deities. With a nice sound

system, there was an joyful kirtan in front of Lord Jagannatha.

 

I had never seen such spontaneous devotion to Lord Jagannatha. People who

ordinarily slept till 8 or 9 were getting up at 5 am, bathing dressing and

reaching the neighborhood of the prabhat feri by 6 am! Two or three thousand

sometimes attended. Every street had cloth gates to welcome Lord Jagannatha.

The children had made brightly colored signs with "Jaya Jagannatha!",

Mahamantra, and other prayers and pasted them outside their houses. People

decorated their houses with flowers. From every balcony and doorway, there was

constant shower of flower petals.

 

At certain donors's houses, the small set of Jagannatha would enter the house

to bless the family. They offered Him sweets and fruits wherever He went. In

this way, just by this simple practice, in 22 days, they collected almost

US$7,000 for Rathayatra.

 

Then two nights before Rathyatra, they had a special SP108 Prabhupada Sankirtan

procession through the main market. They had Srila Prabhupada's beautiful murti

on a special cart and many pictures of Dis Divine Grace on other carts. At the

end was our small Rath with Lord Jagannatha.

 

On the night before Rathayatra, Lord Jagannatha left his temple and went

several kilometers out of Ludhiana to a beautiful 10 acre garden called Kothari

Resorts usually used for marriage festivals. There inside a massive hall Their

Lorships presided in a special flower palace made by experts from Vrindavan.

All the 175 artika donors, who had donated Rs.11,000 for the festival came with

their families to do special artikas to Lord Jagannatha. Their Lordships dress

and decorations were simply stunning.

 

Outside in the gardens, the melodious kirtan from inside the hall was broacast.

Here and there there were small tables and chairs set up and there were two

long lines of tables where Lord Jagannatha's Chappan Bhoga prasadam was served.

Actually Chappan Bhog means 56 preparations, but they managed to come up with

121!

 

The day of Rathaytra saw clouds, which was very strange because the whole rainy

season, there had been hardly any rain. The weather had been quite hot, but

that day it was very pleasant. This year three large rathas, one for each of

Their Lordships towered over the festival site. Sri Prakash Sing Badal, the

previous Punjab Chief Minister, was the guest of honor who addressed the crowd

from Jagannatha's cart.

 

As soon as Rathayatra began, the rain also began. I was a little apprehensive

that what will happen now. But rather than dampen their spirits, the crowd

became more enthusiastic. From 3 PM to 11 PM there was such crowds there was no

place to place your foot. Everyone just began dancing in the rain, it was the

rain of Jagannatha's mercy.

 

Thousands of people anxiously lined the roads. Thousands of ladies carrying

bags of flower petals rushed forward, battling with the security guards to get

close enought to shower Their Lordships with flower petals. Every 50 ft. or so

there were booths set up by the local people giving out sweets, drinks, or

fruits to all the pilgrims. The very first one we approached was even playing

the Hare Krishna Mantra of Srila Prabhupada.

 

There were three main ISKCON kirtan parties, one in front of each cart, with

wonderful sound systems broadcasting the Holy Names and Jaya Jagannatha. Many

other kirtan parties, like Radha Madhava Sankirtan Mandal and Banke Bihari

Kirtan Mandal joined with Punjabi and Brijbasi bhajans.

 

A hundred or so young IYF and students with their bright Jagannatha tee-shirts

tried their best to control the chaos. It was just an oceon of spontaneous

devotion for Lord Jagannatha. It was an amazing phenomena, that somehow Lord

Jagannatha, who has very little to do with Punjabi Culture, has captured the

Punjabi hearts. The whole city became Jagannatha-maya!

 

Throughout the city at various places feast were going on for whoever came and

wanted to eat. Profuse distribution of prasadam was always very dear to Srila

Prabhupada and the Rathayatra committee inspired many people to do this. At the

end of the route, there was a feast for 30,000 people!

 

The next day, all the newspapers declared the same thing in different words:

Rathayatra turned Ludhiana into Jagannatha Puri. Later that day in the Hare

Krishna Utsava, I said that now we should approach the municipality with a

resolution to change the name to Uttar (Northern) Jagannatha Puri and the crow

responed with wild cheering.

 

In the morning, Lord Jagannatha came to one of the most prestigious hotels of

Ludhiana, Maharaja Palace. All the facilities and halls had been donated for

the service of Lord and His devotees. Lord Jagannatha presided in a huge

air-conditioned hall in another beautiful flower palace. All the one thousand

volunteers who helped in the festival lined up to do their artika to Their

Lordships. Outside in the gardens, wonderful prasadam was served to all the

devotees and guests. Next door there was a full feast going on for 50,000

people.

 

In the evening in another enormous hall beyond the garden, there was the Hare

Krishna Utsava. This hall easily seats 50-60 thousand people and it was packed.

His Holiness Radharama Maharaja and Devakinandan, Mahaman, Sarvabhauma,

Rajasuya (TP of Ludhiana) and myself spoke to the unbridled cheers of the

Ludhiana Nivasis. Then Gopal Krishna Maharaja started a kirtan that within

minutes had the whole hall on its feet dancing in ecstasy.

 

Vijay Chopra, chairman of one of the biggest newspapers in Punjab, Punjab

Kesri, addressed the crowd. He has been an admirer of Srila Prabhupada for a

long time. In fact every Tuesday on the front page of Punjab Kesri you will

find one verse and purport from Srila Prabhupada's Gita.

 

Hari Das Prabhu from ITV filmed all the festivities. He said our Bombay

Rathaytra is peanuts in comparison. He continued that he has seen many

rathayatra committees, but they all have vested interest. THe difference is

that this one works with an open heart just for the pleasure of Lord

Jagannatha. It was truly amazing these wonderful men neglected their business

and worked day and night for one month to make Rathayatra a success. They

collected, spent, organized, did everything. All the devotees had to do was

chant, dance, preach, and distribute books. And speaking of book distribution,

the parties from Delhi and Punjabi Bag temples distributed more that Rs.80,000

worth of books!

 

It was a model to be followed, more or less along the lines of Chowpatty. The

devotees didn't have to collect a penny, all this was done by these big

industrialists. Devotees just had to chant and preach.

 

Next year we have to organize our preaching better. This festival is

practically like a Kumbha Mela. The whole Northern India has to form a

committee to sit here for 30 days and organize our preaching and give spiritual

guidance to these wonderful members of the ISKCON Rathayatra Committee. Even

they were telling me that where were all the devotees for the prabhat feris,

you could have distributed a million rupees worth of books!

 

So mark it on your calendars to be there next year. In fact in his lecture, His

Holiness Gopal Krishna Maharaja said that people go to different countries and

universities for technology, medical knowledge, ect. Soon it will become famous

that one will come to Ludhiana to learn how to do Rathayatra!

 

In service of Sri Sri Krishna Balaram,

Deena Bandhu dasa