By the blessings of Srila Prabhupad and all the Vaishnva's ISKCON Visakhapatnam Second Rathayatra festival turned out to be very successful with thousands of people attending the program.
The 33 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. A.P. Chief Minister's Son-in -law,along with DIG Soumya Mishra and two other Business tycoon inaugurated the festival.
Nadaswaram(Shenai) parties,kolatam(with sticks) dances,Children 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 Marwadi Mandal members distributed Water Pkts,Butter milk, soft drinks.snacks packet throughout the procession. Since this was the Second Rathayatra the turn out was more than last time
and Ratha had to be frequently stopped since more shopkeepers offered Puja to the Lord and distributed variety of Sweets/softdrinks all the way. More than 200 police personel were present throughout the program.
The procession ended at the Gurujada kalakshetram open air Auditorium where the deities were taken on the stage and offered 501 varieties of Food stuff The Program was then continued with Aarati,Bhajans Cultural Program,Discourse and feast Prasadam honoured by 1800 Lifemembers.
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.
To see rathayatra pictures you can paste the below link
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 the below link to see the scanned images of other telugu newspapers
Jai Jagannath !!
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