By Sukadeva Das
On June 16, 2018, it was our privilege and honour to receive very distinguished guests Hon Matthew Guy, Leader of the Opposition from Victorian State Parliament, Andrew Bond – local candidate from Albert Park and Katie Allan – candidate from Prahran and other prominent members from Indian community at the Melbourne Hare Krishna Temple. They were received by our Temple President HG Aniruddha Prabhu. The guests were briefed on our future building upgrades such as conversion of current theatre into dining hall, upgrading paraphernalia room and converting current dining hall into multipurpose educational/cultural hall.
Then all our dignitaries and guests were given a guided tour of our newly built kitchen. Few years ago, as a Multicultural Minister Mathew Guy had visited our Temple and announced to provide government assistance as result we received grant of $500,000 to build a new kitchen. After seeing our newly built kitchen he said “This is really fabulous, fantastic and magnificent development”. All our guests also were highly impressed with our new kitchen.
Following kitchen tour all guests were taken to Temple room, Hon Mathew Guy offered respect to Srila Prabhupada – the Founder Acarya of ISKCON by offering him a garland. He addressed our congregation in the temple room. He started by saying “The Hindu culture and Australia go long back then we can imagine…”, he also acknowledged to make crown prince of Udaipur (Rajasthan -India) HH Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar who is close supporter and well-wisher of ISKCON to make business ambassador between India and Victoria state if he wins next election in November. He further said “the Melbourne Hare Krishna-ISKCON community is such a powerhouse of support to; not only your community but also to whole community and those less fortunate around you…”. He promised to provide further similar assistance for our future building upgrades. At the end, he was gifted ‘Srimad Bhagavad Gita As It Is’ by Aniruddha Prabhu.
We would like to thank Nitin Gupta, Darpan Mittal, Arvind for planning and making arrangements to have Hon Mathew Guy and other distinguished guests to visit ISKCON Melbourne. May Sri Sri Radha Vallabha, Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, Sri Jagannatha Baladeva Subhadra shower Their blessing on all of them. We would also like to thank all those devotees who assisted in cooking, setup, cleaning, photo graphs, video etc. Very special thanks to Acintya Rupa Mataji who cooked so many sweets and snacks which were relished by all, despite of her health.
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