Blog

By Padmanabha Dasa

Invitation

Kishore Badal,  chairman  of the  Hindu Coordinating Council  (HCC) of Gauteng , South Africa, forwarded  an  invitation  to  ISKCON to participate  in their  26th Shivratri  Walk. Various temples in Johannesburg were also invited to participate in the walk with various floats to honor Lord Shiva, the topmost Vaishnava. The organizers had also asked the ISKCON devotees to provide the lunch for the public and all the walkers. Caitanya Dasa, temple president of ISKCON Lenasia, welcomed the invitation and immediately gave approval and funding.

Preparations

Right away devotees in the ISKCON camp engaged in frantic preparations to make this event successful. Syama Rupa Dasa and Padmavati Dasi provided over 300 packets of prasadam caramel nuts, all packed by Bhaktin Narishka. Nareshwar Prabhu volunteered to cook 3 containers of biryani and 1 of dahl.  Adhar Mataji collected BTGs and books to be  distributed free of charge   to the public, and  Manoj Prabhu  coordinated the Kirtan team.

The event 

On Sunday  February 11th  2018 25  devotees   assembled  at the Jayas temple in Falcon street, in the South of  Lenasia to join the HCC and 8 other  temples with their  floats  honoring Lord Shiva, Ratheem  Krishna  Prabhu  started Kirtan with the pranam mantras  and continued the whole time with the maha mantra. Our sankirtana party danced and chanted enthusiastically along the way. Many people came out of their homes to take an audio darsana of the holy name; most of them had never heard it before.  On either side of the road teams of devotees were distributing prasadam and Srila Prabhupada’s books. The Johannesburg Police Department and some volunteer marshals escorted the walkers during the procession. We stopped at nine different temples where arati was performed to the Lord Shiva Deities on the floats.

It took us 5 hrs to complete the walk. It was awesome to distribute the holy names, prasadam and books to people. I  am sure  Srila  Prabhupada  and Lord Caitanya  were pleased  with the efforts  put  by their   grand  disciples  – especially  because it was the auspicious  day of Vijaya Ekadashi. The procession stopped at the Sai temple in Kingfisher Street where devotees sang the Nrsimhadeva prayers to conclude the walk. Nareshwar Prabhu and his team were very busy distributing biryani and dhal to the public. We then danced and walked another 500 meters to Syama Govinda’s house, where we honored a delicious Ekadashi prasadam.

Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=60049