Papayyapalem is one of the oldest villages in Chirala region and our 46th village in a row. It was located at a mere distance of 2 kms from the Bay of Bengal. It is said that in bygone ages it was a part of big prospersous city and there are rumors that in many parts of village there are still hidden treasures of gold and silver ornaments. But presently the village presents a picture which is in stark opposition to the old one with open drains and thorny bushes. Even the temples are in neglected state, covered in dust. The general population is made up of primarily farmers, building laborers, and men who work in town factories, etc. Almost every house has buffalos. It is very rare to see a household have cows. The main crops are paddy and ground nuts.
On January 5, 2016, the Yatra bus had some repair work. So, so a small group of devotees had left in a small van. One book table was put up for distributing transcendental literature and panchgavya products. The devotees went for gram kirtan, but there was not the same response as in other villages. Before coming to the village, we had approached the sarpanch (village head), who had promised to organize and invite the villagers for the program. Now here he was not to be seen at all; even his mobile phone was switched off. We sensed something fishy.
After the due repair work, the bus arrived in the village. Yet there was no one, but a few children eager to see the huge bus. Other villagers didn’t bother to come. We requested a few villagers for getting us a cow for puja. They brought the cow after an hour. The village has a huge Ongole breeding bull named Ramu, who freely moves about in the village. He suddenly came charging into the venue but it didn’t disturb the on going go-puja. Later we came to that know its passion was excited due to the presence of cow.
In the later program also, very few people comprising mainly old men and a few children (not numbering more than forty to fifty) were present. They too were scattered around in nonchalance. Video display also did not draw many men. Finally even while arati was being performed, the general people were very callous; and even at the time of distributing prasadam we had to plead them literally to come forward and accept. We were all very surprised. At the end of the whole program while interacting with a few local men we came to know that the sarpanch was a converted Christian and he had purposely tried to sabotage the program. The local hindus did not respond because they expected us to consult them for organizing program as they had serious differences with the sarpanch.
Later when we had our review meeting we listed some reasons for the poor response:
- Choosing a notorious contact person
- Delayed arrival of bus with deities
- Good number of converted Christians in this village (almost 50% are Christians). Even while kirtans and lectures were going on children were muttering the words like ‘amen’, ‘halo-lua’, later we realized it was due to influence of Christianity.
Inspite of these unfavorable conditions ten maha books were distributed, go puja was performed in the attendance of 30-35 members, 3 Samskara patra were distributed, and around 40 members pledged to protect cows and about 70 plates of prasadam were distributed.
Sukha-duùkhe same kåtvä
läbhäläbhau jayäjayau
tato yuddhäya yujyasva
naivaà päpam aväpsyasi (Bg-2.38)
Do thou fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat—and by so doing you shall never incur sin.
Srila Prabhupada ki Jai!
Sri Govind Gau Gram Prachar Yatra ki Jai!!
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