{"id":3633,"date":"2016-12-30T07:11:53","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T01:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/?p=3633"},"modified":"2016-12-30T07:11:53","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T01:41:53","slug":"ahmedabads-5th-one-day-padayatra-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/ahmedabads-5th-one-day-padayatra-2\/","title":{"rendered":"AHMEDABAD\u2019S 5TH ONE-DAY PADAYATRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honour of ISKCONS 50th<\/sup> anniversary, the devotees of Ahmedabad pledged to do one five-day padayatra and five one-day padayatras this year. The first five-day padayatra was held in January with Lokanath Swami attending. \u00a0During the course of the year, they also completed the 4 one-day padayatras they had pledged. On December 18th<\/sup>, they successfully held the fifth one-day padayatra thus completing their vow. They are now planning to do these padayatras every year for the pleasure of all the vainavas and Srila Prabhupada.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Muralimohan Dasa<\/p>\n

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Receiving blessings<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>On December 18th<\/sup> we held our last one-day padayatra<\/em>. We planned the following route: we would start at the ISKCON Ahmedabad temple and travel to Ramdev Nagar, then to Prahalad Nagar, next to Railway Crossing followed by the village of Markarba, then to SG. Highway and lastly to Sarkhej Ujala Chowkdi ending the padayatra <\/em>at the Bhavani temple in the village of Sarkhej. It was a 10 kilometre walk and we would reach our destination at 1:00 pm that day.<\/p>\n

Before leaving we had kirtana <\/em>in the temple premises from around 8.00 am. Jashomatinandan Dasa, who was in his room at the time, heard the kirtana <\/em>and came out to meet us. Upon seeing him we garlanded him and asked for his blessings. He smiled happily and with a loud voice said, \u201cHari bol!\u201d raising his left hand in the air (his right hand was on his chanting beads). We were blessed.<\/p>\n

Ecstatic kirtana <\/em>in Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi<\/strong><\/p>\n

We left the temple at 8.30 am. There were more than 90 devotees joining us with 25 to 30 of those devotees actively distributing books along the way. The rest of us conducted sankirtana <\/em>while following the bullock cart carrying the deities of Sri Sri Nimai-Nitai and Srila Prabhupada. At 9.30 am we stopped and served breakfast prasadam <\/em>to all the padayatris<\/em> before resuming our journey. We would stop walking after every four streets so we could have ecstatic roaring kirtanas<\/em>, lead by various devotees. We had an especially blissful kirtana <\/em>when we reached Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi. It went on for half an hour as we delighted in chanting the \u2018Hare Krishna\u2019 maha mantra<\/em>. Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi is a predominantly Muslim area and when they saw us the public began to gather, even shop owners came out of their shops to watch us. When we saw that such a nice crowd was gathering we adjusted the deities to face everyone so they could take darsana<\/em>. We also distributed many books, which we sold at a discounted price in this particular area.<\/p>\n

Maha-padayatra book scores<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On this padayatra, <\/em>we distributed 408 Bhagavad-gitas and 447 small books in just four and a half hours, which made this one-day padayatra seem like a maha-padayatra.<\/em>By 1.00pm we reached our destination, the Bhavani temple in the village of Sarkhej. Afterwards, all the padayatris<\/em> had a lunch feast and we also distributed khichadi prasadam <\/em>to all the villagers. When Naradamuni Dasa reported our successful padayatra <\/em>to Jashomatinandan Dasa he was very pleased and he bestowed more blessings upon us to do more padayatras<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Prasadam <\/em><\/strong>power<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I look back on all of the five one-day padayatras<\/em> we held, I strongly believe that we were able to maintain the spirits of all the many devotees who joined us, through the sumptuous prasadam <\/em>cooked. For this, we have all these wonderful, selfless serving, devotees to thank: Madhavmohini Dasi, Harimurari Dasa, Padmaradha Dasi, Sachidhuli Dasi and Bhakta Bhavesh. Other devotees who deserve special recognition for their services on padayatra <\/em>are:<\/p>\n