Back in Baroda we started planning and, consulting with senior devotees, we fixed the date to Saturday Nov 11th<\/sup>. We decided to walk from the Baroda temple to the small town of Mahuvad where there is a famous temple of Ranchor Rai.\u00a0 It was a 2 days and 1 night padayatra, 32kms long, going \u00a0through 7 villages with each an average population of 2200 people.<\/p>\n DAY 1<\/p>\n All\u00a0the devotees gathered early morning, fully charged up with spiritual enthusiasm. At 6.15am, Sri Sri Gaura Nitai along with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada\u00a0were ready to travel to many villages and distribute eternal Krishna prema to all the fallen souls. The first arati was lead by a very senior devotee, Sriman Damodar Chaitanya Prabhu,\u00a0and the first kirtana by Sriman Ram Govind Prabhu,.our Gita League \u00a0champion and Bhakti Vriksha leader. At 7.15am, with a slight push to the ratha, we started our padayatra.<\/p>\n We moved ecstatically\u00a0towards our first halt 4 kms ahead at the village of \u00a0Bhayli, which we reached \u00a0by 8.30am. Many children and elders joined us for nagar sankirtana, and \u00a0with loud chanting of the names of GAURANGA and \u00a0NITYANANDA we moved ahead towards \u00a0the village of Bill ( only 2kms ahead)\u00a0 for our breakfast halt, guru puja and morning class. \u00a0After prasadam we went to the village where people welcomed Sri Sri Gaura Nitai with garland, incense, fruits and flowers. Some of the villagers were very lucky to have the visit of the padayatra deities in their home. After our routine daily and evening\u00a0 program, the day ended with a dynamic lecture by \u00a0Sriman Satcitananda Prabhu from Canada.<\/p>\n DAY 2<\/p>\n After mangala arati we started our day at 6 am with loud chanting around the village before heading to the nearby town of Padra for guru puja, class and prasadam. At 11am we entered the village with chanting of the holy names, distributing Srila Prabhupada books, and then walked to the village of Latipura village 4kms from Padra. There we did a small halt with\u00a0 buttermilk as refreshments, after which we moved towards \u00a0the village of\u00a0 Ranu village, where there is a very famous Tuljabhavani Mata temple, but \u00a0\u00a0unfortunately it was closed in the afternoon.<\/p>\n After the sarpanch (mayor) of this village offered arati to our Gaura Nitai deities, we moved towards our final destination, Mahuvad, 4kms away. \u00a0The day ended in the afternoon with a 20 mn \u00a0joyous recitation of\u00a0 the famous mantra \u201cMaha prasada Govinde\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 Afterwards Vamshidhari Prabhu, Baroda\u2019s ISKCON Youth Forum\u2019s director gave a small speech and a vote of thanks to all the devotees who made this padayatra successful.<\/p>\n We had from 60 to 80 devotees on the road: elderly, young, women and \u00a0children; \u00a0all took part, all of them were looking very \u00a0blissful. We distributed\u00a0a total of 200\u00a0<\/strong>small books,\u00a0160\u00a0Bhagavad- gitas and some\u00a0BTG\u00a0magazines.<\/p>\n We especially want to thank Sriman Basu Ghosh Prabhu, president of ISKCON Baroda, Sriman Nityanand Ram Prabhu, vice-president of ISKCON Baroda and \u00a0all the devotees \u00a0who joined \u00a0the walk \u00a0from different cities, Surat, Vallabh Vidyanagar and Ahmedabad.\u00a0 Last but not the least we thank all the devotees connected to ISKCON Baroda and specially all those who took a management role in \u00a0this padayatra. We sincerely thank all of them from the bottom of our heart. This padayatra was really the mercy of Sri Sri Gaur Nitai, Srila Prabhupada and above all of our beloved Gurudev, His Holiness Lokanath Swami Maharaja, who inspired all of us to make this padayatra a big success<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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