post news network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 25: The festivity of Christmas was celebrated with great fervour in the capital, Sunday. The celebration was intensified as a big crowd took part in the fresh Pathotsav event held at Janpath.
As a result, huge footfalls were recorded for mass prayer at the Catholic Church at Satya Nagar, which is very close to Janpath. Fr Prasanna Kumar Pradhan of the church said the crowd attended the gathering, which ended with kissing the feet of baby Jesus’s statue, where important verses from Bible were preached.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wished the state on the occasion. Governor SC Jamir, along with his wife, attended the gathering at the church at Unit IV.
Meanwhile, at the weekly event Pathotsav, Prince Dance Group and Robotics were among the crowd pullers. Gopal Panigrahi, the public relations officer with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, corroborated that the fresh Pathotsav witnessed a significantly higher footfall than previous times.
Bhabani Shankar Chayani, a BDA official in-charge of Pathotsav, said “The Robotics group was a result of the collaboration between Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalay, Khurda and a ‘lego league group’ from Houston, US. Children from both the countries took the occasion to present their talent.”
“Today was special. I have been visiting the event since it started, but this time it is better and the environment is completely different,” said Aparna Sharma, a student of Rama Devi Women’s college.
Xmas celebration kicked off in city churches at 10 pm Saturday, and continued for four hours. People, in huge numbers, thronged to the shrines, which was decorated with fairy lights and sparkling stars, Christmas cribs and trees. After midnight mass prayers, carols were sung amidst the decorations rejoicing the birth of Jesus Christ.
