post news network, Bhubaneswar, July 12: Preparations are in full swing at the premises of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temple, here, to make the upcoming Rath Yatra festival a gala hit. Five carpenters and painters are working day and night to complete the work on the three chariots of the deities – Lord Jagannath and his two siblings Subhadra and Balabhadra – before July 18, the day on which the Gods and the Goddess will begin their journey for the Gundicha temple.
Ashok Das, the man who constructed the ISKON temple chariot 26 years ago, has been religiously devoting his time to renovating the chariots every year. “I designed the three chariots in the year 1989. It’s been 26 years and I have been regularly devoting time every year to work on the chariots. Every year we just change a few designs of the chariots, their colour schemes and replace some of the old woodwork with new ones. The structures of the chariots are designed in the same way as those of the chariots built in Puri,” said Das.
Terming it as a blessing, he said, “It is the blessing of the Lord that I got an opportunity to work for the Lord. So far I have devoted 26 years of my life to His service and will continue to do so in future.”
The chairman of the Temple Festival Committee, Upendra Mishra Das, informed that around 90 per cent of the work on the chariots has been completed. “The three chariots are 26 years old. We have been using the same chariots every year after making little bits of changes. The chariot structure remains the same, but some of the
woodwork gets replaced because of some damages to those.”
“The second floor of the Gundicha temple in Unit -8 has been completed. The work had been supervised by Sri Srimad Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaj. Hence, this year the celebration is more special for us,” said Das.
Every year the Rath Yatra begins from the ISKCON temple, at Nayapalli and proceeds to the ISKCON Gundicha temple, which is being constructed near the DAV Public School at Unit-VIII.
The ISKCON devotees are very enthusiastic about the Rath Yatra and are eagerly waiting for the day when the Yatra would begin. “Though I regularly visit the ISKCON temple, but getting a glimpse of the three deities on chariots is something very different. Every year I attend the Rath Yatra and pull the chariot of the Lord Jagannath,” said Rajeev Pradhan, a resident of Nayapalli.
The city receives highest footfall of the tourists during the Rath Yatra festival. They descend on the city to pull the chariots of the three deities. The importance of this Yatra is second only to the one happening in Puri. This year too, the temple authorities are expecting around 2 lakh devotees on the Rath Yatra day.