Annual
Preaching and Bhoga Collection Programmes led
by
Sripad Acharyya Maharaj
Malini
Devi Dasi from Malta gains some insight to what goes on behind the scenes
leading up to the celebration of Gaura Purnima festival, and shares the
experience of travelling through Bengali villages on such preaching and
collection programmes.
Pg
01 Background
| Pg 02 Jaymulla |
Pg 03 Beraberi |
Pg 04 Bajumelia
Pg 05 Tisha-Nizampur-Begumpur-Janai Chikrandi|
Pg 06 Chandradwip
The
latter circumstance surrounds the first place we visit on this trip. Jaymulla,
which is about 40 km from Howrah and a little less than three hours by
bus from Nabadwip, is new territory. We arrive at destination at around
4.30pm, after asking directions a few times. The roads in this area look
identical. On the outskirts of Kolkata – that big, busy, overpopulated
and polluted city – the area is covered in lush, green forest and
large ponds.
We
finally park beside a pond and a few haystacks. Along a cobbled path with
ponds scattered on both sides, which create a pretty picture with geese
swimming under the shade of palm trees leaning over the water, we are
led to the door of our first hosts.
Through
the doorway leading into a courtyard commanded by a hand-pump for water,
we leave our shoes at the bottom of the stairs and make our way directly
to the 1st floor. The floor is red, there is a black skirting, and the
walls are green in the L-shaped veranda. Corrugated metal, painted green,
covers the large spaces between the pillars, forming windows overlooking
the courtyard. There are six brightly-coloured doors – painted blue
and yellow or red and green, all different – leading into six rooms,
which space is almost entirely taken up by the double-beds inside.
In
one corner of the veranda are eight huge sacks with unknown contents.
Two lines tied across the metal windows have clothes hanging, not as in
washing to dry but as in heaped over each other for storage. Various pictures,
including several calendars and a sequin-decorated picture of Shyamasundar
Krishna, decorate the walls. This is the setting of our first programme.
Our
hosts – a sweet, old couple – are not devotees but they are
keen to serve, whereas their two sons seem more intent on practising their
English with the Westerners! Since the family has no experience in Vaishnava
seva, Maharaj gently explains how the house-programme should be organised,
and how to go about preparing for prasadam. Meanwhile, the Bengali brahmacharis
get busy setting up an altar and making seating arrangements on straw
mats.
Sripad
Acharyya Maharaj makes an announcement on the microphone for all the villagers
to attend the programme of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math consisting of arati,
Tulasi parikrama, seated kirttan bhajans and some Krishna-katha. He also
invites them to watch the related DVD, to be shown using a media-projector.
One thing Indians are good at is organising very loud loud-speakers for
any occasion, and it is not surprising when around fifty people show up
from the announcement!
The
arati is lively, and Tulasi parikrama is held on the roof of the building
to allow for the people to move around her. During the bhajans the children
and women take turns at playing karatals, motivated by Kamala Nayan Didi
and Nowl Kishor Prabhu. Sripad Acharyya Maharaj delivers a lecture to
an attentive audience and we finish off by setting up the projector and
watching the Gaura Purnima 2006 DVD made by Vaideihi Didi (USA) in collaboration
with the Russian devotees.
The
evening concludes with a tasty prasadam of dhal, begun bhaja (fried eggplant),
aloo-gobi (potato and cauliflower), rice, chapati (flat bread) and a variety
of milk sweets. The family give up their bedrooms to allow us accommodation.
This extremely kind gesture is not unusual in India where it is common
practice to treat the guest as god.
We
sleep at midnight and rise at 6am. Organising taking a bucket shower proves
to be quite an interesting task since all the metal buckets have holes
in them! Somehow we manage to heat some water using an immersion heater
I brought, although only Sripad Acharyya Maharaj, Kamala and I used it,
the young men going for the cold-bucket-in-the-open-air option.
The
family donates two sacks of rice and promises ten sacks of potatoes when
they are ready. It seems unfair that the government has recently confiscated
some of their land in order to help a manufacturing industry. Still their
generosity is notable and we are not allowed to leave on an empty stomach,
although we are only one kilometre from the place where we are meant to
have breakfast. So we accept a light 'first breakfast'!
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