Rath Yatra held with fervour in US

| | BHUBANESWAR | in Bhubaneswar

The Rath Yatra was celebrated with great zeal and enthusiasm at the Hindu Temple of Central Indiana(HTCI) on July 14.

It was organised by the Jagannath Association of Indiana (JAI), USA. This was the 4th consecutive year of celebrating the Rath Yatra by the Odia families living in Indiana under the JAI banner.

After Mangal Arati and Archana in the morning, Pahandi began at 11 am with devotees carrying the deities from the temple to the Rath on the Palki. The real excitement of the devotees could be seen with chants of “Jai Jagannath!” and reverberations of the ghantas.

HTCI executive president Krishnakumar Padmanabhan performed the Chhera Pahnara.

This marked the start of the Rath pulling. People of all ages pulled the Rath with a lot of excitement and passion around the temple building.

After this, the deities were brought into a separate section of the temple where their aunt’s place was located.

The temple kitchen prepared a special Odia menu of rice, daal, ghaanta curry, tomato khatta, kheer for prasad sevan.

Subsequent to prasad sevan, the cultural programme started with a wide selection of acts which included singing bhajans, classical dances, Odia poems etc concluding with the Indian national anthem.

Close to five hundred people from the Indian community representing various States of India attended the event.