Couple walks barefoot for 75km to seek blessings

PURI: Despite special trains and buses for devotees going to Puri for Rath Yatra from far-off places, Suman Nayak and his wife Sonali walked around 75 km barefoot under the blazing sun to reach the temple town to catch a glimpse of the sibling deities - Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra.
Not just the couple, many other devotees from other parts of the state walked to Puri to express their unflinching devotion to the deities. They believed the Lord would bless them if they took the arduous path.
"We are staunch devotees of Lord Jagannath. For the first time, we decided to walk barefoot to Puri for Rath Yatra. The pain of walking on the hot tar road is nothing compared to our determination to get a darshan of the deities on their chariots," said Suman (29), a resident of Jatni on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
Kuntala Dei (65), who is also from Jatni, too did not hesitate to walk 75-km barefoot despite her age. "My family has been going through the worst financial problems. I walked to the temple to seek the Lord's blessings to save my family," she said. While Suman, Sonali and Kuntala along with seven others from Jatni started to walk on June 18, some devotees from Angul embarked on their journey to Puri on June 15. "We mostly walked during evening till morning," said Samarendu Sarangi, who owns a small grocery store in Angul.