The period 25 March – 4 April 1971 marked the golden jubilee of Srila Prabhupada’s historic and undoubtedly most memorable Hare Krishna Festival at Cross Maidan in Bombay. In an endeavour to mark this watershed event in ISKCON’s history, ISKCON Kirtan Ministry organised several activities to relive the event.

Each day was a concerted effort to reconstruct the festival mood. The exact lectures given by Srila Prabhupada went viral across the globe. Dramatic readings of excerpts from books yet again captured the ambience of this festival through rich descriptions. Archival material was unearthed to relive the exactness and details of the milieu of this festival, Srila Prabhupada’s strong, forceful bhajans, voice overs and commentaries on virtual tours and photographs, were daily inspirations that rekindled fond remembrances of this momentous event at Cross Maidan, from crowd reactions to the dancing and kirtan on stage, the marriage and initiation ceremonies, to Srila Prabhupada’s instructive and insightful lectures.

The grand finale, and the culmination of the program on 4 April 2021 included, Giriraj Swami, Radhanath Swami, Lokanath Swami, Shyamasundara Dasa, Gurudas Dasa, Vegavan Dasa, Yadubara Dasa, Kshudi Dasa and Visakha Dasi, who glorified Srila Prabhupada and recalled with much love Srila Prabhupada’s pioneering initiatives to launch the movement in India and to rekindle love of Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

~ Radha Prema Devi Dasi

The International Kirtan Band “The Mayapurvasis” had been touring all around India for almost 7 years, and now it was time for them to finally bring the ecstatic wave of kirtan from its birthplace in Sridham Mayapur to the feet of Their Lordships Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarkadish, in Their kingdom, Gujarat!

Singing for the Lord, dancing and feasting is what the tours are usually all about, and in so doing bringing the message of peace and love to every town and village. But in Gujarat, there were many exceptional places of pilgrimage and so many holy places such as; Prabhas Kshetra, Somnath, Porbandar and the Golden city, Dwarka.

Performing Harinam Sankirtan together with so many devotees was ecstatic after one whole year of pandemic isolation. The band travelled along the coastline to the different cities performing Harinam Sankirtan. Porbandar, the home of Sudama Brahmana, the intimate friend of Lord Krishna was the next stop. This is also one of the most important tirthas of Lord Shiva, the magnificent Somnath on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Moving out we visited the city of Bhavnagar with their enthusiastic congregation and took darshan of the most wonderful Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra Deities.

At last the Mayapurvasis made their way back to Ahmedabad after a long journey, just in time for the Gaura Purnima festival at the ISKCON Goshala farm in Kathwada, a small village on the outskirts of the city.

~ Ladali Radhika Devi Dasi

Evening program at ISKCON Baroda

Stage program at ISKCON Rajkot

Houseful crowd in Rajkot

The three day Kirtan Mela started from 25 March and on 28 March there was a celebration of Gauranga Mahaprabhu Abhishek on the auspicious day of Gaura Purnima Festival.

The following are a few highlights of this most successful event:

• 3 days Sankirtan with 32 teams, 224 participants from Bangladesh
• Participation by 9 Namahatta teams
• 20-30 hours non-stop kirtan

Prasada Distribution:

• 650 plates of Ekadasi prasada distributed on Amalaki Ekadasi
• Last two days, 1,300 plates prasada and 1,500 glasses of sweet water
• 1,400 devotees participated in Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu Abishek
• 90 devotees engaged in preparation, packing and distribution of prasada.

This event turned out to be a wonderful spontaneous offering, as it was planned only ten days prior to the event. Our heartfelt gratitude to all the Kirtan Facilitators and chanters who joined in this special offering to celebrate the auspicious day of Gaura Purnima. Special thanks goes to HG Brajaraj Krishna Dasa, Director of Govardhan Bhakti Centre, who was the main initiator of this event.

~ Rasika Govardhan Dasa

Altars of Govardhan Bhakti Center

Radha Madan Gopal Namhatta, Badda, Dhaka

Radha Krishna Jiu Temple, Hajoganj, Chandpur

Bhakta Shadan Paul & team Kaliakoir, Gazipur

Damodar Gopal Namhatta, Kuril

HG Charu Chandra Das Brahmachari, General Secretary, ISKCON Bangladesh

Victory was ours! Vijaya Ekadasi fulfilled the aim of ISKCON Kirtan Ministry’s Ekadasi Sravan Kirtan Festival - making it a household event and the number of live views surpassed all other Ekadasi festivals. Following our normal format, the program on both the Ekadasis was split into two 3-hour sessions, 12 hours apart.

We had an amazing group of participants. Nanda Kumar Dasa from Dubai, who is known for his classical based absorbing kirtans. Vibhava Krishna Prabhu very kindly set the mood by reading from Sri Namamrta and guided the devotees in chanting of the holy names. Swarupa Damodar Prabhu, for his melodious kirtans and his powerful session on the importance of the holy names and Acyuta Gopi Devi Dasi for her prayers and meditations need no introduction. They are both internationally renowned and regulars on ISKCON Kirtan Ministry events. Bhakti Anugraha Janardana Swami joined us from Vancouver and of course, last but not least, our very own Kirtan Minister, Lokanath Swami Maharaja whose japa talk and kirtan should never be missed.

Amongst our normal line-up, there were two major highlights on Amalaki Vrata Ekadasi on 25 March. There was the one hour exclusive japa retreat with Mahatma Prabhu and the exclusive sessions on Vaisnava bhajans with Amarendra Prabhu. The session with Mahatma Prabhu delved deep into the wandering mind during chanting. A highly appreciated interactive class which ended way too soon. Amarendra Prabhu on the other hand shed light on the meaning of Radhe jaye jaye madhav dayite and four more Vaisnava bhajans.

~ Dinanukampa Devi Dasi

For the first time ever, ISKCON Kirtan Ministry collaborated with Kirtan Mela Mayapur Team to present 108hrs of Non-stop Onground and Online kirtan. With the vision and conceptualization of HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaja and HH Lokanath Swami Maharaja, this was, by far, one of the most beautiful offerings for the pleasure of HDG AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada on his 125th Birth Anniversary.

~ Govind Charan Dasa

The Slokarship team invited ISKCON's Kirtan Ministry Minister Lokanath Swami to join the Level 4 group on March 8th. During a blissful session, Maharaja expressed his enthusiasm for the Slokarship Unlimited program telling the group of over twenty participants that they are all affiliated members of the Kirtan Ministry.

He said Sanskrti means culture and described the Sanskrit language as, "Sarvah bhasanam janani" or the mother of all languages. It is spoken in the spiritual sky and at one time everyone spoke Sanskrit bhasanam.

Lokanath Swami also gave instructions on the five focal points of Sanskrit pronunciation, i.e. kanthya, talavaya, murdhanya, dantya and osthya. He kindly listened to everyone recite a sloka and was pleased with the excellent pronunciation within the shloka group.

~ Sakhyarasa Prema Dasa