Brampton, Ontario
2nd Annual
In between the two installments of trekking today, I had the pleasure to partake in Brampton’s 2nd Annual Ratha Yatra at downtown Gage Park. “When a teenager,” I told the crowd, “way before I heard the word ‘Krishna’, I relaxed at this very park at the gazebo in the shady trees.” Ron Casir, a friend, and I, hitchhiked one summer throughout southern Ontario looking to find ourselves. I never would have believed that I’d be in this spot again, bald and wearing robes, 43 years after my moderate hippie phase.
Since then, the park has been spruced up (I still see the same spruce trees, though). The area around has been built up. After all, the world in which we live is always changing. The mayor of the city, which is now at the half a million mark, showed up. Susan Fennell seemed to be all smiles. My god-brothers, Kaliyapani and Gaura, also came to lead in the kirtans. A special feature, undisputedly, was the drama of “Little Big Ramayan”.
The organizers were happy, expressing a double increase of attendance from last year’s modest 500, it grew to twice that size. Our route for the standard procession was ‘in the round’. Four revolutions on this circular sidewalk constituted the journey of joy as participants pulled the chariot by rope.
One local guy, James, who came for the bulk of the program, came to see me, offered the greatest handshake, saying, “Thank you, and please pray for me.” I thought he was going to cry. I believe he did, at least internally. Tears were dripping on his heart, he had such a good time. Then James asked a group of us, “Do you guys know the Beatles?” and one of our members, Vaishnava, sang, “We love you, yeah yeah yeah…” James corrected him saying, “No it’s, ‘she loves you’.” And my response to that was, “No it’s ‘we’, in relation to you and us. We prefer, ‘we love you’”. At that point, James got it.
May the Source be with you!
11 KM
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