Ratha Yatra Parade and festival comes to Clearwater Beach April 27

By Terri Bryce Reeves, Times Correspondent Terri Bryce ReevesTampa Bay Times In Print: Friday, April 27, 2012

CLEARWATER Add chariots to the quirky and exotic things one might see during a Saturday stroll near the Pier 60 Pavilion at Clearwater Beach.

At 1 p.m., a huge chariot festooned with flower garlands, a bright fabric canopy and a brass chakra on top will anchor a parade that begins at the pier and moves in a leisurely fashion down the beach and back.

The second annual Festival of the Chariots and Ratha Yatra Parade runs until 5 p.m. and features live music with drums and cymbals, singing, classical Indian dance, a bazaar and free vegetarian food.

The Ratha Yatra parade is the oldest known parade in the world, says Nancy Schreier, spokeswoman for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the main sponsor of the event.

“It’s at least 5,000 years old,” said Schreier, who also goes by her Hare Krishna spiritual name, Nartaka Gopala dasi. “The parade conveys a very welcoming, loving, joyous atmosphere.”

The festival originated with the Hindus in India and has been held annually in the United States since the 1960s when religious teacher A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada brought the Hare Krishna movement to America.

The chariot has two very thick ropes attached to it that are pulled by paradegoers, who stop occasionally for interludes of song and dance.

“It signifies us pulling God back into our lives,” Schreier said. “We’re trying to enlighten people that we should focus more on God than our differences in the material world.”

Have a Diversions feature event? Terri Bryce Reeves can be reached at treeves@tampabay.rr.com

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Nitish-Kumars-MLA-beats-babu-unconscious-over-bribe

Posted: Apr 23, 2012 at 1002 hrs IST Chapra A mid-day meal officer has lodged a police complaint that he was beaten up by JD(U) MLA Krishna Kumar and his two security guards in Saran district.

In his complaint yesterday, the MDM in-charge of Parsa circle Kamlesh Kumar Singh alleged that he was beaten up by the MLA and his security guards two days ago at his office at Parsa block as a result of which he had lost consciousness for some time.

Singh alleged that the MLA from Amnour had demanded a bribe in cash and kind in the past which he had refused and he was assaulted because of this, police said.

Police said the matter was under investigation.

The MLA was not available for comment.

Meanwhile, Parsa Circle Officer Arun Kumar has also lodged a complaint with the police against the MDM officer yesterday for alleged corruption in distribution of food-grains and cash to schools for mid-day-meal.

Following complaints by villagers, the police said, raids were conducted recently at Singh’s premises and 350 sacks of rice and some cash were seized from there.

This was also under investigation, the sources said.

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Head Shaving Has Gone Prime Time

Published: Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 11:55 p.m. Last Modified: Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 11:55 p.m.

Although I am married with no plans to be single, I recently signed up for several online dating sites as research for a book I am writing. The process was fun until I saw a question asking me to describe my hair. I didn’t want to check the “bald” box. I wanted to say I had a shaved head. But a “shaved head” wasn’t a choice. (What? No write-ins?) So I sighed and checked bald, no doubt setting off an instant downgrade of my profile.

I noticed that several women listed “bald” as a trait they hoped to avoid. A few even called it a “deal-breaker.” That I was merely lurking on these sites, not actually looking for a date, failed to ease the sting of pre-rejection.

Yet their aversion came as no surprise. Like anyone, I have seen how the ravages of male pattern baldness can make even the most youthful and handsome men look old and clownish. But that’s only part of the problem. What is particularly insidious about hair loss is the toll it takes on a man’s ego during its slow but steady march, the years of mirror gazing and shower-drain inspecting as he helplessly monitors his hairline’s inexorable retreat. The options for dealing with it (comb-overs, hair plugs, toupees, topical hair-growing slime, or, most humiliating, the infomercial powder-in-a-can product that promises to fill in thin spots with the squeeze of a spray pump) only aggravate feelings of inadequacy.

NO WAY TO LIVE

It’s as if he’s a fragile flower held together with duct tape and glue, deathly afraid of rain, wind or a flirtatious hair-mussing from a colleague. It’s no way to live.

Luckily, I hit my hair-loss turning point at a time when there is, if not a solution to baldness, then a cooler alternative: head shaving. Not that the Mr. Clean look hasn’t been the choice for some: soldiers, competitive swimmers, ascetics like those in the Hare Krishna movement. But if you weren’t the sort of person who spent his days wearing a saffron robe, a Speedo or a sidearm, chances are you didn’t shave your head either.

In this millennium, however, it’s a whole new bald game. Head shaving has gone prime time. And not a moment too soon for guys like me, who would never have had the guts to take such a drastic measure if so many men hadn’t acted so bravely to make an odd look so mysteriously hip. Macho types are inspired by the likes of Jason Statham and Vin Diesel; music fans have Pitbull, Chris Daughtry and Michael Stipe; intellectuals can look to Chuck Close and Sir Ben Kingsley; and aspiring athletes can air-slap high-fives with Andre Agassi, Michael Jordan, Kelly Slater and countless others.

RISE UP!

Thanks to such pioneering royalty, commoners no longer have to deal with creeping baldness as farmers do with droughts, desperately nurturing, praying, begging and paying to get something (anything) to grow atop our infertile plains. Instead we’ve been liberated to rise up, stand tall and torch our fields with a pre-emptive razor strike (and to emerge from the flames like Samuel L. Jackson or Dwayne Johnson aka the Rock, arms rippling and grizzled domes beaded with sweat).

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Disturbed, budding techie sets self on fire

Murari added: “The computer science department has three teachers for the second-year. It is not possible that all of them were harassing him.”

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Late start for Dalai Lama's appearance

Dalai Lama speaks at UCSD

Even though the tickets clearly stated that doors would close at 9 a.m., perhaps 1,000 people were still in line shortly before that time, with others steadily arriving behind them.

A man with a shaved head and wearing a saffron robe was offering books to the late arrivals. He was not a disciple of the Dalai Lama.

“I’ve heard he’s a CIA agent and he eats meat,” said a smiling Bhismadeva Das, who says he practices Hare Krishna. Asked his age, “In this body, I’m 25.

“We’re just trying to share books with people.”

The doors to the event, which as to begin at 9:30, finally closed about 9:40.

Just before that, Julie Renee Williams, 29, from Laguna Beach, chatted with a reporter and photographer as she asked each of the last stragglers if they might have an extra ticket. Wearing a saffron skirt and carrying prayer beads, she said she had recently returned from Dharamshala, India, home of the Dalai Lama, where she had gone to meditate.

She excused herself to go ask officials if she might be allowed in without a ticket, then turned and waived before passing through a metal detector and into the arena.

The latest arrivals were turned away.

“I guess there’s no late admittance. It’s pretty devastating,” said Alexandra Chwalika, 22, a UCSD senior. “I missed my bus. I really wanted to hear him. He just really inspires me.”

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Residents reassemble for fight against temple

Residents reassemble for fight against temple

Planning Board to soon decide on jurisdiction over Hare Krishna plan

BYADAM JOSEPH DRICI Staff Writer

OLD BRIDGE About 25 township residents gathered at the Cheesequake First Aid Squad hall to discuss efforts to halt the progress of a proposed Hare Krishna temple on Route 34.

The March 21 meeting was hosted by United Old Bridge Residents, a group formed by concerned residents three years ago to hire an attorney and act as a legal entity in planning and zoning hearings on the project proposed by the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON.

The religious organization is seeking township approval to construct an approximately 23,300-square-foot, one-story temple with a basement and a 4,200- square-foot, two-family priests quarters on a 6.3-acre property on Route 34 between Highview Terrace and Sheila Court. The plan has been scaled back considerably from a February 2009 version with a 38,000-square-foot temple.

While ISKCON has stated that its members have been using a rented facility in the township and are seeking a place of their own, residents say a highway that can handle more traffic such as Route 9 or Route 18 would be more appropriate for the temple.

The only way to stop these things is get their variances shot down, David Cannizzo, an Old Bridge resident and one of the organizers of the group, said during the March 21 meeting.

While traffic, the loss of green space, noise and parking may be top concerns for residents and nearby homeowners, Cannizzo said, Those are not things that will stop this.

The groups attorney, Bruce Freeman, has identified several zoning-related issues to be raised with the Planning Board that offer United Old Bridge Residents the best chances of shrinking the facility to the point where the applicant may no longer want to build it at the proposed site, Cannizzo said.

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Breaking News

Hindus in Russia Wednesday won a major legal battle when a court in Siberia dismissed a state prosecutors’ case seeking a ban a Russian translation of Bhagavad Gita.

The higher court in Tomsk, where the state prosecutors had filed an appeal, upheld a lower court verdict delivered in December dismissing the case.

“We have won the case. The court has dismissed the state prosecutors’ appeal,” an elated Sadhu Priya Das, a devotee of the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Russia, told IANS over phone from Tomsk.

Anxiety gripped the 50,000-odd ISKCON followers in Russia after the state prosecutors appealed in February against the Dec 27 verdict that went against their petition to ban the Russian translation of the book by the ISKCON founder.

‘Bhagavad Gita As It Is’ has been translated in over 50 languages.

The case relates to Tomsk state prosecutor’s filing a petition in June 2011 seeking a ban on a Russian translation of “Bhagwad Gita As It Is” written by A.C. BhaktivedantaSwami Prabhupada, founder of ISKCON, claiming that it was “extremist” in nature and spread “social discord”.

“The appeal case was dismissed,” ISKCON international chief Bhakti Vijnana Goswami, who is on a worldwide tour, told IANS in an e-mail reaction to the verdict.

Commenting on the Tomsk higher court’s decision, India’s ambassador to Russia Ajai Malhotra said: “I welcome the verdict of the district court in Tomsk.

“It is good that the decision of the lower court in this matter has been reaffirmed. I trust this issue is now conclusively behind us.”

The case triggered an uproar in India, rocking parliament for two days, with MPs cutting across party lines asking the government to use its diplomatic skills to get the issue resolved.

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Festival of Colors celebrated by thousands

SPANISH FORK — In a cloud of color that in 2011 made national headlines, the Hare Krishnas celebrated on Saturday and Sunday the annual Holi Fest, commonly known as the Festival of Colors.

Thousands gathered at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Lotus Temple in Spanish Fork as bands led the crowd in the Maha Mantra: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.”

As it is celebrated at the Lotus Temple, it is meant to be a celebration of shared life — neither religious or secular; it is a gathering of people united in their desire to celebrate the coming of spring.

Thousands gathered on a hill on the east side of the temple. Traditionally the majority of revelers have been BYU students, but as the festival has grown in popularity, it has seen a large increase in visitors from other colleges and even from other states.

The festival was celebrated at the temple with two days of brightly colored, organic powder, mantra and music. Every two hours saw a unified “color throwing,” where brightly colored chalk is thrown into the air in a tradition dating back thousands of years in India.

Revelers were reminded that the ceremony was a testimony “to the fact that God loves variety” — regardless of which God they served.

“No two of us are the same, just as we are now all different hues of orange and yellow, blue and green,” the announcer said “We’re all in this together.”

Stephanie Grimes, ksl.com Reporter

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Bhagavad Gita now in Polish language

Warsaw, March 25 (IANS) Even as Hindus fight a proposed ban on the Russian translation of the Bhagavad Gita, in Catholic-dominated Poland the sacred scipture has for the first time been translated into the Polish language from its original Sanskrit text.

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Decorated chariot rolls through St. Augustine

Decorated chariot rolls through St. Augustine

Hare Krishna followers pulled the statues of three deities in a red chariot covered in bright yellow, red and white flowers and decorations.

Two women sat on the front of the float, which carried Jagannatha, Balarama, and Subhadra, deities carved from wood with brightly painted faces and embellished crowns. One of the women fanned the statues with a yaks tail whisk.

It was an exotic scene that would have been at home in India but instead brightened up the Plaza de La Constitucion Saturday as Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Hare Krishnas paraded through the streets of downtown.

It was the seventh year for the Festival of the Chariots, or Ratha Yatra Parade.

Members said the event was about getting closer to God, regardless of religious beliefs.

We feel that were contributing to the world, said Lilananda Dasa, who has been a Hare Krishna for decades. Were offering some genuine love.

The Ratha Yatra is an Indian tradition that goes back 5,000 years. The festival is a celebration during which Hare Krishna followers honor Jagannatha, whose name means Lord of the Universe and who is a form of Krishna.

People pulled the chariot with ropes, and others danced and sang as they led the procession down Cathedral place and circled a few blocks before coming back to the Plaza de La Constitucion. They stopped along the way to chant mantras, prayers.

Jeff Moy, whose Hare Krishna name is Hansa Rupa Das, helped guide the chariot. He said he became a Hare Krishna in the 70s. He said at the time he was a typical New Yorker who was hardcore skeptical, but found peace in the message he heard from a group that would chant in front of the windows at the New York Public Library where he worked.

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