Puri Temple Impasse Continues, No Mahaprasad on Busy Sunday

BY: SUN STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Huge quantities of unsold Mahaprasad kept on premises of Jagannath temple office as mark of protest

Dec 27, JAGANNATHA PURI, ORISSA — Stalemate between the Jagannath Temple administration and shrine cooks (suar) continues as the temple's busy kitchen, which is considered the largest kitchen in the world that prepares Mahaprasad for more than thirty thousand pilgrims daily, did not see any business for the second consecutive day on Sunday following the strike by cooks.

Ananda Bazar of the 12th century shrine, where Mahaprasad is sold by nearly two hundred cooks, bore a forlorn look as thousands of pilgrims and tourists were left with a sour taste after being deprived of the Lord's sumptuous Prasad since Saturday.

"The temple had never plunged into such a chaos in living memory. The shrine kitchen which remains busy always has remained nonfunctional since Saturday," a temple official said.

Trouble erupted on Saturday when the cooks threw a spanner in the cooking work after facing heavy loss due to non-sale of huge quantities of Mahaprasad on Friday. The strike followed suit on Sunday as well and they did not cook Mahaprasad.

The suaras were angry over the recurrent delay in completion of shrine rituals that subsequently cast a shadow on sale of the cooked Prasad among devotees. "The Mahaprasad that should have been available to pilgrims during lunch hour, e.g. 2 pm, usually is reaching in evening. Devotees wait for long time and return empty handed. This has become order of the day," Padmanabha Mahasuar, secretary of the Suar Mahasuar Nijog (the cooks' body) said.

"We cannot bear losses everyday. So we will not cook until the temple officials give us written undertaking to complete rituals in scheduled time. Besides, the officials would have to promise to pay us compensation if we face loss any day," Mahasuar said.

On Saturday, the cooks kept pots of unsold Mahaprasad on the premises of the temple office to mark their protest. Interestingly, a number of pilgrims thronged outside the temple office in Saturday night to buy the Mahaprasad, but in vain.

Around two hundred cooks sell Mahaprasad, collectively worth Rs 10 lakh in festive seasons everyday, sources said. Many of them get a profit of more than Rs 5000 on a rush day, sources added.

"On Friday, Mahaprasad worth Rs 3 lakh became waste. And we made zero earning on Saturday and Sunday since no food was cooked in temple," a cook said.

Meanwhile, the Puri district administration and the shrine officials are finding it hard to end the imbroglio.

"The cooks are in a defiant mood. We assured them to streamline the daily rituals and urged them to cook the Mahaprasad, but they are not listening to us," Puri district collector, Fakir Charan Satapathy said.

"However, the cooks are preparing food (bhog) for the Deities. And if they remain adamant and stop preparing Mahaprasad for their commercial purpose, we cannot help it," the collector said.