Rath Yatra After 78 Years

BY: SUN STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Jun 25, 2010 — JAGANNATHA PURI, ORISSA — Excitement is writ large on faces of the residents of Patia Gada, a suburb of Bhubaneswar. And the reason is quite obvious. Breaking the 78-year-old jinx, the residents in Patia Gada are on the verge of reviving Rath yatra, which was last celebrated here in 1931.

Carpenters are leaving no stone unturned to give finishing touch to the chariot, and spontaneous assistance is pouring in from the beaming locals to script the success story. Rath yatra is on July 13.

The annual grand festival was discontinued here after 1931 due to lack patronization. Prior to 1931, the car festival used to be celebrated here in gung-ho spirit. The royal family of Patia used to foot the bill for the annual extravaganza.

The Jagannath temple at Patia was built between 1774 and 1787 by the then King, Ramachandra Dev and his son Raghunath Dev, a source said. "Rath yatra used to be observed after the construction of the temple, between 1774 and 1787. It continued till 1931," said Banamali Jena (90), a local resident.

The traditional practice faced hurdles when the King became bankrupt and his kingdom (Patia Gada) cash-strapped.

Much water has flown down the river since, and the locals put up a united front to revive the age-old tradition on their own. They started accumulating donations over the last few years. "Funds crunch was a major problem for us. We collected donations and today we managed on our own to celebrate the Rath Yatra after 78 summers," Jena said.

Nearly Rs 6 lakh has been estimated as the cost to observe the nine-day sojourn of the Deities from their abode to the aunt's house (mausi maa) by traversing nearly half a kilometer in Patia Gada.

Unlike Puri, here the locals are making only one wooden chariot in which the triad of Deities will be installed. "We make only one chariot. The construction work will be completed by July 10," said Aditya Champati, the managing trustee of the shrine.

The chariot will be 25 ft high and 18 ft wide. Timber worth Rs 2 lakh was purchased from Cuttack with the help of Chandaka forest officials, sources said. The chariot will be festooned with colourful appliqué handicraft.

Once the car festival ends, the chariot will be dismantled and the timbers will be persevered for next year's Rath Yatra. "Keeping in mind the exorbitant price of timber required for chariot, we have decided to use the same timber for construction of chariot next year," said Sudhakar Jena, a member of the temple trust.

Reminiscing his salad days, the octogenarian Jena said "I had viewed Rath Yatra for few years in Patia Gada in my childhood days. Devotees from surrounding areas used to throng our region. So, quite naturally I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the festival after long gap. Hope, I find the same kind of grandeur in Rath Yatra this time as I had seen in past," Jena quipped.

The residents of Patia Gada, meanwhile, have been asked to stop taking non-vegetarian food during the nine-day festival, commencing July 13.