Dear Guru Mahārāja,
Please accept our most respectful obeisances. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
In the past one year, we have few achievements in terms of service and some failures as well.
Achievements:
We were able to conduct the 1st ever Ratha-yātrā inside IIT Madras. This required extensive permissions from multiple authorities. The process took almost 6 weeks. Finally, the Ratha-yātrā was conducted. It was a runaway success, the Chief Guest for the cultural program after the Ratha-yātrā was the highest authority in IIT Madras, the Director. Even he appreciated the effort. We were not even having volunteers because almost all existing members had either completed their studies and passed out or were in their hometown. We crowd sourced the volunteers. It was truly your desire that made the event happen.
We conducted online classes throughout the pandemic non-stop, every day at least one program, for 2.5 years. We are continuing morning chanting session where we chant along with recording of you chanting. It is truly inspirational to chant hearing you chant and has improved the chanting of all members.
We revived offline classes. The present group consists of almost all new members. We have now upgraded the place where we hold our sessions. Previous semester we held our sessions in one of the best rooms in IIT. This semester program has moved to terrace of admin building. This is much better facility, with covered roof, washroom and basin. This helps to provide a better experience to our members.
We had a Diwali program as well with Dīpadāna. In the program, we explained why Diwali is celebrated in India for 5 days along with spiritual significance. In this program also, the Director was the chief guest, and he was impressed. He got on the mike and told the audience that these people are doing very good work. Next year I want this hall to be completely full.
We took the group to a day long spiritual picnic – to divya-deśams near Chennai – Pakṣi-tīrtham, Mahābalipuram, Nitya Kalyaṇa Perumāl, Pārtha-sārathi Temple apart from our ISKCON temple. There were games and chanting competition along with prizes, apart from lecture on significance of these temples. It was much appreciated. We try to showcase that it’s possible to be Kṛṣṇa conscious and have fun, keeping Kṛṣṇa in the center.
Apart from this, I have online service on Hare Kṛṣṇa Tv. Once or twice a quarter, zoom sessions are organized where some topic is chosen and most of the time, the audience is encouraged to ask questions. In that, I have shown how to do ārati, how to do Jhulan-utsava at home and answered questions on three occasions. This is apart from phone counselling that we do for Hare Kṛṣṇa Tv intermittently.
Failures:
We took up online service of drafting answers to questions asked in JPS App. The answers were never processed after our drafting. We are sorry we could not fulfill your requirement and satisfy you Guru Mahārāja.
For the Covid affected patients, we took up the task of replying on the basis of your drafts. We could not do that also effectively. The time lag had become too much and it had become meaningless to reply after more than 6 months. We are sorry we could not satisfy you Guru Mahārāja.
We got another service of categorizing the answers given by you in lectures. We could not do that service also Guru Mahārāja.
We could not do justice to other online services given to us Guru Mahārāja.
Please bless our programs in IIT Madras. Please bless all the members for immense spiritual growth.
We are wanting to establish a Preaching Center inside IIT Madras as an offering to you to give to Śrīla Prabhupāda. Please reveal to us whether this is your desire. If yes, please bless us so that the Preaching Centre manifests. If not, please direct us what is your plan for IIT Madras preaching.
Your servants,
Śrīnivāsa Nitāi Dāsa and Rādhā Rasamayī Devī Dāsī