Vaishno Devi Visits Sri Radha Krishna Temple
Ravi Shankar Puri with his wife Savita Puri at Sri Radha Krishna Temple on April 13. Photo: Bijay Dixit
IAN Staff Reporter
HOUSTON: History was created in Houston on April 13, 2013 when Ravi Shankar Puri and his wife Savita Puri hosted a successful and blissful “Mata Ki Chowki” at Shri Radha Krishna Temple, located on 11625 Beechnut.
It was an unprecedented event where more than 2,000 devotees showed up to watch and witness Mata Vaishno Devi “Gufa” and “Mata Vaishno Devi’s beautiful Bhavan”. The lovely evening began with the Mahaparsad by Bombay Brasserie. All the devotees enjoyed the food. Special sweets (jalebi and halwa) were provided by Bombay Sweets and Raja Sweets.
Devotees started lining up and started the journey from the beautiful main gate which was designed and built by Ravi Shankar Puri along with his friend Satnaam. Continuous chanting of “Jai Mata Di” was being heard right from the start. At the entrance of the beautiful gufa yatra, all yatris were given the sacred thread, imported from India, along with tilak and stamp for attending the yatra.
After passing through “Charan Paduka” and a Bridge (Saanjhi Chaat), devotees were served with delicious thandai at the Vaishno Dhaba just before reaching “Charan Ganga” (devotees have to go through the water before entering Maa Ka Darbaar). Those who have visited Vaishno Devi in India were reminded of their beautiful journey.
There was melodious singing by Ravi Shankar Puri. He was accompanied by professional dholak master, Shyamal Bhattacharya and Roopesh, keyboard player,Kamal haji, and octopad and drum player,Darshak Thacker. They were accompanied by the chorus which consisted of Prashaant Malik, Sunil Mishra and Amit Joshi. They all kept the devotees clapping and dancing.
Attendees felt the spiritual vibration when one member from the Rana family, Shivali beautifully dressed as “Durga Maa” entered the hall. Harshi played the role of Dhayanu Bhagat. Manish goel and Sanajy Aggarwal carried out the duty of priests.
The entire event was a vision of Ravi Shankar Puri. “It was not easy, in fact it was a great challenge,” he said. “It would not have been possible without the help of several dedicated volunteers and donors from Houston and other cities. He mentioned some of the names who devoted their selfless time and labor like Sanjay and Jyoti Mehra, Anil Rana, Dr. Sudershan Sanduja, Radha Sanduja, Hemant Gaur, Lalita Srivastva, Raju Aggarwal, Shashi Singh, Kusum Sharma (and her group), Alpana (with group), Poonam Baweja, Manish Goel, Manoj Agarwal, Dinesh berry, Madhusudan , Nitin Narang, Rajni Narang,” said Ravi Shankar Puri.
He also mentioned and thanked some of the finanacial donors for the event. They are Manish Aaggarwal, Rakesh Agarwal, Dilip Bhargav, K P Wadhvani, Vinod Gupta, Arun & Vinnie (Vinodini)Verma, Pradeep Seernani, Ashok garg, Banke Bihari parivaar, Kiran Oberai (Keemat Grocers) ,Vinay and Guddi. Bijay Dixit was the official photographer for the event. A special thanks was also mentioned by Ravi Shankar Puri to TV Asia for the event coverage. In addition, he also thanked Vanshika Vipin of Indo-American News for her professional help and Amar Agarwal for providing the temple facility and for all the help that was rendered by him.
Overall, this was a memorable blissful evening. Ravi Shankar Puri along with his wife Savita Puri offered special thanks and blessings to all the devotees for attending the event.
For more information on Mata Chowki, Satyanarayan Katha, Bhajan Sandhya call Ravi Shankar Puri at 713-480-7284 or
email:jaimaahouston@gmail.com