Govardhana Puja at Padma Academy
From Urmila devi dasi
Posted December 20, 2002

Special memories from childhood and youth, sweet times of gaiety and festivity, special food, and many friends. Those regular holidays and festivals form our views of life and what we value. And children love to be involved, to have a special project for the event. The best is if the youth can plan for the festival for days or weeks in advance so the story becomes a part of their lives and connected with great fun. Such an event is Padma Academy’s annual Govardhana Puja program, celebrating its twelfth year in 2002.

Some years all the students work on one hill, once each student made his or her own, and this year we had three hills — one for the youngest students, one for high school-students (with some help from a third grader) and one for the middle-schoolers.

First students, with teachers’ help, make a wire framework on a piece of plywood…

…and then cover it with papier-mâché.

This is fun! Strips of newspaper are dipped in a flour, salt, and water mix and draped over the armature.

"Wow! A mess!" says Balarama as he works with the papier-mâché

When this dries, it’s painted and then—decorated!

Radhika tries to arrange the clay gopis on the hills to match the photo of the eight principal gopis in Mayapur, India.

Then the big day! Campakalata, the teacher who organized most of the artistic endeavor, checks out one of the hills. Padma Academy holds its festival on the traditional day as indicated on the lunar Vaisnava calendar, with the program from noon to 2:30. This year it was cold and rainy, so we moved into the classrooms from the 4½-acre school grounds.

The youngest students’ hill was done!

Many devotees came from work or other schools to attend, and most brought a preparation for the feast.

Amala Purana dasa led the chanting while we bathed a Govardhana sila (stone from Govardhana Mountain in Vrindavana, India) with milk, yogurt, honey, ghee, and sugar water.

The stone was then put on His throne on one of the hills, behind Krishna and the gopis.

We circumambulated the hills while Laksmi Nrsimha dasa took over the kirtana, and Sucarya devi dasi offered aratika. Bir Krishna dasa Gosvami, the local GBC, carried a Deity of Srila Prabhupada in procession around the hills.

Krishna book stories, from Maharaja, who is an expert storyteller, held the attention of even the youngest participants.

The older girl students then led a kirtana

Soon the students explained who had created which hill, and what they had made.

The students served the feast…

…and long-time school volunteer Bhakta William did perhaps the most important service—the clean-up!

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© dipika.org December 20, 2002