Bhubaneswar: Rath Yatra was celebrated at the Wayne Hindu Temple in New Jersey for the 21st year, adhering to the rituals of Jagannath Temple in Puri.Consul-general of India in New York Binaya Srikanta Pradhan conducted ‘chhera pahanra’ along with members of the Odia diaspora, Uma Mishra and Dhiren Das. Around 500 people attended the event and served Odia food.In North Carolina, Hindu Society of North Carolina organised the pulled of the chariot on the temple premises in the Triangle area. Devotees drawn from different Indian communities were served a prasad of ‘arna’, ‘dalma’, ‘dahi pachedi’ ‘khatta’ and ‘kheeri’.Shree Jagannatha Society UK celebrated Rath on two occasions — the sacred tithi on July 16 at Shree Ram Mandir, Southall, London and the grand public festival on July 18 at the Navnat Centre, Hayes, London where over a thousand devotees gathered.Lord Rami Ranger and Ajay Thakur from the High Commission of India performed ‘chhera pahanra’. Devotees offered puja and received a prasad of ‘khechudi, ‘dalma’ and ‘sukhila bhoga’. The deities will remain at Hindu Temple Slough until Bahuda Yatra.Rath Yatra was organised in Vedic Hindu Cultural Centre Ireland, Dublin, on Sunday, with the chariot being pulled in Ballymount Industrial Estate, Dublin for 3 km. A hundred volunteers prepared around 2,000 ‘khajas’ as prasad, cooked ‘khechudi, tomato khatta’, mixed vegetable curry and ‘khiri’ for 2,000 attendees. Other volunteers put the dismantled chariot together and decorated the premises, with on-ground preparations starting the preceding day.In Dubai, Odisha Samaj UAE and Jagannath Seva Sangha celebrated the 16th Rath Yatra. Joydeep Mohanto, HOC & consul (protocol, RTI & culture) from the consulate general of India, Dubai, attended the event along with 700 devotees. Over 2,300 people attended the celebrations organised by Emirates Odia Pariwar, UAE at Springdales School, Dubai.Cooks brought from Bhubaneswar cooked a prasad of ‘kanika’, plain rice, ‘mitha dali’, ‘potala rasa’, ‘saga muga’, ‘ghanta’, ‘amba khata’ and ‘kheeri’. Rath Yatra was also organised in Houston and Rhode Island in US and Manchester, Aylesbury and City of Bath in UK.
