Bhubaneswar: The city reverberated with the chants of “Jai Jagannath” and sounds of traditional musical instruments as thousands of devotees thronged Jagannath temples across the city, braving relentless rain, on Thursday to pull the chariots of the sibling deities.The pulling of most chariots began around 4 pm. Devotees who could not travel to Puri visited Jagannath temples in the city to pay obeisance to the sibling deities, with many pulling the chariots alongside family and friends.Apart from a huge crowd at Iskcon temple Rath Yatra in Nayapalli, the Jagannath temples at KIIT, Patia, Sailashree Vihar, Kolathia, Jagamara, Vani Vihar, Regional College of Management, OUAT, Baramunda and Old Town among other areas were key crowd-pullers.The rituals, including ‘Mangala arati’, ‘Mailama’, ‘Tadapalagi’, ‘Rosha Homa’, ‘Abakasha’, ‘Surya Puja’, installation of the deities on the chariots and ‘Chhera Pahanra’, were performed before the chariots were pulled.Iskcon, one of the major crowd-pullers during the festival, had three chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra. Devotees pulled them from the temple to Mausima Temple at Unit 8.The Kolathia Jagannath Temple also had three chariots, similar to the Puri Rath Yatra. “We followed the rituals of the Puri Jagannath Temple and started pulling the chariots on time. Our chariots were pulled to Sudharma Ashram, which serves as the Mausima Temple during the Rath Yatra,” said Ajay Kumar Patnaik, secretary of the Kolathia Jagannath Temple managing committee.The chariots of Sribani Kshetra on the KISS campus of KIIT University travelled to the newly built Gundicha Temple near KIIT-Sikharchandi Road. “The unique feature of the Rath Yatra at Sribani Kshetra is that the chariot of Devi Subhadra is pulled only by women,” said Rabindra Nath Biswal, general manager of KIIT Temple Trust.Yugajyoti Barik, a devotee from OUAT Colony, said he volunteered with the Rath Yatra committee to help organise the festival at the local Jagannath Temple. “I serve the deities every year and also pull the chariots,” he said.At Patiagarh too, thousands of devotees joined the annual sojourn of the deities. “The Gundicha Yatra was conducted smoothly with the help of the administration and police,” said Kartik Prasad Tripathy, managing trustee of the Sri Jagannath Temple Trust Board, Patia.A devotee, Nandita Nayak from Unit 8, said she attended the Rath Yatra in the city as she could not travel to Puri. “Rain cannot dampen our spirit. We got drenched but still pulled the chariot in our area,” she said.Rath Yatra was celebrated at more than 50 places in the city, besides in different parts of the state, across the country and abroad as well.
