Here’s a neat picture taken by a newspaper photographer of one of our Ratha carts. He cleverly caught it parked in front of an aptly named Universal Rent-a-car sign, and made it look like a Rent-a-Ratha for the Lord of the Universe:

Universal Rent-a-Ratha

This next one was taken a couple of days before the festival when we were on the last stages of constructing two new, bigger size Rathas, one for Lord Balarama and one for Lord Jagannatha. The existing small Ratha became Lady Subhadra’s:

In the above shot, on the Ratha from left to right:

Bhakta Robert?, Krsna Prema dasa (right arm in air), Hari-sauri dasa (leaning on wheel brake), Martin, Praceta dasa (chief carpenter and surfer who legally changed his name to Charles Ofthe Sea. That’s why Srila Prabhupada gave him the name Praceta)

on the ropes, l to rt:

Sahadeva dasa, Bhakta Adrian, Gunavati dasi (in the background), Dusta Mohan dasa.

The Rathayatra was a success, and we ended up in the Botanical Gardens instead of a hall as in the previous year. Vaibhavi dasi, our resident artist (wife of Charu dasa in Utah and the first devotee I ever met) designed these wonderful suits of armour to dress their Lordships in:

Jayadharma dasa with white hat, Dipak dasa and Vidyaranya dasa carrying Lord Balarama, Ambika dasi carrying chamara

Dvaipayana dasa and Hari-sauri dasa carrying Lord Jagannatha, Sukhla dasi in background

The Deities were locally made in 1972 by Dipak and Dvaipayana prabhus. Srila Prabhupada was very pleased with Them (and them).

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