Festive spirit for 'shobha yatra'

PATNA CITY: Just as the nip in the air, the festive spirit too was unmistakable on Monday.

Besides Makar Sankranti, the day was special in the sense because the annual shobha yatra taken out on the eve of the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh was scheduled for the day. And right from early morning, thousands of Sikh devotees, who have descended here from all over the country in the course of the last several days, set out for the Badi Sangat Gurdwara at Gaighat, where the morning's diwan was held. Thereafter, around midday as even more and more devotees assembled there the stage was set for this year's shobha yatra, part of the ongoing three-day 341st birth anniversary celebrations of the 10th Guru of the Sikhs. Schoolchildren, women, various jathas and above all the Guru Granth Saheb ki Sawari, led by Punj Pyare, constituted the shobha yatra. Scented flower petals were being sprayed and the road was being cleaned by the devotees for the Guru Granth Saheb ki Sawari all through the yatra. The shabad and jo bole so nihaal only added to the ambience. The shobha yatra terminated at the Takht Shri Harmandirji, Patna Saheb, the birthplace of the Guru later in the evening.

"I have been coming here for the last 15-16 years to pay my obeisance," said Gurjeet Singh, a trader, of Lakhimpur Khiri. Bhupinder Singh, a spare parts dealer of Kolkata, has also been coming here quite regularly. "This year I had a tight schedule, but I still managed to take time to come to the Guru's place," he said. He participated in the several-kilometre-long nagar kirtan barefoot out of sheer shraddha, like many other devotees.

This year's shobha yatra was even more special because a Jagriti Yatra, which began from Hazoor Saheb in Nanded, also formed part of it.The three-day Prakashotsava will conclude on Tuesday night.