Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhupada, one of the six Goswamis, has mentioned in his book ‘Nectar of Devotion’ (Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu) about sixty four items of Devotional service. Celebrating Festivals for the pleasure of the Lord is an important item of devotional service. Quoting from the Padma Purana Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhupada says, ‘devotees under any circumstances should celebrate different festivals and spend money according to their own capacity.’ For one’s devotional practice it is very very important. Lord becomes very pleased on those devotees who are celebrating His different festivals and showers His mercy upon them. Those devotees celebrating festivals also feel pleasure and develop bhakti in their hearts.

All the Acaryas of our devotional line have given stress on celebrating festivals of the Lord. Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder Acharya of ISKCON, a dear devotee of the Lord, wanted that in his every temple certain public festivals such as Sri Rama Navami, Sri Gaura Purnima, Sri Krishna Janmastami, Car Festival should be celebrated every year. The purpose is, everyone should come to the temple on those days and combinedly engage themselves in the glorification of the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna.

Here in Sri Sri Krishna Balarama Temple, ISKCON Bhubaneswar our most revered Gurudeva His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, who is a Premi Bhakta, a dearmost devotee of Lord Sri Krishna has introduced many festivals for the pleasure of Sri Vigrahas in the temple to engage devotees and public at a large in the loving devotional service of Their Lordships. This loving devotional service to the Lord should be a continuous process. People on the Festival days intend to serve the Lord, meditate upon Him and please Him more than on any other days. To cultivate this mood of serving the Lord by continuous process Srila Gurudeva has arranged different festivals one after another for which this centre of ISKCON, Bhubaneswar is popularly known as ‘a centre of Festivals,’ in the world wide ISKCON movement.

By the mercy of Srila Gurudeva and Srila Prabhupada the activities for Festivals in our temple are growing day by day with a new touch of improvement and people in general are coming to the fold of ISKCON with their devotional practice and surrender. Children participating in song competition are given chance to sing for the pleasure of the Lord in different festive occasions especially in Chandana Yatra and Ratha Yatra festival. We organize Bhajana programme for small children only. No senior singers are mixed up with them so that children get encouraged and feel confident. I feel pleasure to express in this context that the children in our association are participating in different song competitions organized by different state and national TV channels and gaining over awards in their names. The successful children in state level competitions through local TV channels within last 2 years are Rosalin Sahu, Rohan Biswal, Sanchita Subhadarshini and Ipsit Pati. Rosalin Sahu has achieved 2nd position in ‘Amari Swara-2013’ through ETV, Rohan Biswal has achieved 1st position in ‘Singing Super Star’ programme of MBC TV, Sanchita Subhadarshini and Ipsit Pati have become runners up in the said programme of MBC TV. The children achieving success in the national TV channels are Barnali Hota and Ananya Sritam Nanda. Barnali Hota has achieved Top-6 rank in ‘Saregama Paa Little Champ’ organized by Zee TV in the year 2013. Recently Ananya Sritam Nanda has achieved a super success and become ‘Indian Idol Junior-2015’ in the competition organized by Sony TV.