Manchester:  The third largest city of  the United Kingdom, Manchester hosted fourth Rath Yatra festival of Lord Jagannath with fanfare and spiritual fervour. From the morning, special rituals were performed before the four deities stationed at Gita Bhawan with utmost solemnity and unfettered devotion by the main priest Pandit Shyam Sunder Sharma.

Gita Bhawan was decorated to mark the grand occasion. Organised by North West Odisha Society, this year’s Car festival evoked unusual enthusiasm and unprecedented excitement among both the organizers and spectators. Around 500 Odia and non Odia devotees congregated at Gita Bhawan to take part in the annual event. At about 12.45 p.m. the four deities were taken in Dhadi Pahandi procession to the colourful chariot, parked outside Gita Bhawan. The chariot was bearing an amazing Pattachitra painting in the backdrop designed by renowned artist Pragyan Babu.

The entire atmosphere got reverberated with the recitals of hymns, roaring slogans like Hari Bol, Jai Jagannath, sounding of hulahuli, blowing off conch and playing of musical instruments such as Ghanta, Mardala, Jhanja and Mrudanga. The highlight of the celebration was the Pahandi of Goddesss Subhadra being performed exclusively by women devotees. The long awaited and much cherished moment came when the chariot pulling began at around 1.15 p.m. The street of Manchester witnessed the royal sojourn of the Lord of The Universe onboard the chariot in a majestic manner. The Gods and Goddess’s caravan went through Wilbraham Road, Werburgh’s Road, Brantingham Road and Withington Road before getting back to Gita Bhawan premises. The distinguished dignitaries present include MP from Manchester Groton, Afzal Khan and noted spiritual preacher from India Devi Chitralekha.

The arrangements were done by members of the Organising Committee like Dr Siba Senapati, Rekha Senapati, Siba Ranjan Biswal, Bishnu Dash, Bibek Babu, Jeeban Panigrahi, Sudhakar Sahoo, Reshma Mohapatra, Surendra Nath Acharya and Prabhat Singh.