Lord Shiva, devotees’ day out at Bhat Gaam

More than 10,000 people from nearby villages took part in the Shobha-yatra (a procession) to install Lord Shiva’s idol at Koteshwar Mahadev temple in Bhat Gaam on Sunday. Eleven beautifully decorated elephants, 51 horses of best breed,  21 police horses and vintage cars marching amidst much fanfare made the one kilometre long parade a grand occasion. 

As a part of the procession, 1,001 girls also moved along the convoy with a kalash (pot) each on their heads for 'kanya- kumbh'. "The idol of Lord Shiva will be installed inside the temple on the auspicious occasion of Maha Shivratri," said Bhavarlal Sharma, who had taken up the initiative of building the new temple.

The original idea was to renovate the old temple but that had to be changed when the temple collapsed. "The original temple was more than 15 years old. It had developed several cracks over the years and Bhavarlal Sharma wanted to repair the faults, but unfortunately it collapsed. Hence, we had constructed a total new temple on the same site," architect Jitendra Mistry said. "While constructing the new shrine, we have taken care of vaastu also and built the grand structure," Mistry added.

The organisers said that it had taken two years for completing the new temple. On Monday morning, various yagnas will be performed by prominent saints and a Bhajan Sandhya by Anup Jalota will take place in the evening on the temple premises. On Tuesday, a Bhajan Sandhya by singer Manhar Udaas is organised.