Saturday Night's Hollywood Sankirtan Party

This past Saturday, I went on another sankirtan party. This time we went to Hollywood. Nope I did not see any celebrities. But where we were the place was packed with people. We were on part of the Walk of Fame. I saw a couple of the stars with actors names on them that I have heard of like Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins. Then As I observed Hollywood more it looked more like Las Vegas with the whole street decorated with neon flashing lights. There were some people on the street dressed up as comic book characters and someone was dressed up as Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies. So us devotees fit right in with the crowd because we were dressed up in devotional cloths such as saris, dhotis, mrgdangas, kartals, books, and tilak on our foreheads.

Our kirtan was pretty ecstatic. About four of us distributed books while the kirtan was going on. People had stopped to watch us. As I noticed the people who watched us, some had a strange look on their faces wondering what we were singing and dancing about, others just wanted to take a break and just see what we were doing and some even joined in on the dancing part. Others accepted books that we were distributing. I made my second attempt to distribute books that evening. It took me nearly an hour to distribute at least one book. Krishna was merciful to me. He had sent this young kid who is about my age. He walked up to me and said "I hate my job!" So I said to him cheerfully "Im sorry you hate your job, but I have something that will make you happy." I showed him the Bhagavad Gita. The boy said he knew about it and said he had lost his copy. So I let him have another copy and he gave a small donation for the book. I couldn't believe it. I distributed one of Srila Prabhupada's books for the very first time. Then about 15 minutes later this one older guy not too much older than me, said his girlfriend was a strict vegetarian. I showed him the Higher Taste Book. I told him there is some great vegetarian receipies in there for her to try. So he had made a small donation as well. I didn't think I could distribute books. I was afraid that I'd get people confused, but Krishna gave me enough intelligence to distribute the books.

We were out there until 8pm then headed back to the temple for the 12 hour kirtan. However I did not go to the 12 hour kirtan as I felt a bit exhausted from the sankirtan. But I hope Srila Prabhupada was pleased that I distributed at least two of his books. I wasn't expecting to distribute any at all but it had finally happened. :)

Anyways here are some photos of the Hollywood Sankirtan party. I didn't have time to make a small recording just pictures.