At the heart of Puri, near the Jagannath Temple, ISKCON’s mega kitchen hummed with activity. Volunteers—clad in gloves and aprons—worked tirelessly in shifts.
The Adani Foundation, in collaboration with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), had pledged to serve 40 lakh meals over the 11-day festival, a commitment born from the belief that 'seva' is the highest worship.
"Till today we have served more than 20 lakh devotees and we shall be doing more in next three days till the yatra ends, explained Bali Murari, a representative of the ISKCON Temple at Puri managing the kitchen.
ISKCON monks are serving sumptuous prasad along with fruit juice to lakhs of devotees, police officials and support staff daily in Puri, Odisha who have come to participate in the Rath Yatra festival.
— ISKCON (@iskcon) June 27, 2025
We thank Shri @gautam_adani ji for his generous support towards the prasad… pic.twitter.com/ggUTUVK2Px
Murari explained as to how 400 volunteers worked around the clock to ensure the smooth serving of prasad to devotees. There are 21 stalls across Puri where devotees are being given prasad and juice on daily basis.
"We are taking due care about the hygiene as well and focus is more on cleaning the utensils and procurement of vegetables on daily basis. Also we are using authentic ingredients to make the prasad—from making halwa in desi ghee to rasgulla," Murari added.
The menu was a labour of love, rice, soft rotis, seasonal vegetables, protein-rich dal, sweet gulab jamuns, halwa, and cooling curd rice. Each plate, served on bio-degradable paper, made sure that it is totally recycled.
Among the crowd was Meera, a young teacher from Kolkata, who had traveled to Puri for her first Rath Yatra. Exhausted from pulling the chariot’s ropes, she joined the queue at one of the many food counters set up across the city. A volunteer handed her a warm prasad box and she said: “This isn’t just food. It’s like Lord Jagannath Himself is feeding us.”
Nearby, a group of police officers drenched in sweat from crowd control gratefully accepted prasad boxes, their fatigue eased by the gesture. The initiative extended beyond devotees to frontline workers, including municipal staff and lifeguards, ensuring that no one was left out.
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Despite a tragic stampede that claimed three lives, the prasad seva remained a beacon of compassion, offering solace to the grieving families. As the chariots return on July 8, marking the end of the yatra, the memory of those warm meals will linger.
Shant Gopinath Das, currently serving at ISKCON Dwarka, New Delhi, also plays a pivotal role in managing the Jagannath Yatra prasad seva, after successfully handling Kumbh operations from day one: overseeing accommodation, logistics, and distribution.
An engineer by training, he left a promising corporate career as a DevOps Engineer at TCS to dedicate his life to selfless service and spiritual upliftment.
