Live telecast of Mumbai Flower Festival at ISKCON

F or the first time in the world a live telecast of ISKCON (Chowpatty), Mumbai Flower Festival will be held in 360 Virtual Reality on January 27, 7:00 pm onwards. Pushya Abhishek is the first festival of the year celebrated in January at ISKCON temple (Chowpatty) in Mumbai. Most festivals celebrated in the temple involve the Abhishek of the utsava murtis (small brass deities); but during this special festival, the mula vigrahas or the main deities of Sri Sri Radha Gopinath are showered with 1000 kg of colourful flower petals.

The best flowers are procured from different parts of the country specially for this occasion – Roses from Vrindavan, Jasmines from Coimbatore. The preparation for the festival begins early morning. Many little mounds of flowers, of different colours and varieties, each with devoted hearts sitting around, plucking out tender petals: the preparation looks as festive as the festival itself.

A few thousand devotees from different walks of life assemble at the temple. Radhanath Swami, ISKCON spiritual leader says, “At ISKCON, we have always embraced technology to spread spiritualism and this is another initiative to ensure Lord’s message reaches maximum people in this technology age, where the medium is as powerful as message.” Dr B C Shah – Director of Hare Krsna TV Channel says, “Thousands more across the world watch the event live through Hare Krsna TV. But watching the event on TV is not as enriching an experience as Watching it in 360 using a VR headset.”

To watch the Flower Festival event in a truly immersive manner one will need to download the VR DEVOTEE app from Google playstore or the Apple App store . You can buy a VRDEVOTEE headset at a highly discounted price @ www.vrdevotee.com. The VR DEVOTEE headset is also available at the Gift Shop at ISKCON Chowpatty. For those who do not want to invest in a headset, you could watch the live telecast on your smart phone.