11th KHETRI VIRASAT DIVAS: Swami Vivekananda, on his return from America in 1897, reached Khetri for the third time on 12 December 1897. He was accorded a gala welcome by the then ruler of Khetri, Ajit Singh Bahadur and the people at large at Panna Shah Talab. The public reception was accompanied by a feast amidst a dazzlingly illumined town in honour of Swamiji. At the call of Ramakrishna Mission, Khetri, a committee of prominent persons of the town decided to celebrate every year, starting from 2011, the historical day of 12th December as ‘Khetri Virasat Divas’. In the current year (2021), the Khetri Municipality took the responsibility of jointly organizing the celebration with Ramakrishna Mission, Khetri.
On 12th December, 2021 a morning procession (Prabhat Pheri) of one thousand school children marched through the town to remind people about the significance of the day. A special attraction of this year’s Virasat Divas was a preview of the Light and Sound Show that was being installed in Ramakrishna Mission, Khetri. The light and sound show was organized in the evening and attended by about 700 people. In the afternoon a live tableau of Raja Ajit Singh bringing Swamiji in a horse carriage is positioned in a procession leading from the Ajit-Vivek Museum to Panna Sha Talab. The prominent spots of the town were illuminated. A folk song and dance troupe sent as a gesture of goodwill by the department of Art and Culture, the Government of Rajasthan took over next.
