160th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, National Youth Day and the 75th year of Indian Independence (Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav), were celebrated at Swamiji’s Ancestral House, Kolkata with splendour and fervour on 12th January 2022.
The celebration began with Mangal Aarati at 5:30 AM at Swamiji’s Birth Place which was followed by offering of snacks to Swamiji with variety of delicacies that he used to enjoy, which is a tradition of the Institute. Then a brief puja was done to Swamiji, Shri Shri Thakur and Shri Shri Maa. On that day, Swamiji’s birth place and his statue including Jagaddhatri Mandap were decorated with radiant flowers of vibrant hues. All the buildings were illumined nicely.
Since morning, scores of devotees came to visit the place and offered their respect to Swamiji. To name a few notable visitors were Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal, Smt. Mamata Banerjee, Leader of the Opposition, West Bengal Legislative Assembly, Shri. Suvendu Adhikari, Consulate General of Maldives in Kolkata, Member of Legislative Assembly Shri Tapas Roy etc. Dry Bonde Prasad was distributed to 5000 visitors.
Throughout the day, different cultural programmes such as singing of devotional songs, Bhajan, Vivek Geeti and performance of musical and instrumental recitals were held at the Thakurdalan of Swamiji’s Ancestral House. A religious congregation followed. A book release event also took place on this auspicious day where the Annual Volume 2022 was published. Evening prayers were held as scheduled. The programmes were live streamed over the Youtube Channel of the Centre.
All the events received huge media coverage. Kolkata Police, Kolkata Municipal Corporation and a number of volunteers helped us in making the events successful. This year, the birth anniversary was organised maintaining all COVID- related protocols.
