A Gita Path is a special event that is held every two weeks in the Gour Nitai temple on Saturday nights. A Gita Path is an event where members of this temple come together to listen to one person’s interpretation of one chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita Gita. On March 19, 2011 my family was the one that had to sponsor that Saturday’s Gita Path. Sponsoring the Gita Path consists of my family preparing all the prasad (vegetarian food) for everyone, making sure everyone is invited, that the priest is looked after, and making sure that you have the guest speaker that will be doing that night’s Gita Path reciting.
The reason we funded the event for that particular date rather then sometime through out the rest of the year is to commemorate the date that my grandfather passed away about a decade ago. Every year we like to fund the Gita path closest to the date of the grandfathers passing. The purpose of this event however isn’t for everyone to remember my grandfather that is really the family’s reason for throwing it around that time. However the purpose of the event is to for everyone of the community to get together and have a thoughtful discussion about a select portion of the Gita. Usually the speakers who do the portion of the reading give their interpretation and also a back-story of a part of their life on why they believe this part of the Gita to be true. Or what it means to them. Every two weeks we have a different person usually male who gives us their definition and their reason why. This way through these Gita Path’s we all get a chance to read the Gita, which in this community is regarded as the holy text.
The stage of events in a Gita Path in the Gour Nitai is as follows. First everyone starts to get seated on the floor, women on the right and men on the left. Slowly but surely the instruments are passed around along with a sheet full of different type of hymns. Then the singing starts, they get started with slow songs and the tempo eventually builds and then slows down and stops. This happens a couple of times with different version of the main song that is sung which is Hare Krishna Hare Rama. Next is the reading of the Gita by that designated speaker which usually takes about an hour or so. Then after the Gita reading we have more singing and eventually afterwards everyone gathers to eat together, first children and elderly are served and then everyone else. There is always enough prasad for everyone.
I am not exactly sure if these certain type of events happens in India. Most of the people that were in the temple are from Bangladesh. This temple is a Bengali community temple. So when I asked the people of this community this question. They stated that these types of events do happen in Bangladesh. Their intention when opening this temple was to provide a similar event of what they do specifically in Comilla, Bangladesh, which is where most of the members of the temple are from. From speaking to these member they show appreciation for finding a place that they can worship and be with people of similar backgrounds. They have this feeling of belonging. Most people like my parents are very involved when it comes to the organizational aspects of how the temple should be run. To these members they have found a place similar to that which they had in Bangladesh, which is why they keep coming back for every Gita Path. Even more so they want their children to carry on the traditions and not to forget their roots.