Kolkata is unique in every way, perhaps very few cities around the world celebrate Easter the way Kolkatan’s do. Every year on Easter Day a rally is organized by The Diocese of Calcutta and United Christians of Kolkata. Now what is unique about this is that around 85 Churches, Christian organizations and Christian schools participate in this rally regardless of their denomination. This year the rally was attended by nearly 6000 participants.
Easter Rallies
Two rallies takes place simultaneously, the first one of them has three starting points
– Bishops College
– Sacred Heart Church
– Entally Baptist Church
Participants from these three locations culminated at St. James School (AJC Bose Road). The second one starts at Oxford Mission (Behala) and concludes at Church of Epiphany (Thakurpukur).
The main reason for these two rallies is to spread the message of Love, Peace and Forgiveness. Easter is a very important festival for the Christians since Easter is the main reason for the foundation of Christian faith. After the death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, He resurrected on the day of Easter.
All over the world Easter is associated with Easter Eggs which is nothing but a symbolization of new birth. Lent period finally comes to and end with the celebration of Easter.
Even though the sky was overcast yet it was very warm and humid since morning. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to go since the heat and humidly made me very lethargic. However I was already preparing for this day as I have never participated in this rally and this would have been a good opportunity for me to participate and of course do some photography which I can use in my Blog.
I reached Bishops College at around 3 PM and I could already see some of the participants waiting at the lawn. The procession started from Bishops college at around 3.45 PM and took A J C Bose Road towards Park Circus – Park Street crossing.
By the time it reached Park Street crossing it had already started raining so I decided to stop shooting and take shelter inside Park Street (Mullick Bazar) Cemetery. By now it started raining cats and dogs so I had to wait for some time till the rain stopped. My only worry was for the participants in the rally, hope they were safely protected from the rain.
