Since then, Kirtan London has focused on organizing three types of events. The first is the quarterly 6 Hour Kirtan. The second is Mantra Lounge, a monthly event which was already running for one year prior to Kirtan London, but which has seen attendance jump from ten to fifty since the organization became involved.

Mantra Lounge is held on the first Friday evening of every month in Neal’s Yard, an area of Covent Garden well-known for health food cafes and new age retailers. Each event features one-and-a-half hours of kirtan as well as some guided meditations, and draws a young, varied crowd.

“The mood is generally quite relaxed and peaceful,” says Jahnavi. “In December, we had a Christmas special where maybe sixty or seventy people crammed into the small space, and we did mantra carols and things like that. It was great fun.”

Finally, Kirtan London has also been organizing “Thirty-Minute Meditation” events at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Introducing kirtan in bite-size nuggets, they begin with yogic breathing exercises, and include some guided meditation, an introduction to the mantra, twenty minutes of chanting, and a light prasadam snack.

Kirtan London also holds the occasional concert at different London Universities, inspired by the Sacred Sounds concerts put on by the Bhakti Club at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, which draw around 600 students. As there are already similar clubs in many major London universities, Jahnavi hopes to connect with these and put on bigger events in the future.

So far, although it’s only been running for six months, Kirtan London has already made its mark and is garnering very positive feedback. Newcomers have called its kirtans “A very immersive experience,” “uplifting,” and “liberating,” and have said about the project that they’ve “been looking for something like this for a long time.”

One participant commented, “[While you’re doing kirtan]You’re completely unaware of anything else that’s happening. It doesn’t matter how you’re singing, or what you look like. You just completely let go and be with the Divine.”

Devotees, meanwhile, are glad to see that while UK temples have connected very effectively with the Indian community, there is now more outreach towards UK residents that don’t have an Indian cultural background.

When summer comes around, Kirtan London will also hold “flash mob kirtans,” really just a trendy way to refer to Harinamas, the traditional public kirtans held by devotees. With a ‘come as you are’ vibe—Vaishnava dress won’t be mandatory—Jahnavi feels that the kirtans will draw more newcomers as well as second generation devotees and others who may otherwise feel conspicuous.

Further into the future, Kirtan London aims to present kirtans and meditation workshops in the corporate world, working with devotees who are already running events at companies like Ernst and Young and HSBC.

Jahnavi says the organization also wants to infiltrate London’s arts and music scenes, hit the summer music festival circuit, and even arrange major kirtan concerts at venues like the Royal Albert Hall.

It’s all part of the mission to make kirtan accessible and relevant to modern Londoners, and to create a city-wide community based around coming together to share kirtan.

“Our goal is to give people a taste for chanting,” Jahnavi says. “And through that, to open their hearts to hearing Krishna conscious philosophy, as they start to interact more with devotees and become friends with them. That’s what I saw happening in New York, and I hope to see it happen here, too.”

For more information on Kirtan London and its upcoming events, please visit kirtanlondon.com.