UMANG festival (“The Festival of Joy”) was held in ISKCON Sri Sri Radha Giridhari temple, Mira Road, Mumbai by ISKCON Youth Forum (IYF) Delhi on 14th October, 2012. 1300 youths participated from various colleges (Bhartiya Vidya Peeth, Pillai Institute of Tech. and Management, DY Patil, AC Patil College of Engineering, Saraswati College of Engineering) in the festival.

The program was managed by Shyamlal Das, Gopibhav Das, Jagat Krishna Das, Bhakta Ramesh, Bhakta Amit and IYF team.

The participants were greeted by welcome kirtan perfromed by Ram Bhadra Das and IYF Team. It was followed by a seminar. The topic of the seminar was ‘Kaun Banega Anna’, and it was given by Sundar Gopal Das (B.Tech Gold medalist, M.Tech IIT Delhi, Director IYF Delhi).

He addressed the growing problems on every level – individual, social, global, mentioning the tremendous rise in crime rate, suicide rate, corruption, divorce rate and the problem of global warming. He pointed out: “We have advanced so much in science and technology but still we are not happy, peaceful and secure. The root cause of all the problems are the sinful tendencies in our heart – lust, greed , anger, pride, illusion, envy, – which are like viruses in our hard drive of mind that force us to sin and break the laws of nature, which, in turn, punish us just like a criminal is punished by government.”

Sundar Gopal Das also mentioned how the Bollywood culture is influencing the lives of people, especially youths, in a bad way. Sometimes bad character is portrayed as heroism which is imitated by the youths, which leads them to a frustrating and depressing lifestyle. He suggested that if everyone takes the responsibility to make themselves a good charactered person than automatically whole society and world will become good.

Many prominent personalities were present in the festival including Dr. Ram Reddy (Principle of L.R. Tiwari Engineering College), Vanmali Das (IYF Director, ISKCON Mira road) and Kamal Lochan Das (Temple president, ISKCON Mira road.)

A wonderful drama ‘Andha Yug (The age of blindness)’ was presented by Vaikuntha players and directed by HG Adi Yogi prabhu (Worked and Trained in Balaji telefilms and Prithviraj theatre). The drama depicted the fact that how we are again and again being fooled by politicians, economists and scientists and forget our own very self. Everybody wants a change but nobody wants to come forward to change himself. Th conclusion was that the solution is to bring God in our life, make Him the center of every activity, chant His holy names and this will bring transformation in the heart of the individual and the society.

At the end of the program a Mantra Rock show was performed by Radha Rasbihari Das (The rising sun – Mauritian band) and IYF team. Everybody danced in ecstasy.

The festival was concluded with sumptuous and delicious feast.