Here is Bodhinatha in New Delhi. Sri Swami Pragyanand came to visit Bodhinatha at the Oberoi Hotel where we were staying.

This is the view of the Akshardam Temple as we drive up to it in Delhi.

Another distance view. The temple built on flat farm land adjacent to the Yamuna River. Security is tight, the long entrance road included a sharp turn past a machine gun manned by several army soldiers.

Bodhinatha is greeted by Brahmavihariswami, the young swami at the center and Swami Atmaswarupdas, head of the London temple, at right.

We are taken for a private meeting with Sri Pramukh Swami Maharaj, head of the BAPS Swaminarayan organization. He is past 80 now, but in reasonable health, good spirits and very clear mind. A powerful vibration encompassed the room.

We pose for a group photograph. Shanmuganathaswami, at far left, Yoginathaswami to Pramukhswami’s left and Arumugaswami accompanied Bodhinatha on the swift nine-day trip to India.

Bodhinatha addresses a huge crowd of 15,000 people in the evening. It was for this event that we rushed to India immediately after the completion of Mahasamadhi celebrations for Gurudeva in Kauai.

A not very clear view of the group. It started to rain quite hard during Bodhinatha’s talk, and he joked about bringing Kauai’s weather with him. He said, don’t worry, the weather will change in a few minutes, and it did, much to everyone’s relief, as the tents were not designed to handle much water.

Bodhinatha is presented a commemoration of the event.

One of our objectives on the trip was to meet with and encourage our journalists.

The group included, starting from the left side of the temple, Mr. Bhardwarj, husband of Prabhakar, who is just visible behind Amit Kumar, photographer at far right. To the right of Arumugaswami is Madhu Kishwar, to his left MP Mohanty from Orissa, then Palaka Malik, daughter of our Delhi correspondent Rajiv Malik (you can see his head just behind Bodhinatha). We’re enlisting Palaka as a youth correspondent.

This is Madhu Kishwar, founder of Manushi magazine and one of India’s foremost advocates for women’s rights. You’ll see her in-depth analysis of issues from time to time in Hinduism Today.

Mr. Bhardwaj is an engineer, and lived with his wife a long time in Kenya. Now they live outside Delhi.

MP Mohanty has just recently recovered from health problems and is back on our team.

Palaka impressed everyone with her analysis of youth issues.

This is Mrs. B.M. Sinha, wife of our late correspondent for Delhi.

Prabha Bhardwaj has filed several stories from Kenya and also written about Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu and Kashmir State.

Amit Kumar has done a number of photographic assignments for us in Delhi.

Bodhinatha explains to the group his vision for Hinduism Today.

Part of the trip was “business,” and here Shanmuganathaswami talking with Sanjay of CNA distributors in Delhi, who handle our India subscriptions.

Sanjay was very well informed, and told us we could save a great deal of money on postage by mailing from India to adjacent countries, rather than directly from the US.

Sanjay and his father and uncle, who started the business.

RP Jain of Motilal Bannarsidas, the foremost publisher of reigious books in India. Aside from an absolutely delicious lunch at his joint family’s home, we discussed several publication issues. They had just printed the Ajita Agama, which is the only Saiva Agama in print. As well, they said they could find the large bound edition of all four Vedas published some years ago in Delhi. This is only in Sanskrit, but is a fine book.

This is Ravi Jain, who handles the printing of our books with Motilal.

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Following this visit, we went to the Udayan Care girl’s orphanage in Delhi, and met with the caretakers and girls. They are doing an impressive work.

This is Sheela Venkatakrishnan’s brother, Shreekant, and family with Bodhinatha.