Hindu temples across the city lit up the night of Sept 4 for Janmashtami, celebrating Lord Krishna’s birth.
At the Siddh Peeth Shree Lakshminarayan Temple in Little India, celebrations abounded with bhajans and dance performances, stretching past midnight.
For the past two years, the temple hasn’t been able to celebrate on a large scale due to renovations.
Temple president Harish Chandra Misir said: “Our temple was overwhelmed by devotees, and people are very happy. When we had the chance to get the devotees back, we posted all over social media. We assured them of what we are doing and said we wanted them to return.”
Parents teetered around the temple space, fixing their children’s hair or costumes, before craning to get the best footage of the youngest temple-goers’ showcase.
Seven-year-old Udvitha played Krishna during one of the dance segments. “I feel happy to be dancing today,” she said.
Her dance teacher, Durga Sharma, was equally joyful, having choreographed several of the dances for the event. “It has been a wonderful journey of bringing people together, encouraging younger generations to connect with our culture and showcasing our traditions with pride,” she said.
Among the 7,000 attendees was the guest of honour, Minister of State (MOS) for Culture, Community and Youth, and Manpower, Dinesh Vasu Dash.
After the temple committee members greeted him with a garland and token of appreciation, MOS Dinesh shared his personal connection to the festival.
“My oldest boy’s name is Arjun, who is related to Lord Krishna; my youngest, my daughter’s name is Meera, my wife’s name is Rathiga, and I didn’t know until just now that my middle name, Vasu, is also Vasu Dev. I didn’t know that until today, so there are a lot of commonalities that my family shares with Lord Krishna,” he noted.
MOS Dinesh was also the guest of honour at the Singapore Sindhi Association’s (SSA) Janmashtami event.
“He (Krishna) is a symbol of wisdom, of love, of compassion and of course righteousness, which is what we try to celebrate during this event,” he said at SSA’s event.
Celebrating its 105th anniversary this year, SSA’s committee aimed for a grander celebration than ever before, targeting over 500 guests and inviting community leaders from various Indian associations.
“This is a very important feature of Singapore life, where all of us are together, regardless of where we may have been from, but we celebrate our festivals together. We invite one another, we try to break bread with one another and to be in close companionship to be able to celebrate good times like today with one another,” said MOS Dinesh.
Instead of the traditional religious format, SSA took a more cultural direction for the programme, showing different aspects of Krishna’s life.
“We are a community association first, with the temple as a key thing that also binds us,” said Mr Ghanshyam Ahuja, the president of SSA. The ticketed event was held at the P. Govindasamy Pillai Hall in Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple.
Aside from dances and an AI-driven drama segment that showed the tale of Barbarika’s beheading in the Mahabharata, special praise was given to the gurus or teachers who attended. The association invited five teachers from schools like Wise Oaks International and Delhi Public School.
“We knew that Janmashtami falls on the same day as Teacher’s Day, so we invited teachers who teach Hindi, dance, drama, music and culture, and we made sure to treat them exactly how we would treat VIPs,” said Mr Ahuja.
