Phool Bangla Utsav: Cooling the Divine with Floral Elegance

The 134-day Phool Bangla Utsav has commenced at Vrindavan's Shri Bankey Bihari temple, a festival making use of floral decorations to mitigate the summer heat inside the temple.

Built of red stone and outfitted with earthen lamps, the temple becomes quite hot during summers, prompting the use of flowers to offer relief to Lord Krishna from the soaring temperatures, Gyanendra Kishore Goswami Sewayat shared. Flowers like rose and mogra, reportedly the deity's favorites, are collected both locally and from other cities like Kanpur and Ajmer.

The festival, extended this year due to an 'adhik maas', also ensures that flowers from the decorations are repurposed into incense sticks at a widow home. Morning and evening darshans are now available, thanks to a 2016 Supreme Court mandate, said Shashank Goswami Sewayat.