By Binoy Gouranga Das
Every year the youth of Mayapur come together and work to make the festival what it has been for the past thirty-two years – an intimate exchange of love. Serving together tirelessly for more than thirty days is as enlivening as it is exhausting, and every year the sweetness grows. They begin preparations for the Jhulan Yatra festival approximately a month before Radha Madhava’s swing pastimes. They transform a wildly overgrown forest into a breathtaking flower grove, decorated with ponds, fountains, waterfalls and lights, and permeated with aromatic smoke which not only sets a romantic mood for the Divine Couple, but also keeps away the mosquitoes!