Delhi Trip (Two)

We arrived at the Bahai Lotus Temple at about 11:40 am. The conference began earlier, at about nine I believe, but we were late because of our train. Brilliantly coloured tents had been placed around the spacious grounds, including a main tent which worked in lieu of a hall. After registering we took our seats under the main tent to listen to the talks.





Representatives from different parts of India were presenting the current state of affairs in the Bahai community, in their particular region. Unfortunately the presentations were in Hindi, and while I did have someone translate for me, I’m sure I missed a great deal of what was going on. I’m afraid because of this language gap, the entire conference remains for me, a slightly misty affair.

After the presentations we had a break during which everyone wandered about, meeting old friends and making new ones. I went up to the temple to pray, and took several photographs. After the break there was a workshop where people gathered in groups beneath the tents, and studied the letter sent on October 20th from the Universal House of Justice.





By lunch time the number of participants had swelled to above 3,000. After lunch we gathered under the main tent to listen to more talks, which focused generally on the theme of accompaniment. In the evening there was a cultural show but I didn’t attend it, since we had decided to visit some friends of Sohayl and Nicole’s, who were kind enough to board us for the evening.

The next day we arrived back at the temple a little before nine. The talks that day focused on cluster progress and the goals of the Five Year Plan. This was followed by a short break, after which there was another workshop in which we divided up by region and discussed plans for our specific clusters. After lunch there were further talks.

Again, I have to apologize for not being able to go into specifics because of the language gap. You can find out more from the conference's official site, here.