From left, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Priest Venkatachalpathi Samudrala, Mr. Ramanbhai Patel, Mr. Narayan Dravid, Congressman Sherrod Brown(D-Ohio), Mr. Rohit Gupta |
It came about with Temple's response this summer to a query from the Congressman Sherrod Brown's office about availability of a priest for a future event in Washington. On September 12, 2000 the Congressman's office informed about selecting our temple priest Shri Venkatachalapathi Samudrala to offer an opening session prayer for Thursday, September 14, 2000 at the US House of Representatives. The prayer was an ancient Hindu universal prayer along with the address to the occasion and was sent to Washington DC. This Vedic prayer (Hindi/Sanskrit along with English translation) was approved and the temple received its marching orders. Two members of the Temple Board of Trustees accompanied the priest and were assisted by Mr. Rohit Gupta, son-in-law of Mr. Kishore Shah, in DC. The rest is history. |