The musicians sit in one corner of the stage, singing with the barest accompaniment just a harmonium and a tabla. The most interesting aspect of the raasleelas is the fact that Krishna is always played by a young boy, never a grown up man, and when the show ends, the people quietly queue up to go onstage and offer their prayers to Lord Krishna. Reverentially, they touch the little boy s feet, and drop their offerings in a big urn placed next to him. But the real crowds during Janmastami, of course, are at the Shri Krishna Janamabhoomi temple. Hundreds and hundreds of pilgrims squat on every inch of the temple grounds, fanning themselves with newspapers and listening in pin-drop silence to the discourses of erudite religious teachers discourses relayed through a close circuit television network to every corner of the temple.
Many people simply camp in the temple all day so that they can witness the midnight birth ceremony.
And as night falls, the crowds swell into the proverbial sea of humanity, jostling and pushing, in an attempt to get into the temple. As twelve o clock draws nearer, an anticipatory murmur runs through the crowd and it starts straining to get a glimpse of what the priests are doing. The sound of frenzied clapping, the call of the conch shell rents the air, as the small deity, wrapped in white, is placed on a raised platform so that everyone can get a look. The ceremony that follows is a very simple affair. All these are poured from a conch shell by yellow robed priests.