[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
News : Swaminarayan Temple opens in Edison, NJ
By MIRTA OJITO August 12,'96. New York Times
EDISON, N.J. -- Little had remained intact in Alka Desai's world since
she arrived in the United States from India a year ago to marry a man she
did not know. With the arranged marriage and the 7,000-mile trip came a
new life, a town she had never heard of, a strange language she still
struggles with and, three months ago, a baby.
Through it all, she sought solace in her religion and in a thriving
community that, one building at a time, is carving a little India out of
this swath of suburbia that thousands of Indians now call home.
Still, an important part of Mrs. Desai's spiritual world was missing --
a temple where she could worship the idols that are central to her faith and
culture.
That changed this weekend, when the massive carved mahogany doors of the
Swaminarayan Akshar Purushottam Hindu Temple finally opened to worshipers
who for five years have donated money and labor to build the most
tangible symbol of their permanence in America.
"I don't miss home," said Mrs. Desai, 25. "Everything I need is here.
Our temple, our idols, our religion. Now we have a home."
The temple, which is expected to attract about 800 worshipers from New
Jersey and New York, will be used mainly by Indians who belong to the
Bochasanwasi Swaminarayan Sanstha sect, one of several hundred sects that
dot India's religious map. Its followers are predominantly found in
Gujarat, a western state so tightly woven that many families there share
the last name Patel and yet claim no immediate blood relation.
Praful K. Raja, the temple's administrator, said about 1,200 families
from Gujarat live in New Jersey, many of them in Edison.
Thousands of Gujarat natives crowded the halls of the temple Sunday to
witness a most sacred occasion: the moment the sect's much-revered guru
invests life to the 10 marble statues that will preside over the temple
and answer this community's prayers.
"I hope they help me with my school work," said Pinky Patel, 13, who
attends middle school in Edison. "They always have, so far."
The morning here started early Sunday with prayers and a light breakfast.
Then, the guru, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, who traveled to New Jersey from
India for the inauguration, slammed open a coconut at the entrance of the
temple and released hundreds of silver, orange and green balloons to
the sky. A great uproar followed, and the temple was ready for use.
As if on cue, women headed for the kitchen to serve the homemade food
worshipers had prepared and delivered earlier. It was their offering to
the idols, who, faith dictates, as of Sunday are alive and need to be
bathed, changed and fed every day. (The food is later distributed among the
participants, who, this time, along with the traditional Indian dishes,
also had some undeniably American fare: butter cupcakes, Dannon yogurt and a
pink-frosted cake with a Minnie Mouse figurine on top).
"This is one of the happiest days of my life," said Shushila Patel, a
41-year-old mother who cleans offices for a living. "It ranks up there
with my wedding day and the birth of my child."
For members of the Bochasanwasi Swaminarayan sect, a temple is not only
a house of worship, but a community center where life flows in and out as
if it was the large home of an accommodating relative.
Children squeal as they chase each other around the freshly painted halls;
elderly ladies sit together in a corner, their veils close to their faces,
eyeing the young girls and boys for future matchmaking; women wrapped in
jewel-colored saris cook yellow rice in huge pots and bake hundreds of
vegetarian pizzas in industrial-size ovens; men sleep on the carpeted floors
of the main hall, next to infants in car seats, while they wait for the next
sermon, and girls sit cross-legged on the floor threading pink and red
carnations to make garland for the idols.
"This is a place that's alive, where people come when they want to feel
part of the community, when they want to be close to their heritage and
their people," Raja said. "It's the house of God, but also ours."
Five years ago, what is today a car-stopping saffron-colored structure
right off a busy artery that connects Edison to the New Jersey Turnpike
was a 43,000-square-foot abandoned toy factory and warehouse on more than
six acres of muddy terrain, mostly used by kids riding dirt bikes.
Leaders in the Indian community decided to build a temple after the success
of a monthlong festival of Indian culture in 1991. The festival attracted
more than a million people from across the United States, they said. The
post-festival enthusiasm lingered and it fueled their interest in creating a
more permanent way to showcase their culture and religion.
Until then, Indians in New Jersey traveled to a temple in Flushing, Queens,
most Sundays to worship and visit with friends. Many times, though, they met
in the basement of a friend's home or, if the gathering was large, they
rented a room at a local high school.
K.C. Patel, the North American president of the Bochasanwasi Swaminarayan
sect, said about 250,000 Indians live in the region and some 10,000 of those
belong to the sect.
Because the Indians, like most immigrants, have used New York as a stepping
stone to the rest of the country, many stayed in the area.
Many of those who remained eventually found their piece of the American
dream and bought a house in suburbia, in this case, Edison, where Indian
grocery shops and sari stores sit side-by-side with tire shops and travel
agencies along some of the major roads.
"We have everything here we can possibly want," said Harish Patel, 32, a
researcher at a pharmaceutical company. "I feel I'm in my own country. It
even looks like it. We just needed to find this temple to be complete."
Community leaders looked at more than a dozen possible sites before they
found the perfect spot for a temple: large, with lots of parking space and
not too close to residential areas, as they wanted to make sure no neighbors
would be bothered by the temple's large gatherings.
The worldwide Bochasanwasi Swaminarayan organization, with corporate offices
in India, bought it for $1.8 million. A collection box was set up to pay for
the renovation, which cost another $1.5 million. Even so, Raja said, the
spending was modest because most of the work and materials were donated or
offered at cost.
Inside, the temple looks like a modern convention center, with marble
floors, spacious bathroom and ordinary partition walls. Outside, however,
it attempts to replicate the traditional look of an ornate Indian temple.
Stones from the best quarries from around the world were used in the building.
"It's a labor of love, from many, many people," said Dilip V. Tank, a
member of the sect and the principal engineer on the project, who said he
worked on the temple weekends and evenings for five years.
Seventeen local architects and engineers worked on the design. It took
temple leaders a year of planning, 42 drawings and five trips abroad to view
buildings and materials to help decide on an appropriate design for the
exterior walls.
But concessions were made for the sake of modern life and local
construction and fire code regulations.
In traditional temples, hundreds of candles burn at all hours as part
of the religious ritual. In Edison, a few candles will do for special
occasions. In Gujarat, nobody would walk into a temple with shoes on. But
in Edison, where snow can be part of the landscape, visitors can walk in with
their shoes on but they have to leave them at the door.
In India, temples are for prayer and congregation. In Edison, where the
temple also has a library and several classrooms, community leaders want
the center to play an important role in the education of youngsters and
new immigrants. College students teach traditional Indian music to reinforce
a cultural heritage for children born in the United States.
The center also offers English classes to recent arrivals, and leaders
hope to offer classes to help immigrants understand the cultural differences
between the two countries.
For now, though, the faithful are reveling in their good fortune. "Never,
in my wildest dreams did I think we would have a place like this so close
to home," said Suma Raja, who has lived here for 25 years and has raised
two bicultural, bilingual daughters. "This is our gift to our children.
For the future."
