Akshardham

Went to Akshardham @ Delhi on the Sunday 16^th April 2006; A beautifully constructed spiritual center that is also a showcase for the ancient architecture of our beautiful country. These architectures are seen in the ancient temples of South India and I was quite taken aback by the amount of effort that has gone into making of this temple. Somebody told me they have spent close to 6000 Crores (How many Zeros beyond 6000 that is?). I was astounded by the size of the temple it is extraordinarily huge.

While I was walking around the temple I was saying to myself “What a huge waste of money”. The reason for me feeling like this is that we have too many temples in India which have more intricate carvings and workmanship but are not being taken care of this money could have helped those temples. If you feel that you don’t want to help another temple they would have at least constructed a world class college or school that will give free education to the deserving many that are not able to afford to study and hence are forced to work at a very young age. I am sure the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha is surely doing a lot of great work in these social fields but still ….

Felt the same way when I saw the Universal temple of Ramakrishna Matt; Right next to the  Kapaleeswarar Temple this I felt was overkill as people seldom visit the Kapaleeswarar temple and I feel we should encourage people to visit temples that are already there and not build new ones and use the funds for building new temples towards helping the downtrodden. As BAPS RK Mutt does a lot of good things and I am a big fan of them but still this Universal Temple has sort of become a tourist spot these days and meeting point for the Love birds of Mylapore J