At Los Angeles Swaminarayan Temple, a blend of spiritual solace, gender rules and tourist buses

Currently in Los Angeles, the other day I was taken to the sprawling Swaminarayan temple, about an hour's drive from where we live. We were asked to reach there around elevenish, just ahead of the time of daily aarti. After passing through the reception, we were taken to the main temple, whose inside, I was told, was made of snow-white Italian marble, exported to Rajasthan, where expert artisans had meticulously carved out its different parts before being sent to Los Angeles for assembling them for the temple. Must have been pretty costly, I surmised!

Since I was unable to sit on the floor where male and female devotees were asked to sit separately, I was asked by a temple volunteer to stand by a pillar just in front of the spot where the statues of those who are said to have founded the Swaminarayan sect were put up. In front of me, just next to Lord Swaminarayan's golden-coloured statue stood Lord Krishna's statue -- possibly in white marble. Both were on the same pedestal. Next to Lord Krishna's statue stood Radha's statue, not on the same pedestal, but a bit down below.

On seeing Lord Krishna's statue in white, I was surprised. For, Krishna means black; His complexion is often described as dark blue. He is called Shyam, or Shyamsunder -- literally meaning dark or black beauty -- or Ghanashyam (dark like rain clouds). I don't know why, but there is a tendency among a huge section of His worshippers to show Him as white. The impact of a colonial mindset which considers gora as beautiful and black as ugly? Perhaps.

Soon after the aarti, in which many foreign tourists (non-Indian, mostly from the US and perhaps Europe) also participated, I was told, one tourist woman was inquiring why there was segregation of male and female participants at the aarti. A temple official told me later, "Surely, it's a difficult thing to explain to tourists. They keep asking such questions." The official stopped at that, refusing to tell me the explanation he would offer to queries like this. A little later, I was told, garba took place in the temple's hall called Sabha Gruh during Navratri. "Only women are allowed in. Men can't see them perform."

Be that as it may, the temple appears to have become a tourist attraction. I saw a few tourist buses with non-Indians reaching there -- which suggests the temple officials had apparently done excellent networking with tourist agents. Those who came included faces with an Anglo-Saxon look as also those with East Asian-looking faces, perhaps from Japan or South Korea.

Soon after we came out of the temple, one of our close acquaintances, who had asked us to reach the temple, said he would go and see one of the top sadhus of the temple. "I pay my respects to him whenever I come here", he told me, wondering if I would accompany him. Even as I reluctantly agreed to go, one of the two elderly women who had accompanied us wondered if she could join. "Sorry, women can't meet him. They are not allowed", was the courteous reply.

I was instantly reminded of my good old Gandhinagar days, when for nearly 14 long years, I served as the Times of India representative to cover the Gujarat government. On 24 September 2002, two armed terrorists entered Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar and resorted to indiscriminate firing, killing 30 civilians. I was sitting in my Gandhinagar office when I came to know of it. I rushed home, which was just behind the temple. Finding all okay, I contacted my office. I was told two senior journalists had been rushed to help cover the event.

One of the two journalists was a woman, Leena Misra, a bold journalist who had covered the aftermath of the post-Godhra Gujarat riots perhaps as no one else had. Together, the three of us were allowed by security forces to go into the temple from the backyard, to see for ourselves the dastardly act. Accompanied by a photographer, we saw blood on the floor, even as the injured were being rushed out. We came out after half an hour and stood behind the temple, in front of a separate Swaminarayan building, divided from the main temple by a public road, where the sadhus stayed. Since bullets were often landing not very far from us at the dead of the night, a security personnel advised us to move behind the iron gate of the sadhus' residential area. As we were moving in, a sadhu standing behind the gate said, "Only males please. No females here..." I got angry; finally the sadhu reluctantly gave in.

At the Los Angeles temple, I was taken by two young devotees to meet the top sadhu -- one of the 18 who served in the temple. Clad in saffron, initially he was reluctant to talk to me. However, when I introduced myself as a former Times of India journalist, he got interested and answered -- without any hesitation -- all that I asked him. Since it was a courtesy call, I was reluctant to ask sharp questions, nor did I try to contradict and counter-question on whatever he told me.

The sadhu -- I am withholding his name as it was not a formal conversation -- told me that the area occupied by the temple was around 22 acres, though later a temple official told me it was 30 acres. I asked the sadhu about the activities the temple was involved in, in such a faraway land. "It's essentially spiritual", he insisted. "If you are working somewhere, you may get disturbed once you lose the job, or retire, and you don't have the supporting system to bring solace. We provide the spiritual solace, peace of mind, in such a situation. That's our main job..."

Even as he told me that devotees, men and women, serve the temple's various activities voluntarily -- like celebrating Hindu festivals, helping run the reception, the canteen, and the food court -- I wondered if they were involved in social service as well, in such sectors as health and education. "We occasionally send fruits to hospitals serving our devotees, but our main job is spiritual", he underscored.

This made me recall how, clad in white, young trainee sadhus of the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar would move around different shops in the town, asking shop operators to take a pledge: to give up tobacco, or for that matter any intoxicating substance. I don't know how successful they were, but I told the sadhu, surely it was social service. "Do you also do such campaigns?", I asked him. And his reply was: "No. We don't. Here young boys and girls booze. It's normal here. It's impossible to run a campaign among them in such an atmosphere." This made me ask him, then, how did he expect the temple to influence Los Angeles society, even if marginally. "Spiritually... We hope people will one day understand our aim is to offer solace."

Thereafter, I decided to indirectly ask him who had donated to build the temple. I recalled how former Gujarat chief minister Chimanbhai Patel had donated a huge piece of land for just Re 1 to build the sprawling Swaminarayan temple in Gandhinagar. To my utter surprise, he took it as a negative media story, stating that people say different things about the sect, which reach up to the media, and I shouldn't listen to them. "One such news item which made headlines in America was when a small group of labourers brought from India for building the Swaminarayan temple in New Jersey -- about 14 of them -- approached a lawyer stating they were being exploited. The matter went to the court, and the court set aside the complaint", he said. I said I had read the news a few years ago in the New York Times and elsewhere, but didn't tell him I had prepared a news item for Counterview on this.

I said I was sure no such controversy was there with regard to the Los Angeles temple. "People have sought to defame our temple as well. But we don't care. I will send you videos which tell the real story about this", he said.

Here the conversation ended. He handed us a packet containing prasad, which we readily accepted, even as he directed a volunteer to take us to the spot where lunch (they call it prasad, as it is served after it is offered to God) was being served. Here, both men and women -- mostly volunteers -- sat and had lunch together. We had a sumptuous lunch, very tasty, even though -- under the Swaminarayan way of life -- it had no onions or garlic, which they considered toxic.

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Note: The photograph of the statues of Lord Swaminarayan, Lord Krishna and Radha at the top are from a different Swaminarayan temple, but almost resemble what has been displayed at the Los Angeles temple