I Rarely Go To The Sites Of Tourist Attraction

~ before the entry gate, we need to surrender our mobile phones, cameras, all other electronic gadgets and including day bags to the cloakroom, and no photography is allowed once entering the gate of akshardham site, so i take the photo of akshardham temple from the picture hanging on the wall of the metro station ~

Day 49

7.4.2024
Sunday

Paharganj, Delhi

Yesterday Jasmine and I went to Akshardham. Akshardham is a hindu temple and spiritual-cultural campus located in the heart of Delhi, close to the border of Noida. The complex displays traditional and modern hindu culture, making people awing into those ethereal architectures and immersing to marvel their spiritual legacy of hinduism. This is a tribute to swaminarayan, a great sage of hinduism, who has lived from 1781 to 1830. The Akshardham temple was inducted into the guinness world records in 2007 for being the world's largest comprehensive hindu temple that attracting visitors from all over the world.

We took a metro to Akshardham station on the blue line. We did not ride on an autorickshaw of the last mile to Akshardham because the place we intended to go was just 15 minutes away on foot from the metro station. Akshardham temple is built on a very vast site. After visiting the temple and its beautiful architectures, I reckon the temple sits on at least a 30 acre land with that temple situates in the middle of this land pulse. If you are not sure how large is Akshardham, then you visualise 30 football fields, and that would be its size in awe.

We paid for the entrance tickets before getting into the theatre. The short film was a show in narrating how swaminarayan went through his spiritual paths when he was a child-yogi till he reached his adulthood. We watched the short film in the IMAX theatre where the film was projected on a giant screen ten times larger than any silver screens found in the modern cinemas. We were supplied with headphones for audio translation. By the time when the theatre started, I tuned the headphones for audio but the headphones did not work its way. It couldn't function. So, I decided to enjoy the short film in hindi without dubbing.

I asked Jasmine why there was a boat ride in the middle of the land that had no river flowing on it. At first I thought there was a natural canal. When we were on the boat, I found the boats were flowing on the water that was a man-made small and narrow canal. Akshardham was a very touristic theme, when Jasmine told me, the ride was making people think of Disneyland park. There was a musical fountain aiming as the puller to the crowd of visitors who will come in the evening just to see the stunning fountain dancing along with the musics and lights. We did not intend to stay late to see that musical fountain in choreographed dances.

The temple architecture was stunning, very nice and beautiful but no one was supposed to sit on the floor of the temple. The temple was a tribute to swaminarayan with a big statue of him sitting in the middle of the temple. There were small signboards erected on the pillars restricting people from sitting on the floor. You can't do your sadhana in the temple because of this restriction. The site was absolutely a great civilisation and I like them all, but at the same time I felt, I would not visit this temple for another time because the place was more suitable for tourism. I rarely went to touristic sites where entry tickets must be bought before immersing myself in the crowd of tourists and visitors.

At the water station when I was filling my water bottle, a man asked me, "Kya aapako yah pasand hai?"

I thought for a second what that meant in hindi. Then I got it - kya aapako was translated as do you, and pasand in hindi meant like. So, the whole short sentence should be translated as, do you like it?

I replied to him, saying, "Mujhe ya pasand hai!"

I had deeply wished I could speak hindi. I had wanted to converse with the hindustanis in hindi when I felt hindi was a very beautiful language to speak.

Later today, Jasmine and I will go to the krishna mandir again. However, I feel a little disturbed when I think of the loud speakers tuning to blast in the mandir that afternoon when we were there. I avoid loud noises coming from loud speakers because I have hearing loss in one ear. I must take care of the other side of ear with extra care. I feel the indians are a community of noise tolerant people.

I will clad in all white later because I am going to pray to krishna. He is often called lord krishna, he is one of the most widely worshiped and popular hindu deities. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love, and is widely revered among hindu divinities.

Tomorrow we are going to Mathura. Mathura is a sacred city in Uttar Pradesh, in north India. The deity krishna is said to have been born on the site of Sri Krishna Janma Bhoomi, now known as the temple attributes to him. We will leave the motel very early by 4.45 am in order to catch the 7.08 am train at Nizamuddin railway station which is 11 km away from our motel in Paharganj. We are expecting to ride on the train for one-and-a-half hours before arriving at Mathura Junction.

So, there is no blogging tomorrow.