A Trip To SRJBTK*

 * Sri Ram Janm Bhoomi Teerth Kshetra

This week our son is visiting us.  Back in USA he had heard a lot about the Ram Temple and expressed a desire to visit it.  We cautioned him about the mammoth crowds visiting the shrine each day.  But his curiosity got the better of him.

We started looking for information that could help us during our visit.  We visited the website SRJBTKshetra.org.  The site is quite rudimentary and doesn't provide much help.  I found a recent post by a neighbor on FB telling us of her visit to the temple.  I called her up.  She gave practical tips and a good deal of information.  She also told us about the huge crowds but kept assuaging our anxiety by telling us that the arrangements were good enough and that though it is going to take time, it will be worthwhile.  One strange thing was that the rest break for the Lord was mentioned incorrectly on the website as 11:30 am to 2 pm, while it had been changed to 12:30 to 13:00.  The trust can do a good job by keeping its site up to date.

Another issue is that of Aarati passes mentioned on the website.  Though the site suggests that these passes are available online, the link doesn't work.  My neighbour told us that it has to be done at a camp in Ayodhya where the crowds are just as huge, if not more, as at the temple for regular darshan.  So there is little point in wasting time for a pass.

I knew that a lot of demolition, road widening and construction work was going on and so chose not to go through the city of Faizabad, now renamed Ayodhya and so merged with it.  Prior to this renaming Faizabad and Ayodhya were twin cities, separate from each other.  Since I spent my childhood in Faizabad, this causes much confusion to me.  So when the highway from Lucknow shows a signage saying distance to Ayodhya is in single digit, I often get misled into thinking that I have gone past Faizabad.  And it takes some processing to guess where exactly could I be.

So I reposed my trust in Google Maps and it led me to the multilevel parking in Ayodhya with just one human correction.  Google asked to take a turn, we checked with a group of people standing there and they advised us to go straight.  We followed their advice and found the parking a short distance away.  On our way back when we asked for directions to the parking, people kept asking us whether we want to go to the parking close to the river Saryu or the other one.  So, probably, Google Maps was trying to take us to the other one.  Though, I still don't know whether we were in one close to the river or the other.

There are, in fact, two multilevel parkings opposite to each other.  The guard let us in after confirming that a vacant slot was available.  We were told that AC buses were regularly plying between the parking building and the temple and we did see quite a few of them on the other side of the road.  However the buses seemed very crowded and we decided to take an autorickshaw.  The rickshaw wallah told us that he will take us to a point very close to the temple through the narrow lanes, and that we are not allowed to go up to that point through the main road.  He asked for ₹500 and we bargained it down to ₹300, though my younger sister had availed the service a few days earlier for ₹250.  True to his word he took us through a labyrinth of narrow lanes and to a point where we were supposed to enter the temple premises.

It doesn't take much time to realise that the construction is not complete yet, not even half-way through.  The walkways are not yet constructed and carpets have been laid on bare and uneven earth for moving from point to point.  There is a locker facility for depositing your phones and bags.  Phones are not allowed and there is an announcement repeatedly that phones will be confiscated.  Though we found people using phones for selfies and photos beyond that point and around the temple block and no one seemed to be eager to confiscate the phone.

Next is facility for depositing your footwear.  It may be noted that socks need not be removed.  Then the march towards the temple begins.  We came to a tree with a platform around it on which a huge agarbatti (incense stick) was burning.  At this point the female and male visitors are segregated with woman on the right and men moving to the left of the tree.  This is done for frisking purposes.  Booths for ladies are on the right and those for the men on the left.

At the booth entrance on the top are two signs - a hand and a circle.  I saw people hitting the hand sign and thought that probably it was meant to keep count.  However later I heard an announcement asking people not to touch it.  I hope I heard the announcement correctly and am trying to figure out the reason for the display.  The screening is very perfunctory.

The problem arises after crossing the frisking booths as families try to reunite.  It seems that the queue at the frsiking booths moves faster in the female lanes than the other ones.  We were separated ourselves and spent a long anxious time looking for my wife and sister.  Then it occurred to us that while we had left all our phones etc in the car, one phone had stayed with us in the sling bag worn by my wife.  We thought that they might have been sent back because of that.  We approached a security person in military fatigues who was kind enough to lend his phone to us.  We called the number with the ladies several times but kept getting a busy tone.  We later found out that they had gone ahead of us and were sitting on the stairs of the temple at the exit.  We suspect that a jammer may be installed to cover the main temple and a small periphery.  We thanked the guard, who expressed concern about the ladies and said, "You see, I live close by.  Yet, because of this maddening crowd, I am yet to bring my own family for Darshan!'

The crowd had been huge and there was too much pushing and jostling right up to the booths.  Not finding the ladies we became very anxious and worried if they had suffered a fall, not a remote possibiliity at all.  We next approached a lady in fatigues and enquired if there was an announcement booth.  She took us next to the booths where a microphone was being used by a person with another person waiting, it finally came to us.  We made announcement several times but to no avail.  One reason being that it is not possible for the other person to respond and coming to an indicated point not easy either.  We wondered why each visitor had to make his own announcement but then realised that this was the only option because of the nature of the crowd;  there were people from every corner of the country and the number of languages and dialects spoken was too large to be handled by one or two announcers.  This was an issue in crowd management too.

In the light of this experience, and we were not the only ones undergoing this, I would suggest the following to the authorities there -

• Please allow visitors to carry their phones to avoid such incidents.  Quite a few people are flouting this meaningless requirement and only the rule sticklers suffer.
• Advise visitors through displays and announcements for gents and ladies to wait for each other immediately beyond the booths and to proceed only after they are together.
• Display signages showing directions and what is coming up next.  There is a total lack of these.  This makes the visitor feel lost.  It will be good if each visitor is given a map of the premises. 

Having failed to contact the ladies, we decided to have a Darshan and then resume our search hoping for best all that time.  Beyond the booths six queues are formed for going to the temple without the gender segregation.  It is a rather long walk, 100 meters or more.  The barricades separating the lanes are metal ones lined up one after the other and there is a risk of your finger getting caught in the gaps between two.  There are constrictions in between.  These are very dangerous with the operation of the Bernoulli Principle that subjects those in the constricted area to lot of push and sway and poses a danger of barricades and people toppling over.  It did happen immediately before the steps going up to the main temple.  The barricade fell down and I was saved from a similar fate by my son.  As people sense coming close to the temple building, the shouting of Jai Sri Ram gets louder.  One young chap chanted the phrase so loud and so close to my right ear that it kept ringing for quite some time after that.  We were all tightly packed in each lane almost like a simgle mass that had a life of its own and kept swaying and moving.  I felt an apprehension several times that there might be a stampede or the jostling may lead to a domino effect.  Thankfully it didn't happen.

As you climb up to the floor of the temple,  you notice the intricate carvings on the pillars and the ceiling.  The stone used is neither red nor yellow but cream or off-white in colour.  At present it looks rather monotonous.  It also struck me that the temple is not as huge as I had imagined it to be.  The idol looks small, more so because you are not allowed to go close to it.  Also because of the heavy crowd you hardly get a few seconds to focus on the idol.  Just a few seconds after hours of jostling.

We were so exhausted that I forgot to look for a portion of the floor that looks very realistically like water, as told by my neighbour. As you climb downstairs and head towards the exit, you reach the locker counters on the opposite side, i.e., opposite to where items were accepted.  Same is the case with footwear.  Then you walk down and reach the main street where you see the buses and huge crowds.  As the buses were too crowded we enquired with a policeman where we could get an auto for going to the parking.  It seems most of the police people were from outside Ayodhya and not too familiar with the geography.  Same was the case with various security guards deployed along the path on the exit.

Finally we figured things out and walked a little distance towards traffic signal where we saw autos on a side road.  We also figured out that the tempo ride in the morning had saved us a walk of probably 1/2 a kilometers, the distance from the auto stand to where I think the entry point was.  The exit was another arm of the rectangle.

I feel that till the crowds have thinned out a bit or better facilities like golf carts become available, it is not safe for very elderly people to visit the temple.  I was told by my neighbour that wheel chairs were available.  But we didn't see any during our trip.  All we saw were two office chairs with wheels which were being carried by two people and I don't think it could serve that purpose.

The Ayodhya that I saw (from the parking to the temple) is very different from the congested areas and narrow lanes that I remember from my childhood.  That area has a very nice look now.