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Between London, Melbourne and Washington - 3

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by Tamildownunder, Nov 16, 2007.

  1. Tamildownunder

    Tamildownunder Bronze IL'ite

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    Hindu religious activities are strong in London. I used to think that the London based Hindus are more religious than Hindus in India. There are about 10 to 12 temples in and around London. The biggest of them is the Lakshmi-Narayan Mandir at Nesden in North London. When I first visited that temple I was awe-struck. They showed a video of how the temple was built. They showed that ~1000 marble stones from Europe were procured and sent to Gujarath and the carvings on them got done. They had numbered the stones and upon their arrival in London about 1000 volunteers built the temple stacking the numbered stones in their order. The temple is one of the big tourist attractions in London and is featured in all the tourist brochures. Almost all the leading personalities in the world have visited the temple like the British Queen, PMs of several countries and others.

    Among the other temples, the Ganapathy temple at Wimbledon is very famous. It is said that the statue of Ganapathy appeared on the spot where the temple is there (suambu it is called). This and few other temples like the Kanaka Durgai Amman temple at Ealing, are mostly patronised by Sri Lankan Tamils. In the months of July/August big ther festivals are performed and to witness that people from all over Europe also are coming.

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    I was lucky to visit all the temples in London due to an activity undertaken by my first landlady a Sri lankan Tamil who is a big devotee of Swami Gyananda Giri and Swami Haridos Giri from Thennangur near Chennai, India. In 2004 beginning the Gyananada Giri Peedam brought out a video cassette of a movie on Purandaradasar. The speciality of the movie is that it was choreographed, directed by Swami Haridos Giri and acted by only girls aged from 5 to 15. This film won the President's award in mid-80's. It is a movie worth seeing. The landlady, Mrs. Rani Kanakanayagam wanted to show the movie to all children and we hired a projector, screen etc., fixed dates and timings at the temples and went and showed. It was a great success and I could visit all temples like the Balaji temple in East Ham, Murugan Temple there also and others. I used to give an introductory speech about the movie.

    You can get the details of the film and its availability at http://www.thennangur.com/Purandhara.htm

    To be continued...
     
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