Not the Lotus Temple:
After I had found my way to post in an internet cafe, I left shopping and headed back to the Baha'i House to pack, shower, and get ready to spend my last afternoon at the Lotus Temple. Once I had my sari on, I found that my roommate had found a lunch for me, which consisted of pomegranate and another fruit, which she called Goa. I'm assuming that Goa refers to its origins. She took a "snap" and I headed out to the temple. Upon arriving, I realized how amazingly crowded it was. People were everywhere and in the words of Mrs. Nanda, they were drunk. Not that they had had too much to drink, but they were disrespectful and generally out of control. They were noisy in the temple, didn't turn their mobiles off, and snickered, laughed and pointed at any volunteer that was white. I probably wouldn't have noticed that last group of behaviors, but I had offered to volunteer for the afternoon. I'm glad I did. Doing so exposed the frustration that all of the volunteers face. Because of it, most of the youth were ready to attack the tourists. Justly so, most of the people there, besides disrespecting the other visitors and the Temple, were insulting the volunteers and everything that the Temple represents to them (ie. their Faith). I'm assuming that this atmosphere is a result of the Lotus Temple's tourist attraction status. Buses of people are brought in daily and they are told something similar to what I was told: "Well, Tourist, we will next be at Lotus Temple. This is Baha'i Temple. Baha'i was started in 1844, Iran. Temple was built in 1986. Very beautiful from the outside, nothing to see inside. Again, nothing to see inside; don't waste time in information center." If the Lotus Temple remains a tourist attraction for most of the hours of the waking day, it will continue to be just that. Visitors will be noisy and disrespectful, and the Temple will only be a house for worship at night. I'm interested to see how the Indian Baha'is balance using the Temple as a teaching opportunity and their desires to have the Temple be a house of meditation and prayer.
Outside of this academic line of thought, I really enjoyed my time in Delhi. The Baha'i volunteers were friendly and wonderful. Everyone at the Baha'i House was amazingly accomodating as well (they loved to serve me tea; you should have been able to guess as much). All in all, my trip, in terms of my "Baha'i experience," was ideal. I had my two guardians (Misaq and Fauez) taking care of me, the Baha'i House and its staff providing a room, cleaning, and care, etc. In the past four days, I've been shown so much love and generosity that most of the rest of my 9 weeks pale in comparison.
so if it's not the temple, what is it?
The second picture, I didn't mention, is definitely the Lotus Temple. I like it because you can see how massive the temple really is. The first is the Taj Mahal on a cloudy day (thank goodness). Later, when the sun came out, I was surrounde by white marble on the main platform, which was reflecting all of the potency of the Indian sun right at me. It was painful. I couldn't see much of anything and I couldn't look at the Taj Mahal. I had to squint until I was in the shade of one of the large archways.
I always found the Taj Mahal both melancholy and powerful. Shah Jahan left a permanent reminder of the ache of his broken heart - so sad, so beautiful.
Looks like we've both visited a House of Worship recently. It also sounds like your trip was just as frustrating as mine. My condolences.
Andrew, I'm sorry to hear that your trip was frustrating. Mine wasn't so much frustrating as it was challenging and educational. I'm really happy that I went to Delhi. How exactly was your trip?