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Where it's at
Neasden is an unassuming area if you want to be kind about
the place - downright depressing if you don't. A sprawling
mass of rundown suburban semis, cut through by the North Circular
ring road whose greatest attraction used to be an IKEA superstore,
the Swedish king of the flat pack. Certainly not the sort
of area you'd come to as a tourist - until recently that is.
What's the history?
In 1995 the stunning Shri Swaminarayan Mandir opened,
bringing a healthy dose of exoticism to a grey corner of west
London. This Hindu temple is the largest ever constructed
outside India and the first of its kind in Europe. It takes
its name from the eighteenth century guru Lord Swaminarayan,
an Indian spiritual leader who walked the length of India
barefoot preaching consideration for the millions of poor
and encouraging social conscience. It's a building that attracts
superlatives; it was constructed amazingly fast, taking just
three years from conception to consecration, it was made from
5000 tonnes of Italian and Bulgarian marble using over 300
trees and cost about £5 million. And all this was done
using traditional methods. The quarried stone was sent over
to India first where it was cut and carved by over 1000 volunteer
craftsmen. Then each numbered piece of stone was packed up
and shipped over to the UK where it was assembled piece by
piece like the furniture you buy from the superstore up the
road!
Visiting the temple
Approaching the temple is quite culturally dislocating - this
massive marble edifice is reached by 30 marble steps with
the mandir (temple) to the left and the haveli
(living space), entrance carved out of Burmese teak - this
is where you enter. Here you'll find the prayer hall with
a capacity of 5,000 people. Men sit on the right and women
on the left because the images of the monks and gurus should
not cast their gaze over the female form. There's also a small
museum about Hinduism. The temple itself is pretty small and
while the pillars are rather garish and simplistic with their
representations of gods like Ganesh, the dapa (dome) is a
stunning work of art and the marble looks more like lace.
The best time to visit the temple is between 9am and noon
and 4 to 6pm when the murtis (representations of the
gods) are on view. During the rest of the day you'll spot
a man pushing a food trolley around the temple - this is laden
with food for the gods. He'll drop in on each one in turn
and then lock the door to the alcove so each can eat in peace. |
