Nearly Three Decades in the Making, ISKCON’s Temple Soars and Delights

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: The faithful and the merely curious slipped off their footwear and walked on the cool marble tiled floor to the roped of line where they passed in front of the deities of Radha and Krishna, newly installed just the day before. Devotees, many young and completely immersed in the temple, sang bhajans to the accompaniment of a harmonium, cymbals, violin, dholuk and hand-clapping in beat and their voices and music was broadcast across the 7 acre grounds. The altar for the deities runs across the entire south wall and is made of hand-carved teakwood from Kerela.

In the middle of the 24,000 square foot temple building, the central shikara (conical tower) stands 72-feet high, while the smaller shikaras at each corner balance out the Vedic inspired architecture. The shikaras are made of colored fiberglass to present consistent, clear clean lines, reduce weight and present a idealized, modern lotus flower representation with the amalaka (lower ridged ring) giving rise to the kalasha or pointy peak, all of which are gold colored of various shades, while the stylized brick of the tower is painted in pleasing, blending colors.

It was hard to imagine that this was the once the site of the one-story wooden Baptist Church and two adjoining wooden buildings on 1.2 acres when the leader of the then small group of devotees, Tamal Krishna Goswami purchased it in 1984 for the flock to move to from its facility on Rosalie street. At a Diwali celebration held in 1990, the site was overwhelmed by the nearly 3,000 people who attended, including then rookie Houston City Councilwoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

ISKCON Houston started in a run-down house on West Gray in 1972 and Goswami died in a car accident in 2002. The new temple building was possible through the generous donation (reportedly $24 million) of Dr. Rakesh Kumar Dhingra who was a devotee of Lord Krishna since childhood and lived a renounced life in a simple 1,000 square foot house across from the temple and passed away in January 2010.

This past weekend, May 16 through 18, marked the grand opening of the new temple, installation of the new deities (the previous ones had been stolen by vandals in October 2010) and the Festival of India, a travelling exhibit produced by ISKCON which regularly sets up in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Toronto and last made a visit to the Bayou City at the International Festival in 2005. The exhibits and sales booths for deities, religious artwork, books and food as well as explanations (using a diorama on Reincarnation) about the message of Krishna Consciousness were laid out on the lawn between the temple and the older, large Gauranga Hall.

An estimated 10,000 people were expected to attend and seating under huge tents was set up for them to eat a free vegetarian meal and sit in front of the outdoor stage for the cultural program that highlighted the performances of many local groups and an ensemble from Kazakhstan and the United Nations International Choir. On the inside stage in Gauranga Hall, many other local groups and the Mayapuris of Florida performed songs and dances. Charted school buses ferried people every fifteen minutes from a remote parking lot at Northwest Mall. By Sunday evening, the volunteers figured that many more than the estimated number of people had attended the three day event.

The focus of the event, of course, was the temple building and garbha graha (inner sanctum) where the deities were installed. A with peacock made of feathers greeted the faithful in the foyer as they dropped off their footwear. Past the ornate inner doors, a huge hall with white marble opened to the altar beyond, with murals from the life of Lord Krishna painted above and on the three surrounding walls of the hall, the fourth bearing paintings of several saints. The lifelike statue of the ISKCON founder Swami Prabhupada that graced the former temple has been moved to the east wall of the sanctum, under a decorated altar. A gift shop sells religious items and sweets and a restaurant is planned to open soon in the west wing with its own entrance closest to Golf Street. Across the street, the Goswami Academy offers schooling for children from KG to third grade and will soon offer it till eighth grade.

It was a testament to the growth of the temple congregation that they all pitched in and volunteered to make the Grand Opening a moment to remember and place the new temple on the list of must-see places in the Bayou City, much as the BAPS temple in Stafford has become. For this New Delhi native, the most telling moment was being served at the lunch line by Indo-American teenagers and then sitting down to eat just as the train passed by the east-west line that abuts the back property line of the temple compound. The sound of the train, the rush of bhajans over the loudspeakers and the desi vegetarian food made it feel eerily like I was back home!