N Nagarajan
On 7 October, when PM Modi completed 25 years in Public Office, leaving aside other temples in Delhi, it was surprising he opted to visit the lesser-known Sri Vinayaka (Vinayagar) Mandir (Kovil). This temple had a checkered history as one of the first traditional South Indian temples. When PM’s visit to Sarojini Nagar temple was announced, news channels in Noida had little or no idea about the existence of such a traditional South Indian Temple and to him they attempted to use available sources from their website.
For me and many others in the vicinity of Vinayaka Temple, we have grown up with this temple. The idea or thought by South Indian Tamilians may have started in the early 50s, actual work began only in the late 50s. For me, we were fortunate to live in the same AB Block; I can’t even forget our house number 844. Our house in first floor (only two Gf and 1st Floor) was last house in right side at the entrance from Road. Our house became the last one because the one after ours was demolished after the 1960 tremors, when next house developed a huge crack.
My father served the Ministry of Defence and retired in his late seventies, and therefore I had the good fortune of living and spending our younger days in Government Colonies in the capital. We first lived in Sarojini Nagar. Incidentally, in the block where we lived from around 1959-60, Sree Vinayaka Mandir was established at the far end of our block. The small temple slowly became popular among Delhi’s South Indian population, and many used to frequent it on various occasions. The establishment of a South Indian temple created some unease among North Indians living in the block, and for some reasons or another they used to complain of noise from temple bells, early morning rituals, etc claiming it disturbed their sleep etc.
However, such issues used to be deftly handled by those who were managing the temple affairs. Despite such skirmishes, young North Indian children used to relish prasadams like Sakara and Ven Pongal (Sweet and Salt Pongal), Vada distributed time to time, and, of course, coconut, which the devotees used to break outside the temple and small pieces of shell on some occasions did hit someone in the crowd collected around such devotees. The temple used to see a large number of devotees on Fridays and on special days. On one such occasion, a family of three or four people came to the temple in a car (which was rare in those days) and parked it inside the block close to the temple.
It was then that all hell broke loose as a crowd of North Indian elders, along with youngsters, surrounded the car and started shouting at two elderly couples who got out of the car and questioned how they dared to park the car inside the block where children were playing and so on. On seeing the commotion, my father came down from the first floor of our house and went to calm down the crowd. The crowd, mostly elders, were not relenting and someone from the crowd shouted at my father, “photo sir *****” (smash his head), and my father came forward and showed his head and retorted in the same tone, “ado photo photo” (come on smash!), and none of them dared to come forward to accept his challenge.
Soon thereafter, the crowd calmed down, and my father requested the couple to park their car outside the block. The temple committee thereafter came forward to erect a board outside the block asking the devotees to park cars and two-wheelers outside. It seems the small hate incident which I witnessed as a seven- or eight-year-old after sixty odd years has taken shape now in political campaigns on and off. Now AB Block and all nearby government houses constructed after Independence have become part of history and in its 5-7 story Apartment blocks have come up.
Even though Vinayaka Temple came up with support of influential Tamilian Brahmins in power circle then, they managed to get this space of tr
Thankfully, Sarojini Nagar Vinayaka Temple, which is now frequented by South and North Indians, will stay put forever in the midst of a high concrete jungle. The Prime Minister’s unexpected visit probably makes it much more popular.
It so happens that soon after the establishment of Vinayaka Temple at Sarojini Nagar, another Temple of Lord Vinayaka’s brother, Murugan, came into existence in RK Puram Sector 6, close to the upscale residential colony Vasant Vihar. This temple was fortunate to get support of big powerful politicians, including former President R. Venkatraman and many others, even late. Sheila Dikshit. This temple’s consecration was conducted sometime in the summer of 1973 or so. Later, this temple overshadowed Vinayaka Temple in Sarojini Nagar, and even a landmark known as Malai Mandir, established on top of a small rock hill, not to milk Malai.
Thanks once again for visiting temple where we spent as young child. Strange this temple came into being when PM was just a small kid who was probably was not even aware of the existence of this temple. I’m still wondering what attracted him to visit this lesser-known temple.
