On arrival at the temple, one finds that the temple parking lot is full and one is directed to parking lots on adjacent properties. Cabs shuttle folks back and forth. Tea lights are placed along the walkway to the temple and it looks cool in the dark.
The main temple hall gets filled with devotees, my guesstimate is about 600. I heard someone say that about 1,000 devotees attend this event at times. One sees a few gora log among the devotees. The temple sticks to the announced pooja schedule pretty much. I think folks sang bhajans in Hindi and Bengali and this was cool too. The folks who sponsor the pooja are given a lamp on a plate for performing pooja. The aarti rocks and this is the highlight of this celebration.
The tall guy, whose I name I should find out, does a pretty good job and wisely announced that desis should not use the fire escape staircase as a short cut to the Patel hall where the prasad is served. The scene in the Patel hall is indicative of some chaos as desis chow down the food brought for the Annakoot pooja and served the volunteers.
It appears that the Gujrati community takes the lead in this event and I suppose people would have opinions about this circumstance. Similarly, the situation at the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh where the Tamil community takes the lead in events.
The main temple hall gets filled with devotees, my guesstimate is about 600. I heard someone say that about 1,000 devotees attend this event at times. One sees a few gora log among the devotees. The temple sticks to the announced pooja schedule pretty much. I think folks sang bhajans in Hindi and Bengali and this was cool too. The folks who sponsor the pooja are given a lamp on a plate for performing pooja. The aarti rocks and this is the highlight of this celebration.
The tall guy, whose I name I should find out, does a pretty good job and wisely announced that desis should not use the fire escape staircase as a short cut to the Patel hall where the prasad is served. The scene in the Patel hall is indicative of some chaos as desis chow down the food brought for the Annakoot pooja and served the volunteers.
It appears that the Gujrati community takes the lead in this event and I suppose people would have opinions about this circumstance. Similarly, the situation at the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh where the Tamil community takes the lead in events.
I hope this Diwali Celebration is on your to do list for 2008.
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