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MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT, January 2, 2005: The souls of those lost in last week’s tsunami still wander, they said, hungry and thirsty, between this world and the next. And so, on Saturday, the men and women of the Sri Satyanarayana Temple bent to their task: to nourish those souls and help them find their way. They began by building a fire. And as the smoke snaked up through the bare trees into a pure January sky, they fed the flames with rice and fat and bread and spices, bananas and coconuts. “Shantih,” they chanted again and again at the end of each prayer. “Shantih, shantih, shantih.” Peace, peace, peace.



Thousands of Hindus from around New England converged on their temple Saturday to celebrate the New Year, to mourn the dead and to raise money for the living, victims of the tsunami that struck the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia just one week ago. As thousands of Hindus streamed into the temple on the hill overlooking the Connecticut River, Jaya Ganta, a member of the temple’s executive committee, said she expected as many as 10,000 would pass through its doors by the time they closed at midnight. They were hoping, she said, to raise more than $100,000 on this day alone. “Our goal today is to raise $100,000,” Ganta said. “One of us will go there personally to deliver it. We have people here, their families are lost. “What’s going on there we can’t even imagine. There are children on the streets with no parents. There are people in hospitals who have gone five days without food. We would like to go to take care of the people with medicine and food.” The temple is attended by more than 40,000 Hindus, Ganta said, who come from as far away as New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.



Dr. Velandy Manohar, a past president of the temple, explained that the fire sacrifice was intended “to nourish the disembodied souls of the departed” and to ask different deities “to give us enlightenment.” The sacrifice, he said, was an act of purification. The fire would burn off “all our negative tendencies and misdeeds,” and would bring “blessings to all the living and dead. Its vibrations will go out all over the world, much like the waves in the water.” Janak Trivedi, chair of the prayer committee, said the fire “is the messenger to all the gods.” “We are asking God to take care of these people and give them eternal piece,” Trivedi said. “Our prayers will help them to end up in a good place.”

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