CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, June 22, 2007: The Hindu Gods beckon the faithful to a new Grayslake temple, where a second-floor prayer room is filled with ornate statues imported from India. In this sacred place, devotees will chant the Vedas, couples will marry, and if Anup Manchanda has his way, a Web cam soon will beam events at the Hindu Mandir Temple in real time over the Internet. Relatives in India would be able to view holiday festivities and rites of passage by logging on to a temple Web site, he said. Devotees in Lake County could view ceremonies without stepping foot in the sanctuary. And the lure of technology might entice younger people to the temple. The Information Age has come not just to India, it seems, but also to the Indian temple–or at least to this salmon-colored one at Illinois Highway 83 and Peterson Road. It appears to be ahead of the curve, combining ancient ritual with modern technology. Of a handful of area Hindu temples, the Hindu Mandir is the only one with immediate plans for a Web cam.
Under construction for three years, the Hindu Mandir formally opens Friday with three days of prayers to “breathe life” into giant marble and granite statues of the Gods Ganesh, Vishnu and others that line the walls of the large prayer room. The ornate temple is the culmination of roughly three decades of effort by members of the Indian Cultural Association, which represents about 3,500 families in Lake and McHenry Counties. After years of fits and starts, the community decided to build in Grayslake, where a devotee had donated land, said Anil Aggarwal, a devotee from Wadsworth. In all, the temple cost roughly US$4 million, with more than half coming from bank loans, he said.
Aggarwal tapped Manchanda, a communications expert from Vernon HIlls, to install nine cameras in the sanctuary and a state-of-the-art sound system that can pump prayers or chants into any part of the two-story temple, including an outdoor play area for children. Eight of the cameras are trained on specific Deities inside the prayer room; a ninth slowly pans the holy place. Whatever is going on in the sanctuary can be viewed downstairs on several huge flat-screen televisions. There is also a computer room next to the prayer room with Internet access. Manchanda and others said part of the goal is to entice younger Hindus to temple. “Even if they get only one percent [of the religious teachings], they’ll get something,” said Vijay Tanjore, a member from Libertyville who helped Manchanda set up the computer and sound systems. Making prayers and special events available via the Internet also would benefit older devotees who might want to stay home, he said.