The Gazette (Montreal)
TORONTO, CANADA, August 21, 2005: Hundreds of devotees of the Hindu deity Lord Murugan gathered at a temple site in Dollard des Ormeaux yesterday to fulfill vows they had made for good things to happen in their lives. In what is considered the highlight of an annual, 12-day festival, a statue of Lord Murugan was taken from its sanctuary and paraded in procession around the temple. Despite yesterday’s rain, most of the devotees, who came from several Canadian and U.S. cities, were barefoot, and many of the men bare-chested. Some lay on the wet pavement, others carried a harness with peacock feathers, and hooks pierced the skin of their backs. Temple officials estimated there are 10,000 Tamils in the Montreal area, 75 per cent of whom came here to escape rioting and civil war in Sri Lanka beginning in 1983. Raveenthiramoorthy Sunthiramoorthy, a former Montrealer and one of the temple trustees, came in from Toronto, where he now lives, for the occasion. Kantasamy Yoganagham, a structural engineer and Brossard resident who is the temple’s president, said a five-metre, hand-carved mahogany door will be one of the temple’s features when it is completed. “This will be the first traditional temple in the South Indian style in Canada, with all the ornamentation,” he said. Special permits were issued by the Quebec government to allow Indian craftsmen to build the the concrete structure along traditional lines, he noted. It will replace a 2,300-square-metre cultural centre on the same site, which has functioned as a temple for the past 10 years. The elaborate building, featuring an ornate eight-metre-tall tower, is to be completed and opened officially in September. It is being delayed because granite statues of Hindu deities have yet to arrive from India.