Restoration of Krishna Balaram Mandir

[Guest guest]

For the last two months it was hot season in Vrindavan with temperatures at

110+. The pilgrims visiting the temple are much less than usual. So taking

advantage of this slow season, there has been a flurry of activity in

Krishna Balaram Mandir. The temple is being restored back to its original

state when Srila Prabhupada innaugurated the temple on Rama Navami 1975.

 

Around Kartik last year, there was some discussion about repainting the

temple. Daivishakti Mataji, who was here from the beginning of the temple,

told us that Surabhi had the temple finished in marble dust that was meant

to be maintenance free and never painted. Underneath all those layers of

paint is a beautiful colored marble dust finish that one can see in the old

pictures of the temple.

 

One of the persons who had worked on the construction of the temple was a

person named Ramjilal, who has since gone on to become a sthapati, building

and designing only temples. In fact, he was the one who gave the original

design for the beautiful Vrinda Devi Temple at Vrinda Kunda, Nandagrama that

was opened in mid-February this year. So I called him and he showed me how

they had done the entire temple with colored marble dust from the floor to

the kalash on top of the dome. He scraped off some the paint in various

places and showed us the original finish underneath.

 

Somewhere way back when after Surabhi left, it was decided to paint over

this lovely work and thus every couple of years, lacs of Rupees are wasted

in trying to maintain the temple. In fact, due to the highly polished

surface, the paint never really sticks and in many places, especially along

the molding at the floor level and the moulding around the bases of the

columns it always flakes off giving a very unkempt appearance to the temple.

 

When I was president several years ago, the Hindujas visited the temple. Sri

Chand, pointing to the flaky paint on the mouldings around the temple, told

me that whenever they do marble work, they always save the dust and mix that

dust with white cement and do the mouldings around the floor with it so it

never looks like this. And underneath all that paint is actually marble

dust!

 

Immediately inspired, one devotee named Srestha Das, a disciple of HH Gopal

Krishna Maharaja from Washington, DC promised to bear the expense of the

work. He is busy building his own house in Vrindavan, but at the same time,

he wants to take care of Krishna Balaram's house.

 

We spent several months investigating how to actually do the work and were

thinking that it would be really expensive and take a couple of years to do.

Then one day, I had called one gentleman Shri Shailender Singh from Truworth

House <http://www.truworth.com> in Jaipur, who is the representative of

several companies from America who sell sealents for stone and wood. I

wanted to seal the carved stone work at Vrinda Kunda from water damage.

 

I just happened to ask him that if besides preservative work, if he had any

products for removing paint and doing restoration. I showed him what we

wanted to do to the temple and he was so inspired, he promised to do the

whole restoration of the temple at his cost price and finish within one

month. He would remove the paint and polish everything with his special

diamond-dust polishers.

 

Our president Devakinandan consulted many companies in Bombay and no one

could even come close to his price, so he obviously wasn't bluffing. So then

when the summer came, his crew began work. Every day as more and more of the

original temple becomes uncovered, the devotees who've stayed here for the

summer are awestruck. Just the other day, they uncovered this heavenly blue

color that was inside the archways of the temple. All the devotees were

amazed.

 

Of course now that he's started the work and seen just how many layers of

paint there is to remove, he's revised his estimate to two months. That's

still a lot better than two years. And its much more economical. He told me

that he's the only representative for the whole of India, so he is very busy

and never gets time to associate with devotees. He was overjoyed when I

walked into his office and gave him the opportunity to do some service for

us and occasionally visit Vrindavan and get a spiritual break.

 

So as the heat comes down and we move into the Janmastami season, the

devotees and pilgrims who will soon start visiting Krishna Balaram Mandir

will be pleasantly surprised to see the Krishna Balaram Mandir restored back

to its glorious days when Srila Prabhupada was present.

 

In Service of Sri Sri Krishna Balaram,

Deena Bandhu dasa