India Day 4 to 5 - Lotus Temple, Gandhi Multimedia Museum and Banquet

View the first post in this series here.
View the previous post in this series here.

20 Mar 08 (continued)

After a half an hour journey on the auto rickshaw from Qutb Complex, I finally arrived at the Bahá'í House of Worship in India -- the Lotus Temple, famous for its architecture. The Bahá'í faith is one of the younger religions of the world and seem to have a diversified following. The followers built houses of worship in almost every continent. Those interested may refer to this Wikipedia entry.

The locations (black dots) where major Bahá'í Houses of worship are. (Map from Wikimedia)


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The satellite view of the Lotus Temple. The lotus structure is surrounded by 9 pools of water. Green line -- path of entry. Yellow -- place to deposit shoes, Blue -- exhibition of the Bahá'í faith


First look at the Lotus Temple from afar. Large gardens adorn the surrounding areas.


Close up of the Lotus Temple. The whole structure is shaped like a white lotus with petals. Unfortunately the air was hazy as always.


People queueing to enter the Lotus Temple. No shoes are allowed. Although I don't see the point since the floor is as dusty as anywhere else in New Delhi.

The entire Lotus Temple compound is manned by what seem to be volunteers from different parts of the world introducing their faith. All faiths may come to this temple to meditate. No shoes are allowed inside and you may carry your shoes or deposit them at the counter. I carried mine of course! The inside is large, silent and mostly empty except for benches. No photography is allowed inside as with most religious buildings in Delhi with the Mosques (and probably churches) being a notable exception. By entering a temple, a volunteer will issue you a ticket for the exhibition in the building opposite the temple. There the beginnings of the Bahá'í faith and current status are exhibited. Having spent a few quiet moments in the temple and visiting the exhibition, I decided to head back quickly to the India International Centre (conference venue) to catch the bus to a special exhibition and the conference banquet.

After some haggling, the driver agreed to take me for 60 Rs (USD 1.50). I arrived just in time as the bus was departing. We were brought to the Gandhi Multimedia Museum. Exhibitions here were from the research work of the Sacred World Research Laboratory. Essentially their work focused on human computer interaction -- how to let children learn about Gandi's values through interesting ways of interacting with multimedia. Most of the exhibits may look like artistic figures, however many have touch sensors and allow the user to interact with them to display different videos.

Hmmm...


The famous, see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.


Light on water and mist. Disrupting the mist will trigger new words to form.


This exhibit is an entirely decorated wall


Palms. Those metal looking things are sensors which one can touch.


A train engine


Interesting spinning wheels. If one spins, all will start spinning. If one stops, eventually all will stop


This pattern is the Ashoka Chakra and is found on the national flag of India.


A statue of Gandhi outside. Next, busses brought us to the banquet.


Somehow the pharmacist in India is the chemist


The banquet was held at the India Handicraft Emporium


Chicken and fish tikka, Curds. Yum Yum


Chefs preparing the starters


Food was excellent



The waiters were very enthusiastic about posing for photos


The performers


Indian Dance


Puppet show


Balancing fire pots


Fire breathing



Indian dancer balancing many pots on her head


The main course started. I was already quite full from the excellent starters.


Dessert, the brownish thing is deep fried and tastes very sweet. Served with vanilla ice-cream.

21 Mar 08

The last day of the conference. Pretty much uneventful. I stayed on to present my paper and left with my friends for dinner at their hotel, Hotel Ajanta. Interestingly the I managed to haggle for a price of 60 Rs (USD 1.50) for 3 persons for trip from the India International Centre to the Hotel. So much for paying 80 Rs for two in the opposite direction in the morning. Braving the air pollution, we decided to have dinner on the roof.

Conference on the last day


From the roof I noticed a church next to Hotel Ajanta


The roof, shabby but reasonable


Jama Masjid in the distance



A great dinner. It costs us 1000 Rs (USD 25) for 5 people and we were really full after that.


A tankard of Kingfisher beer. Unfortunately there was too much foam

After dinner I walked back cautiously to Hotel Geeson that was behind Hotel Ajanta. Tomorrow will be the Hindu Festival of colours, Holi. During this festival, the Indians will be painting themselves a myriad of colours. Already some have started and tourists were arriving at the hotels with pink beards. Seems like the backalley I was going to use was blocked by some festival related preparations. So I had to make a longer round-a-bout. Finally back at my hotel, I began to plot how should I get back to Hotel Ajanta to meet my friends for a city tour tomorrow without getting painted purple.

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