Desis love their temples and build them wherever they go. Temples come in several sizes and shapes in several countries outside India.
Goddess Lakshmi can be seen showering not just rupees but currencies from around the world in their respective local temples. Almost all of the United States have at least one hindu temple, with big/dense states having tens of them.
Temples are the places of gathering for Desis, movie theaters and grocery stores being a close-second. Temple notice boards can have a dazzling variety of flyers ranging from ‘Camry for sale’ to furniture to music classes to India tickets to SP Balasubramanyam’s benefit show to a local desi DJ party. An occasional resume looking for a job should not come as a terrible surprise.
Temples, by rule, are part of visiting parents’ itinerary. This sometimes includes driving hundreds of miles to visit a major temple like the Pittsburgh Venkateswara temple which is often given the same iconic status as Tirupathi or Srirangam.
Hindu Temple Parking Space
Originally uploaded by kaysov
Visiting folks and FOBs are shown and asked to wonder at air-conditioning system, fire sprinklers and other building code compliances inside the temples. Temples in the United States come with additional desi compliances like parking spaces for Car Pooja.
An occasional white in a Hindu temple gets good stares. White in Indian clothes? Extra stares.
It’s typical for a poojari to ask your name, star, caste, sub-caste, root etc, before starting the prayer, to tailor it for you. When you take your car for pooja he’ll ask you the make, model, year, price etc. just so he can run comparison notes with everyone he knew who has bought a car. Observe his reaction after this, if he seem happy, your deal is worse than any desi in that neighbourhood, which means you’ve paid close to what an american would pay for that car. If he didn’t comment, your deal isn’t all that bad after all, but if he appear irritated, you’ve made the best possible deal and you can pat yourself in the back.
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