prasad1
Active member
Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed, India is ending its love affair with the small. Anything we do must be big now. Two months ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the world’s tallest statue, the 182-metre Statue of Unity, in a tribute to the “Iron Man of India”. Costing nearly ₹3,000 crore, it drew its usual bunch of naysayers. Could the money not have been put to better use? India doesn’t care. The early reports are that the statue is drawing huge crowds of up to 30,000 a day, and that brings its own positive economic activity. It does not matter what you build, for building anything brings jobs and livelihoods, whether it is a statue, a highway or a temple.
A nation that once idealised the small, the kirana shop, the roadside temple, is now thinking Walmart. Ideas of what to build may be coming from political motivations or religious ones, from the humble need to give back to society or personal hubris, but there is no doubting the emerging Indian hunger for scale and size. Forget the Sardar statue for a moment. Consider just a few recent projects in the realm of the religious and the spiritual.
In Coimbatore, the Isha Foundation of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev built a 34.3m-high statue of the Adiyogi, or Lord Shiva.
In Hyderabad, the world’s second largest sitting statue is being built as the Statue of Equality, to commemorate the 1,000th birth anniversary of the Vaishnavite saint, Sri Ramanuja. The statue, which will be 65.8m in height, will use 120kg of gold. It will be two-thirds taller than Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. When finished, it could cost upwards of ₹700 crore.
Clearly, the new state of Telangana is not unhappy that a spiritual destination to rival Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati is in the making. Whatever brings in the devotee brings business and revenue.
Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, wants to build the world’s tallest temple soaring up to 213m near Mathura. It could cost upwards of ₹300 crore. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister has promised an even taller 221m-statue of Sri Ram on the banks of the Sarayu in Ayodhya. So, Ram Mandir or no Ram Mandir, the physical presence of Sri Ram will tower over the horizon, assuming soil conditions permit.
What is happening?
https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/ruEuZKvVlg4r0aPkHDO91J/The-Walmartisation-of-the-Indian-mind-bigger-is-better.html
A nation that once idealised the small, the kirana shop, the roadside temple, is now thinking Walmart. Ideas of what to build may be coming from political motivations or religious ones, from the humble need to give back to society or personal hubris, but there is no doubting the emerging Indian hunger for scale and size. Forget the Sardar statue for a moment. Consider just a few recent projects in the realm of the religious and the spiritual.
In Coimbatore, the Isha Foundation of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev built a 34.3m-high statue of the Adiyogi, or Lord Shiva.
In Hyderabad, the world’s second largest sitting statue is being built as the Statue of Equality, to commemorate the 1,000th birth anniversary of the Vaishnavite saint, Sri Ramanuja. The statue, which will be 65.8m in height, will use 120kg of gold. It will be two-thirds taller than Christ the Redeemer in Brazil. When finished, it could cost upwards of ₹700 crore.
Clearly, the new state of Telangana is not unhappy that a spiritual destination to rival Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati is in the making. Whatever brings in the devotee brings business and revenue.
Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, wants to build the world’s tallest temple soaring up to 213m near Mathura. It could cost upwards of ₹300 crore. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister has promised an even taller 221m-statue of Sri Ram on the banks of the Sarayu in Ayodhya. So, Ram Mandir or no Ram Mandir, the physical presence of Sri Ram will tower over the horizon, assuming soil conditions permit.
What is happening?
https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/ruEuZKvVlg4r0aPkHDO91J/The-Walmartisation-of-the-Indian-mind-bigger-is-better.html