For all the drama of getting started, the actual trip was mostly an uneventful crawl through serpentine sub-lanes of traffic. We wedge our way through scooters, busses, trucks, and pedestrians separated by a buffer zone the width of a human soul. A glorious emergent choreography allows us to be packed so tightly that sardines feel blessed by their own luxurious arrangement and yet the collective is able to progress without perpetual murder. It's truly miraculous. I will never, ever drive here.
An erratic amble through slum and stately park lands us near our target and after a brief slalom around a series of stout barricades and armed guards we arrive at a dusty parking lot. I tell the driver for the seventh time that we really and for truly will find our way back to the hotel just fine, pay the fare, and exit the cab.
Here I'm fully expecting a raging sea of humanity and my foresight proves mostly accurate. Admission is free - as is the 'coat check' where visitors stow their bags, cameras, phones, and anything from a rather long list of forbidden articles. But these lines are no worse than a wait for Splash Mountain. You even get occasionally misted by scented water in the third and final segment of the waiting game. Once you exchange your secular relics for a shiny oval token they separate the males and females for segregated pat downs. I'm not looking forward to being fondled but these gender specific security measures are less invasive than the queuing habits of those behind me. I have a new appreciation for what too close for comfort can mean.
Anna waits patiently as there are easily 10 times as many men going through security. What's striking to me is how the moment the line split, the gents started acting like boy dogs. Laughing, pointing, something adjacent to but not exactly like cat calls. It made me sad. Without the stabilizing force of women the world would be doomed.
Inside the grounds are clean, strikingly clean given how dirty everything else is in Delhi. Akshardham is very new, after all, so maybe this will change in time. Well, of course it will ... I just wanted to see this place to set a baseline of what ancient architecture might have looked like when new. The artisans used no metal tools or supports - they are forbidden - and only traditional techniques outlined in their holy texts (Shilpa and Vastru Shastras).
The temple is enveloped in more than 140 sculpted elephants and they all look majestic. My favorite frieze features an elephant with seven trunks named Airavat. I don't know much about this heroic beast, but if I needed to go into battle, I'd want a battalion of those guys on my side.
http://akshardham.com/explore/mandir/gajendra-peeth/
Consistent technique is hard to manage across a handful of talented 3D artists. Remarkably, the plinth appears to be crafted by a single pair of hands even though it surely took hundreds. Make that 7000! Wow!
But the crown jewel of Akshardham (at least the free part) is up a steep flight of scorching steps - you must remove your shoes to enter the Mandir. As the faithful kiss there fingertips and touch the stones before climbing, I dance my way up playing a grownups version of the hot lava game.
Inside it is much cooler, the shaded stone floor acting as heat sink rather than pizza oven. The centermost chamber is roped off so the throngs of devotees can pay their respect, but no touchie. It feels alot like the mobs around the Mona Lisa so I scoot stage left and walk around the hall's gilded main attraction.
The mandir's nine intricately carved domes, called mandapams, are delicately layered lattices and as you enter each chamber you simply must look up and fall into the infinity of space and time. I do this over and over again. The faithful must think I'm a moron because there are statues depicting important people receiving wisdom or enlightenment or mangoes. But I'm drawn to this intensely spiritual sensation. Hindus get the bigness of space and time and lean into it. I want to lean into it too.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Akshardham_Dome.jpg
Flanking the center chamber are statues of Brama, Vishnu, and Shiva but my favorite has to be Ganesha. Maybe it's my daughters' childhood love of elephants, but Lord Ganesha speaks to me. He is smart and seeks to create order. I dig him.
Having completed 300 degrees of the full loop I decide to head back toward the center chamber. A third viewpoint is accessible and far less crowded than the others, so I peer in. Again the significant narrative details are beyond me, but what's impossible to miss is the jewel encrusted walls and pedestal on which a 15' gilded statue poses. I have to assume the gems are just dazzling swarovski crystals, but maybe not. 14 year old me imagines rolling an 18 to hide in shadows so my bard can use his thief-like abilities to prise a couple stones free. Oh D&D, how you shaped me.
Now ... how do we get outta this place!?
