The Temple By The Sea.

 Bucket filled with livers of goat, small balls of dough placed on plastic plates to be sold, teenagers selling offal  for kite feeding, kids holding the ends of their mother’s duppata, afraid of not falling down, you can see all these thing at a side of the famous netty jetty bridge , but there is altogether a different world down the bridge where Hindu believers sittings at a set of long stairs leading them to temple and to the sea ,women  getting their feet damp by entering the water, men trying to give their kids a small dive in the sacred water, this is what happens at the temple situated under the bridge.

When you enter the premises of the Shree Laxmi Narayan Mandir, at first you get hit with the thought of whether I’ll be allowed to go inside the temple or not? But as soon as you see people they smile at you without bothering about you religion, you pass the main gate you descry the blackened sea, devoted people sitting over the stairs are indulged in the rituals. This for some reason leaves you shell shocked to explore the other side of the sea with a total different religious perspective. “This is home away from home as in this our”ganga mayya or choti gangotri” most of the Hindus living in Karachi visit this sea and temple to perform all the religious duties. Our parents and grand parents who were born in Karachi have been paying their visit to the holy sea”, explained Mr. Rama Shankar who had come to visit the Shree Laxmi Narayan Mandir. He further told that every ritual from our ganesh visarjan to the kriyakaram, mundan to navratri is celebrated here with full zeal and zest.

Babli Sanjay was holding a steel platter a.k.a. thaali, creatively decorated with confectionaries known as Prasad, ignited incensed sticks, a half cut colored lemon to ward off the evil eye,  she swirls the thaali before the sacred sea bow her head before the sea, and leaves the thaali to float away, she was performing the  Govardhan Puja for the safety and prosperity of her family, when quizzed about that does not the blackened water disturbs her or the smell erupting, she very calmly and without creating any fuss over religious issues replied that, this water is holy for her, it is the module of purity, “we drink this water and splash it all over around our houses, we drop the remaining ashes of our deceased relatives in the sacred river, this water never gets impure as it is constantly flowing. This water also makes us plain and simple; we believe that by having a swig of this water and by laving in it, this river takes away all our sins from us.”

This temple is 150 years old, it was built during the British raj, informed Arjun Maharaj who has been the head of all ritual activities of this temple for 23 years, he also gravely stated that the numbers of devotees has seen a major set back, “it has decreased by all leaps and bounds”, he blames the new road system that has been sketched out, as the reason why there are less numbers of visitors. He also added that the recent inflation rise has made it impossible for the devotees to visit the temple by the sea, because as the temple is situated at an end of the city, people who live far away have to travel a tremendously long way to reach down here and more over the fares of busses, petrol, rickshaws and taxis also make the visit impossible.

He also proposed the fact that this temple is in dire need of an overhaul, “ some parts of this temple are certainly in shambles, we get no help from officials, we are fed up of writing letters and application to the officialdoms, but no avail at all they turn deaf ear towards our pleas” further he added that almost every channel has come to this temple and made reports on it but it dint serve its turn, people from different walk of life and religions do make donations which is equal to salt in the grains but still they do care about the well being of this ancient temple . Arjun Mahraj believes that it is only the power of God that’s keeping the temple stand still.

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah during addressing the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, in Karachi
on August 11, 1947 said:

“If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor... you are free- you are free to go to your temples mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state... in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to Muslims- not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state” The father of the nation believed in equality and he also said so in the above lines, but are our recent lot of leaders and politician giving a thought to save the sacred place of the minorities who according to the founder of the country have the equal right as Muslims.

They are as much as human as us, they are a part of our country as we are, they are the part of the economy they are working for the country, than why not we should listen what they have to say. Our leaders should better watch out because if they don’t bother to care for their needs in the future, they won’t be filling their vote banks.