'There must have been one lakh people inside Ram Mandir'

'It was Ramji's blessing that we got darshan.'
Text: Saisuresh Sivaswamy/Rediff.com
Photographs/video: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com

Among the hundreds who had a darshan of Lord Ram on Tuesday morning, the first day the temple was opened to the public, were Priyesh Mohan Anjikar, Lalit Shrikhande and Vishal Acharya from Nagpur.

"I have been to Pandarpur in Maharashtra and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, and the happiness I got today was the same as what I felt in Pandarpur," an ecstatic Anjikar tells Rediff.com on Tuesday on Rampath in Ayodhya.

"We went to Lucknow and drove down from there to reach Ayodhya on January 20. On the way we encountered some 8-9 checkposts, and in the last one they refused to let us go further, but we somehow managed to come," says Anjikar, an advocate in Nagpur.

The friends had darshan at the Ram mandir on Tuesday morning, "though we didn't expect it," he says.

That's because when they reached Ayodhya in the morning they were not allowed inside the city without a pass, "but we requested the police and were let inside," Anjikar adds.

"It was Ramji's blessing that we got darshan today, else we would have stayed back in Lucknow only."

"Seeing Ram Lalla's idol felt like seeing a younger version of Vitthala at Pandarpur and Tirupati Balaji," gushes Anjikar.

"We finished our darshan in two-and-a-half hours, there must have been at least one lakh people inside the temple," says his friend, Vishal Acharya.

"I couldn't see the idol to my heart's content. because there was so much pushing and shoving, people were taking out their mobile phones etc," says Anjikar.

"I missed the decorum of temples in Maharashtra, but since this is a new temple it will take some time for them to become that way. I request the temple administration to pay heed to this aspect," he adds.

"We Indians don't have patience, that's why we behave in this manner in temples. We've waited for 500 years for this temple, can't we wait for a few hours for darshan?" asks Acharya.

Despite everything, "it was our ancestors' punya that we got our darshan today. Overall it was a beautiful experience, incredible experience," says Anjikar.

"All the things people are saying, that the temple is incomplete etc, is utter nonsense," says Acharya.

"The temple is perfect, there is nothing left there that is incomplete."

• The Ram Temple