When a Mandir Delivers Beyond the Call of its Religious Duties

Thakur Ranjit Singh

We have multitudes of religious societies and organisations in New Zealand. They are performing commendable duties of religious teachings, promoting their respective Gods, and in doing so, handsomely collecting funds for upkeep of their respective institution. Some have accumulated loads of money. Nothing wrong with that, in fact very admirable, if properly utilised.

Let the walk begin: Devotees and volunteers in front of Mandir before the walk.

However, one among very few, that stands out from the above categorising is SHRI RAM MANDIR at Brick Street, Henderson, Auckland, New Zealand.

Being a Hindu institution, it really stands out and appropriately follows the definition of Hinduism, which is more of a way of life than mere rituals. The spirituality is their priority, which means being good, compassionate, caring, respecting, community -conscious, God-loving and a good human being. And these teachings need to physically translate into practical deeds rather than being confined as theoretical discourse only.

The Managing Trustee of Shri Ram Mandir, Pravin Kumar (extreme right) announcing the fund collected, and Minister of Housing and Transport , Phil Twyford (centre) handing the cheque for $43, 442.60 to Rajesh Chaudhry, Chairperson of Friends of Fiji Health Foundation. Project Manager, Mahendra Sharma (in yellow safety vest), with other Trustees of both the organisations look on.  

And according to our scriptures, the best deed one can do is service to humanity, what we call parr hitt. This is also taught by other religions and well depicted in Abu Ben Adam poem by Leigh Hunt. The bottom line message here is that God loves and blesses those who love their fellow beings.

And that is exactly what Shri Ram Mandir does – it literally walks the talk in loving its fellow beings. And this is done through its walkathon which they call Ram-A-Thon, named after Lord Ram, who walked across India during his exile. Here, the devotees walk and raise funds for worthy causes.

The dedicated and passionate team of walkers take a break for photo in the picaresque Oratia walk in Henderson: From left, Pushpa Adhar, Sunita Singh, Master Shiu Charan, yours truly, Thakur Ranjit Singh, his wife, Shashi Kala Singh and Satish Chand.

The colourful Rewa team of walkers, led by Viren Lal (extreme left), with two Tavua (yellow) walkers as well.

Six years ago, this started as a full day 35 km of marathon walk from Papatoetoe to Henderson. It was later reduced to 20 km walk from Auckland Domain (Museum) to Mandir at Henderson. Since then they have held two other walkathon to help out Starship Children’s Hospital (over $10,000) and Saint John Ambulance (over $16,000)

This year, it was decided to reduce the walk to 10km, but utilise the day to assemble people together in a huge community networking and people wellbeing quest, developing it into a family carnival.

Sport Waitakere conductors were on hand to keep the participants busy. Here a lady coordinator is conducting exercise for Senior Ladies. It was indeed a day of fun and laughter, and all had loads of fun.

As we have said before, since the inception of Ram Mandir in Henderson, it has developed more than a religious institution into a Community hub. There was Ghazal and Bollywood nights, hosted Senior Citizens group, has become a venue for wedding and birthdays and promotes music, arts, culture and history.

The family carnival that was held after the walk at Henderson Park was fun-filled Mini Fiji carnival where we had friendly sporting rivalry between the districts in Fiji like Suva, Lautoka, Rewa, Ba, Tavua, Rakiraki, Labasa and Nadroga.
And we had a bucketful of family and sporting events such as Men’s soccer, Tug of war, seniors lawn balls, seniors ball and bucket, Ladies penalty kicks and Ladies Volleyball.

The friendly district loyalties and rivalries prompted greater efforts to make your team win. The highest funds were collected by Tavua, over $16,000, followed by neighbor Ba, with a distant $6000 and Rewa with just over $5,000 being third.

  The family fun: Tug –of –War, with father and son in Ba team. Pravaal Tahal,  (extreme right) giving all he can in pulling the rope while his father, Manoj Tahal (third from right) is putting in all efforts to pull for the Ba team in one of the many fun sports event at Henderson Park.

Some individuals were recognized for their efforts. Master Shiu Charan was the best overall fundraiser, who put great efforts in penetrating to the community and donors to raise funds. Bhavishna Dutt from Tavua was the highest fundraiser with $5070 raised. And of course, the Tavua team was also judged the best with overall high points.

The Project Manager of the event, Mahendra Sharma was elated with the overall results and thanked all for their overall efforts. Another reason for his joy was that he had his brother Pundit Dhirendra Sharma and his wife from Surrey, Canada, who participated in the event. While Dhirendra raised over $500 in just a few days and walked the distance, his wife, Punditaain helped in preparing food for the participants.

When two brotherly Pundits meet: Dhirendra Sharma (left) and Project Manager Mahendra Sharma at Henderson Park, Auckland during family carnival. Dhirendra is a practising Pundit in Surrey (Vancouver) Canada and was visiting his brother and decided to help. Within 3 days he was able to raise over $500, and beat two of the district teams in this short time, while walking the full length.

The success of the fundraising and a joyful family day goes to the very kind-hearted sponsors and partners. These, among others were, Sport Waitakere, Cooperative Bank, Northern Football Federation, Oratia Football, Auckland Co-op Taxis, Subway Central (Daven and Babita Maharaj), Roshan Nauhria, Sam Achari, Lotus Foreign Exchange, The Indian News, Apna TV and Apna 990 Radio.

We were blessed with generosity of our sponsors and wellwishers. Here we have owner of Subway,  Deven Maharaj, serving a child, providing free vegetarian subway. His company has been sponsoring food to Ram-A-Thon since its inception.

While having fun, the friendly rivalry between the districts accelerated the fundraising efforts, as amount collected far exceeded what they did previously. This year funds collected went to Friends of Fiji Health (FOFH). Statement by them is self-explanatory:

$43,442.60 was donated by Shri Ram Mandir Trust to FOFH. This was the highest amount by a single donor. Our most sincere appreciation to Pravin Kumar, Mahen Sharma and a large number of their executive members, volunteers, soccer team members, youth groups and community and social workers. A big thanks to FOFH Medical team who provided free basic medical check-up to the general public who attended the fundraiser and family festival. The cheque was presented by Hon. Phil Twyford, Minister of Transport and Housing.

The dedicated doctors and support medical personnel of Friends of Fiji Health (FOFH) Foundation, who dedicatedly spend their time and money to help the needy people in Fiji. There is NO administration cost, and each dollar contributed adds over $18 of value-added service provided in Fiji.

The managing Trustee of Shri Ram Mandir observed that while Ram-A- Thon has been intended to raise funds for worthy charities that is not necessarily their prime objective.

We wish to engage with the wider community, including children, youths, elders, women and people from all walks to life, while enhancing diversity, teamwork, networking and multiculturalism. It has been an effort to create awareness of well-being, healthy living, walking, exercising and keeping fit, while raising funds for worthy causes. In doing so we worked collaboratively with other like-minded charitable, community and religious organisations and obtained corporate and commercial businesses on board as sponsors. 

The unsung heroes of family day: food servers, Rakesh Singh, and chutney expert, Robert Goundar, (in cap, back to the camera) serving continuously for some three hours, from 12 noon to 3pm, feeding all those in the carnival. Very tasty plau and chutney cooked at Shri Ram Mandir, and lovingly served by the smiling duo. Rakesh served plau while  tasty (and Khatta) tomato chutney served by Robert. They made our day.

Indeed, it was a fruitful day, and the general verdict from community elders is that other like-minded religious institutions need to broaden their base and lower their radar to capture many in the community who are normally by-passed by Mandirs focussing on religion only.

As the message from Abu Ben Adam speaks, God loves and blesses those who love their fellow beings. 

And Shri Ram Mandir receives such blessings in abundance for its trendsetting humanitarian and philanthropic deeds.

[Thakur Ranjit Singh runs his blog, FIJI PUNDIT and has been part of Ram-A-Thon since its inception in 2014]