Revisiting Pilgrimage
Sai Temple is located in Shirdi, Maharashtra, and is one of the most regarded temples in India. Around Sixty Thousand devotees come to the temple daily. The people have to wait for more than an hour in long uneventful queues to just get a glimpse of the Samadhi and Sai Baba's idol. Apart from the main Samadhi Temple, the complex has other tourist attractions to visit like Museum constituting Baba's
belongings, the auspicious Dwarkamai celebrating the tree below which he used to rest, and an auditorium housing various acts based on Baba's life. However, the pilgrims are so tired already in the queue, that they rarely explore other places.
Another issue that I identified in the temple was that it was not universally accepted. The current queue complex was on several levels, with only the staircase being the mode of movement. Religious beliefs are similar for all, so it is vital that religious spaces are also designed to treat everyone the same. With my design proposal, I intend to firstly make the common path accessible to all and secondly make it less boring by equipping it with various activities on the way.
WHAT
Sai Baba Temple
WHERE
Shirdi
WHEN
March 2013
In the design proposed, different activities are incorporated into the path to making it interesting and comfortable while making it universally acceptable as well. Activities like audio visual room projecting stories from baba's life, museum displaying baba's belongings are included in the path leading to the temple. These elements are already present in the temple premises but long queues are so tiresome, pilgrims are in dearth of energy to visit them. By incorporating these into the path leading to temple, it not only makes the path less boring, but also creates more awareness among people for Sai Baba.
