Hindu Temple of New Hampshire

Nashua temple fills northern N.E. void

By MARK CONNORS
The Hindu Temple of New Hampshire occupies just 600 square feet in a small industrial condominium adjacent to the Funworld Arcade Center and the La Hacienda del Rio Mexican restaurant on a busy commercial stretch of highway in Nashua. It’s doesn’t look like much, but for a few area Hindu families the newly opened temple represents a big step toward fulfilling even larger dreams.

“It was so important for us to have something local in this area where we could continue to practice our religion in this country,” said Karthi Chandra, a Merrimack, N.H., resident who helped found the temple. “And this is just the beginning.”

Chandra and four other Nashua-area Hindus had long talked about the need for a Hindu temple in the Greater Nashua area. The effort intensified in January when about two dozen area families committed to donating $100 a week to help fund a new temple and the organization officially filed as a nonprofit group with New Hampshire’s secretary of state.

“Even though it’s in a very basic form, it’s still a place where people from the area can go to worship,” Chandra said. “And it’s actually a very quiet and restful space. It fits our needs, there’s ample parking, it’s within our budget and it’s a nice, very quiet space. The ambiance is lovely.”

When the Saraswati Mandiram Hindu temple in Epping, N.H., then the only Hindu temple in all of Northern New England, shut down early this year after being evicted from its facilities, it provided an even greater incentive to bring a temple to Nashua, Chandra said. “Even though it was about an hour away, well, it was one less place for us to go, so that did play a part in it,” she said. “But we thought it was important for us to have a temple here [in Nashua] where the Indian population is based.”

Nashua boasts the largest Indian population in New Hampshire and is part of a large geographical area stretching from Concord, N.H., to Lowell, Mass., that, while home to a large Indian population, lacks a major Hindu temple. Previously, many New Hampshire-based Hindus traveled over an hour by car to Ashland, Mass., just to visit a temple.

The temple has hired a priest, Lakshmana Shastry, and is open every day of the week. The organization’s ultimate goal is to buy property and build a “proper temple” in the region, hopefully within the next year, Chandra said.

And while the current temple is modest and opened only about two months ago, Chandra said the facility already has attracted a loyal following, despite virtually no advertising efforts.

“People are talking about it at the Indian grocery stores,” said Chandra. “Right now it’s pretty much all word of mouth.

“But I’m so impressed by how many people come [to the temple],” she added. “The response from the community has been wonderful.”

The temple is strategically located near Exit 1 off the Everett Turnpike, close to both Massachusetts border communities and cities to the north in New Hampshire, Chandra said. The facility can accommodate between 25 to 30 people at one time. Unlike Christians, Hindus do not celebrate Mass or attend services at a specific time. Instead Hindus visit the temple to pray at a time of their own convenience.

And while opening the temple involved some risk, Chandra said she had little doubt the facility would be successful. “I was very confident that once we started it would take off and people would come,” she said. “Spirituality is such a core of our inner beings that I was confident things would fall into place.”

Although the facility can handle only small groups at a time, so far that hasn’t been a major problem, Chandra said.

“Fortunately, people don’t stay too long, and we pray for revolving traffic,” she said.

The Hindu Temple of New Hampshire is located at 7J Taggart Drive directly off the Daniel Webster Highway in Nashua, N.H. The temple is open Monday through Friday, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. For more information., visit www.hindutemplenh.org or contact Karthi Chandra at karthi@comcast.net.

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