The Rs 1,200-crore Ram temple, to be inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi, has been tested for resistance to flood and earthquakes of severe intensity that strike the Himalayan region, thus ensuring a life of up to 2,500 years, said Ahmedabad-based architects Chandrakant Sompura (81) and son Ashish (51), who designed the temple complex. Chandrakant told The Indian Express he would not go for the consecretation because of “health reasons” but wishes that the temple, when complete, “should open to people from all faiths”. The patriarch of the family, who has designed over 200 temples in the country and abroad, is happy that this project has the stamp of his son – the first temple architect in the family backed by a professional degree. The Sompuras told The Indian Express about the challenges in the project and how it has heralded the integration of technology in their family of traditionally trained architects. Ashish said “we feel we were the chosen ones” for this task after the Somnath temple in Prabhas Patan was built by Chandrakant’s grandfather Prabhashankar at the “exact same place where the earlier shivling was”. Ashish added this will be the “first temple in the world” to have undergone a 3D structural analysis before it was built, for calamity resistance, including earthquakes up to 8 on the Richter scale. The Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee conducted the structural analysis to ensure “whatever calamity strikes, nothing will happen to this temple”. “It is 20 ft higher than the highest flood level (recorded till now),” said Ashish. The other unique feature of the temple will be the ‘surya tilak’, where lenses will be provided on the roof (shikhar) to ensure the Sun rays fall on the “forehead of the idol on the day of Ram Navami”, said Ashish. On the Congress top brass declining the invitation to attend the ceremony, Chandrakant said, “They are seeing it as Modiji’s. (project) but a President did inaugurate the Somnath temple.” He was referring to late President Rajendra Prasad inaugurating the rebuilt Somnath temple in 1951. He added, “The temple should be open to people from all faiths. I can wear a cap, and if I know how to read the namaaz, go to a mosque. why should we stop anyone, this is my opinion.” Even before the Babri Masjid demolition, Chandrakant had made a model of the Ram temple on a request from late PM Narasimha Rao with three domes of the mosque intact and with the temple by its side, but the VHP did not approve it. The temple has been built in traditional technique of interlocking stones, said the Sompuras, explaining how Larsen & Toubro, which got the contract, had to be convinced about this technique.
