If you are a Hindu residing in the United States, you might visit the Akshardham Temple (Robinsville, New Jersey). You are normally recommended to. Never mind if you do not know who presides over it and never mind also that when you go there you will not recognise any feature of a temple: you will break no coconut, you will hear no music, you will not circumambulate the outer walls of the temple. Well, you are not going there to practice your religion; you are going there to flag to yourself, to your neighbours here in the US, and your family back home that worries may be warded off. Indeed, you are still a Hindu, one to whom practice is of little meaning or effect, but identity is all. Here at Akshardham, New Jersey, religion for the modern world resoundingly announces: Identity alone is what remains of faith. Even if experience is of little consequence, make sure that you do not make an equivocal statement. Make sure not to cross lines in the world. Be Hindu [fill with any religion] and nothing else.

Once there, make sure to embrace your culture. Take pictures to share with your ‘Parivar’ and assure them that you have not forgotten Indian clothing. Even if you eat pizza at the cafeteria, make sure it has paneer, the quintessential Indian food. Why? Back home, you have Prasad (free as it often may be and served by volunteer devotees). And here this range of cuisines for the gourmet (never mind that a Prasad typically harnesses the spices of the landscape around and is tailored to the taste and lore of the god). And yes, when you click pictures, do not forget to pose with a folded Anjali. And you must look both savvy and “trad”. “T’rad” if you will. Also, you are in a safe space to take these photos. You are greeted by NRIs who will surely greet you with a ‘namaste’. Albeit with an accent.

After successfully ignoring the scores of images of Hindu gods and episodes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana carved on the pillars of the temple, it is time to think of the sculptors. Do not forget that the temple was built entirely in India, and then assembled here. Like cotton garments in 19th century Britain. Like shoes made in Cambodia and Bangladesh. Globalisation apparently is an institution by which profit margins are enhanced and the production process made efficient, by management from a headquarter, while raw materials and labour are sourced from various parts of the world depending on where these are cheapest and where exploitation of these gets away most scot-free. Marxians call this, fancily, neo-colonialism. We cannot but wonder: are we neo-colonising ourselves?

Sure, Akshardham temple of New Jersey is assembled in the most capitalist way possible but who cares about the workers? As Abraham Lincoln famously said on the battlefield of Gettysburg, what is for the NRI is also of and by the NRI. So instead of the workers in India who made this temple let us instead celebrate the “volunteer” sevaks from San Jose and Chicago who helped assemble this monument out of Bhakti for Swami Narayan by putting up posters of them across the campus.

Before we leave, just like in India we must carry a few Bhakti paraphernalia like Agarbattis, Stotra books, and images of gods to keep in our puja rooms. But oops! We have no time for any of that. How then do we still identify as Hindu? The gift shop has found us an ingenious way out. We can wear T-shirts now available with illustrations of the Swami Narayan saints, Ganesha, Rama and Krishna, and the Symbol OM. Of course religion is not an experience that lives through us but an object that can be worn and removed at will. And since we love the shirt so much let us also buy the T-shirt that says, “You are the stone, the sculpture, and the sculptor!”

Finally, we take a selfie wearing a hoodie made in some village in distant and unreachable India by weavers and artisans probably living in destitution that says, “A Landmark of Indian Architecture”. Makes complete sense!