Residents of buildings lining the street leading to the famous temple in Mahalaxmi up in arms over devotees' footwear piling up in front of their doorsteps
Mounds of footwear are dumped outside homes. Pic/Bipin Kokate
It is one shoe too many for residents of buildings in the Mahalaxmi temple compound, just next to Mahalaxmi Mandir. Residents of Tulsi Bhavan, Bhagwan Bhavan, Darshan, Ashiana and Maha Ashish buildings say they are put to tremendous inconvenience by mounds of footwear lying at their building entrances.
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Belonging to the devotees thronging the temple, a large number of shoes and slippers line the narrow path leading to the historic 250-year-old temple.
There is no place for devotees to remove their footwear inside the temple premises. "Why can’t the temple authorities make space for a footwear stand inside?"ask the angry residents, who have letters going right back to 2014 to different authorities, namely the BMC, police and even the fire brigade, complaining about the obstacles posed by footwear in the middle of the path and just outside their buildings. "Every temple in Mumbai,"says Tulsi Bhuvan resident Rajesh Jansali, "has provided space for footwear of devotees; so why not this one?"S Nemani says shoes left outside her building means it is a struggle for senior citizens like her and her husband to even access the building. "Sometimes, we are weighed down with bags and have to tread precariously over shoes. There is a very real danger of tripping and falling,"she adds.
Residents of buildings inside the Mahalaxmi temple compound are fed up with the huge pile of footwear littering their building entrances. Pic/Bipin Kokate
Is it okay if we die?
Jansali’s views are echoes by other residents, who say, "Temple authorities are citing security reasons; they say there may be an explosive in the shoes left on a rack inside the temple premises. If shoes are a security risk, is it okay if residents die when a bomb explodes at the gate of the buildings? Is that acceptable to them?"he fumes.
Residents add that problems will double "once it starts raining in earnest". "Devotees will huddle at the building entrances to shield themselves from the rain… and there will be impossible overcrowding, come the festive season,"says one.
Here is where we live
Trupti and Pooja Shukla from Tulsi Bhuvan, say that inaccessibility is leading to pushing and shoving. "At times, visitors act as if they are doing us a favour by allowing us access to the buildings."
Premji Padaya adds, "There are so many footwear thefts over here. We have seen frenzied hunts for footwear as chappals are regularly ‘stolen’. I will go so far as to say there is a racket on here, footwear is stolen and sold online. I have seen married couples visiting the temple to seek blessings in all their wedding finery. They emerge only to see their expensive footwear gone."
"With footwear on the roads, who will a devotee complain to in case his shoes are filched?"asks Jansali. Another resident, Sunil Karia, says, "At times, bags are also left behind with the footwear; if there’s so much concern for security, why are bags being allowed to be left behind?"Mahalaxmi families say they are gearing up for a protest if footwear removal and storage is not streamlined by the temple.
Terror target?
The temple authorities hit back saying, "This mandir is the target of terrorists." Mahalaxmi Mandir general manager Sharad Chandra Vinayak Padhye and assistant manager B Walavalkar elaborate, "We cannot keep a shoe stand on our premises. We do not have the space for it."
The premises, however, is spacious enough to allow for benches for devotees to sit, certainly bigger than many SoBo temples. Both Padhye and Walavalkar say, "We have been told not to have a shoe stand because of the security threat. People will congregate at the stand to wear shoes. If any untoward incident occurs, how will we evacuate them fast enough?"
Residents shoot back with, "The chappals lying all around may pose a threat to us too, if an incident occurs here at the foot of the temple, how are devotees and residents supposed to escape? Are our lives cheaper than those of the temple authorities?"
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