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HINDU TEMPLE SOCIETY
of Lehigh Valley
4200 Airport Road, Allentown, PA 18109 Ph: (610) 264-2810
NEWSLETTER
JANUARY 2015

Volume 27 Issue 1
Om asato maa sadgamaya, tamaso maa jyotirgamaya, mrtyormaa amrtam gamaya.....Om Saantih,Saantih,Saantih*
TEMPLE PROGRAMS
ALMANAC (Panchang)
Every Tuesday
11:00 AM
Jain Samuhik Samayik
Every Tuesday
7:15 PM
Hanuman Chalisa &
Sri Ram Amritvani Recitation
Every Thursday
7:30 PM
Gita Study Group. See page 4 for
details.
Every Friday
7:00 PM
Vishnu Sahasranamam chanting
Every Saturday
9:30 AM
Gita Study Group. See page 4 for
details.
Every Sunday
8:45 AM-10:00 AM
Yoga Class
(See page 4 for details)
Jan 2, Friday
Jan 17, Saturday
Jan 31, Saturday
7:00 PM
Pradosha Puja
Jan 3, Saturday
11:00AM-1:00PM
Kirtan Langar
Jan 4, Sunday
6:30 PM
Pournima Satyanarayan Puja
Jan 10, Saturday
10:00AM-1:00PM
Thiruppavai recital
Jan 11, Sunday
Jan 25, Sunday
10:00 AM—1:00 PM
Bal Vihar
Jan 17, Saturday
6:30 PM—8:30 PM
Bingo Night with Dinner
Jan 18, Sunday
10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Jain Snatra Puja followed by lunch
Jan 25, Sunday
3:00 PM
Sunder Kanda Path recitation
Jan 31, Saturday
11:00AM
Saraswati Puja(see page 3 for details)
Jan 2: Pradosham
Jan 4: Pournima
Jan 8: Sankashta Chaturthi
Jan 15: Pongal
Jan 17: Pradosham
Jan 18: Adinath Moksha
Kalyank
Jan 20: Amavasya
Jan 31: Pradosham
FORTHCOMING PROGRAMS
Feb 7: Pongal/Sankranti Celebration (Snow date Feb 8th)
Feb 17: Mahashivratri Puja
May 2: Holi Spring Festival at
Saucon Valley High School.
Children who turn 6 in 2015 are eligible to participate. Contact the program director at
[email protected].
Participants in past Holi shows will
be contacted by their choreographers.
THANK YOU
The Executive Committee of the Hindu Temple appreciates community
participation in the Temple Anniversary Program and special thanks to
HYA children for conducting Temple Anniversary Program.
TEMPLE TIMINGS
Priests: Sri. Shyam Prasad Kannadaguli—Cell: (610) 709 7787 AND Dilip Bhatt
Monday - Friday :
10:00 AM - 12:05 PM
Saturday & Sunday: 10:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Daily Aarti Timings: 10.00 AM & 7:30 PM
6:00 PM
-
9:00 PM
Please contact the editor at 610. 868.3771 or send e-mail to [email protected] by the 10th of each month to publish in the following
newsletter. Any emails received after the 10h cannot be published in the following month For further details, please see next page.
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TEMPLE ADMINISTRATION
Executive Council
An Important Announcement
In order to reduce expenses, The Hindu Temple Society has decided
NOT to mail Annual Reports. If you are a paid member of HTS, and
would like to receive an electronic copy of the annual reports (2010
and 2011), please email Mr. Raman Malhotra at [email protected].
!!NO PARKING ON THE CURB!!
Note the yellow “no parking” lines next to the
curbside of the temple. Violations will be strictly
enforced by the local police.
**No Eating in the Temple Sanctorum**
Only small quantity of dry Prasad is allowed in the
temple sanctorum. No plates and cutlery
allowed. Please exit out of the temple sanctorum
into the main lobby area to eat more Prasad.
Please refrain from bringing unused items from
your home and leaving it at the temple in boxes
Advertisement in the News Letter
Full Page(7.5” x 10”) $ 150
Half Page (7.5” x 5”) $ 100
Quarter Page (3.5” x 5”) $ 50
Temple Tax ID
#23-2064729
Please e-mail your ad (in WORD / PUBLISHER ONLY) AS PER
THE ABOVE GUIDELINES to the editor [email protected],
and send the check payment (made out to Hindu Temple
Society) directly to the temple address. Please enter the
purpose of the check in the memo field.
RENTAL AND OTHER CHARGES FOR THE TEMPLE
(EFFECTIVE FROM AUGUST 2014)
MEMBERS
NON-MEMBERS
Main Level, Lower Level & Kitchen (6 hrs.):
$500
$600
Main Temple Hall (up to 4 hrs.)
$200
$300
Lower Level & Kitchen (6 hrs.):
$350
$450
Lower Level without kitchen (6 hrs.): (Fri,Sat,Sun) $250
$350
Lower Level without kitchen (6 hrs..): (Mon-Thu)
(Except Holidays)
$150
$250
Kitchen only ( 6hrs):
$150
$250
Upper Level, Krishna Room (2 hrs or less)
$15
$25
Upper Level, Yamuna Room (2 hrs or less)
$15
$25
Upper Level, Ganga Room (2hrs or less)
$25
$35
Lower Level, Stage Only (2 hrs or less)
$25
$35
A refundable deposit of $100 is required. Each additional hour is $50/hour.
Use of the audio system in the temple:
$50
$75
*** Audio system must be operated by a qualified person only. ***
Chair - Each
Table - Each
$0.50
$5
$0.60
$6
President: Subash Asnani 610-530-0389
Vice-President: Atul Dalal 610-395-3375
Secretary: Pratix Parikh 610-360-3217
Treasurer: Narayanan Soundrarajan 484-619-9984
Program Director: Shaila Shah 610-706-3233
Editor: Srini Ranganna 610-868-3771
Balvihar Director: Ashok Khandelwal 610-351-0071
Balvihar Asst. Dir.: Jitesh Rohatgi 610-758-8391
Community Relations Director: Surender Dayal 610706-4584
Webmaster: Anand Chavan 610-762-0041
Members-at-large
Hammi Kapoor 610-504-1774
Joita Bhattachrya 732-247-0441
Raj Kuppuswamy 610-481-8919
Rajul Shah 610-868-0586
Sougata Roy 610-866-2151
Susheer Gandotra 570-620-6219
Program Committee
Jyoti Asnani 610-530-0389
Rasna Patel 732-648-4918
Rimmi Dawar 610-261-2050
Sukanti Sahoo 570-668-0811
Vandana Negandhi 610-530-7918
Editorial Committee
Amita Pallod 610-336-0633
Nivedita Kannadaguli 610-709-7787
Umadevi Ranganna 610-868-3771
Treasurer Committee
Kamacharulu V Ramoju 678-779-1606
Board of Trustees
Chairman:
Raman Malhotra 610-433-8221
Vice Chairman:
Neela Bera 610-861-0560
Secretary:
Rajesh Jain: 610-398-1095
Finance Committee & Projects & Planning Committee:
Vikas Joshi 610-398-8840
Chandra Swaminathan 610-481-9528
Audit Committee:
Parveen Gupta 610-366-1618
Education Committee:
Kamlesh Ashar 610-366-7257
Membership and Community Relations:
Irawathy Chalikonda 610-867-8236
Members:
Kris Kapoor 610-868-9305
Manoj Mittal 610-762-6360
Ex-Officio Member:
Subash Asnani 610-530-0389
Publication Identification
Title: HTS News Letter
Issue Date: Monthly / January 2015
Issue No: Volume:27; Issue # 1
Published by: Hindu Temple Society,
4200 Airport Road, Allentown, PA 18109
Visit “www.hindutempleallentown.org”
for CURRENT newsletter, donation and other information
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Bingo Night with Dinner at HTS Temple
(Member Appreciation Day)
Saturday January 17th from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
FREE DINNER FOR HTS MEMBERS (RSVP required by Thur. Jan. 15th).
For Non-Member dinner charges are $5.
Please contact Atul Dalal (610-395-3375) or Shaila Shah (610-706-3255) for RSVP.
Lot of local restaurant GIFT cards and many gifts will be
given away.
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Saraswathi Puja
Date: 31st January, Saturday, 2015
Location: HTS, Airport Rd.
Puja: 11 am
Prasad: 1 pm
Lunch: 2 pm
Cultural Program: 5:30 pm-7:30 pm
Dinner: 7:30 pm
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TEMPLE BULLETIN BOARD
BHAGAVAD GITA TEMPLE
VICHAR GROUP
BULLETIN
BOARD
GITA HOME
STUDY
Classes on Gita and Vedanta are held
every Saturday, 9:30am to 11:00 in Krishna Room.
Text: BHAGAVAD GITA
Home Study Program
Designed by Swami Dayanandji of Arsha
Vidya Gurukulum
Everybody is welcome
to join any time.
More info please contact:
Purshottam Ghai
CLASSES
Organized by Prakash Kutagolla
every Thursday
from 7:30 to 9:00 pm.
For more info please contact:
Prakash Kutagolla at
[email protected] or
Phone: 610-691-5759
at [email protected] or
Phone: 610-398-1510
YOGA CLASSES
Yoga, Pranayama, Chakra balancing and Meditation Class
Yoga class is held every Sunday from
8:45am to 10:00am in the Ganga Room
The class focuses on simple postures, pranayama, chakra balancing and meditation.
Every one is welcome to join.
There is a small charge for the class payable to the Hindu Temple.
For more information contact either
Hammi Kapoor at [email protected]
Phone:610-504-1774 or
Atul Thakur at [email protected]
Phone: 610-360-2024
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BEGINNING OF HINDU TEMPLE (Part 2)
We continue with our story of Beginning of Hindu Temple. This time Gopal Kris Kapoor, Mahesh Vyas , sixties and seventies resident, joined us to recount their memory. We started with Kris Kapoor, who came to Lehigh Valley during early sixties to join Fuller Company and continued higher education in Lehigh University. He was a young lonely sole, since there
were no Indian family around except few Indian students and no Indian restaurant and grocery shops to get Indian food.
Late sixties few families moved in. Kris got married in sixty five and became friend with families like Rohini Sinha, Dipak
Shah and others.
Early seventies Kris and others felt need to find a place for worship and found one Unitarian Church at Fountain Hill, who
allowed two hours to assemble every month. There Indian families could have religious services. This is probably the place
where first community Hindu religious services started in Lehigh valley and the “Beginning of the Hindu Temple”.
In part one, Rohini and Purshottam have told us about Bharatiya Cultural Society and how it got split into north and south
BCS and eventually concept of Hindu Society was born. From Annual Report of 1985(Kris has a copy), we find the following
important dates:
 First Provisional Election September 24, 1977
 Adoption of Constitution November 12, 1977
 Incorporation as a nonprofit organization January 1978
 Adoption of By-Laws May 7, 1978
 Tax-Exempt Status by IRS August 3, 1978
 First Election of Board of Trustees & Executive Council November 5, 1978.
From late seventies until December 1985, when temple was constructed at 4200 Airport Road, religious activities ( Makar
Sankranti, Janmashtami, Navratri, Gurunanak Jayanti, Annual Balvihar Day etc.) were held at Unitarian Church. The Holi
Festival, a fund raising activity, was successful event for fund raising. Community members enthusiastically supported the
fund raising effort.
Unitarian Church, the only church in Lehigh Valley, was liberal enough to accommodate a new immigrant families in the
valley to practice their unfamiliar religious belief. Their generosity was a great incentive for the few struggling families in a
new land to achieve their desire to have their own temple and pursue their religious, cultural, social activities.
Moving into early eighties, HTS earned “Sales Tax Exemption by PA Dept. of Revenue on Feb. 5, 1981” and purchase of
Building Site on Jan. 14, 1982”.
Initial challenge in early eighties was to find a suitable plot of land to construct the temple. Mahesh Vyas, Ushakant Gandhi, Devdas Negandhi and few others worked tirelessly to find a suitable plot. Finally team located a parcel of 13 acre land
owned by Carpenter Union on Airport Road in Hanover Township. Mahesh worked out a deal with the Carpenter Union to
curve out 3.1 acre land for temple. For that Mahesh, Ushakant and others on their own initiative subdivided the land and
went to complete legal formalities with the township and completed the deal. The price of the land was close to$38,000.
Next phase was to construct the temple. For that reason, Building and Grounds Committee members Mahesh Vyas, Ushakant, Ajay Shankar, P.L.Ghai and others worked tirelessly to deal with the township authority to get permits and all necessary approvals by attending town meetings. Kris Porter was the architect for the project and P.L.Berry was the project
manager. Kripa Singh oversaw the building and construction. Kris and others went to bank to borrow money on personal
guarantee.
Few important dates to remember.
 Ground Breaking Ceremony for Shantiniketan August 27, 1983
 Construction Started for Shantiniketan
December 6, 1984
 Pran-Pratistha of Radha-Krishna December 22, 1985
 Sthapna of Guru Granth Sahib December 28, 1985
 Gabhara Opening and Snatra Pooja December 29, 1985
SANTINIKETAN: A Unique Place of Worship.
A question comes to our mind why instead of traditional name of temple,” Santiniketan” was chosen as name and how
four different religious faith came under the same roof. Kris, Mahesh, PL Ghai, Ushakant, Rashmi explained how the whole
concept evolved.
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During seventies and early eighties, Indian population in Lehigh Valley was not large enough to afford to build individual temples for each religion. Families, according to Indra Ghai, were friends and interacted with each other well.
Kris, Rohini, Ghai and others had a great vision of to have a place of HARMONY to congregate and open to the
views of other religion. Two things clicked, necessity and vision and Hindu Temple was born the way we see it today .After twenty plus years the ideals of compromise, tolerance and coexistence is still intact.
Probably this was and still is the only temple where four different religion, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism reside side by side under one roof.
During last thirty years, Hindu Temple invited community members and leaders of all religion, elected members to
government to participate and join various celebration at the temple.
IDOLS AND DEITY:
Hindus have lots of favorite deities. According to Kris and others, there were lots of opinion and discussion regarding
choice of deities. Ultimately Kris consulted Swami Chinmayananda, one of the leading scholar and religious leader
well-known in India and abroad, who used to visit USA and Lehigh Valley, to settle the issue.
Swami Chinmayananda visited Lehigh Valley invited by Kriss Kapoor and performed GITAGYANYOGNA at Lehigh University. Swami Dayananda of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam and Swami Anubhavnanda, who visited Hindu Temple few
times, were disciple of Swam Chinmayananda.
During Kris’s visit to India, Kris raised money from his family and friends in India and purchased the idols from Jaipur
and Kris’s brother Hami Kapoor arranged transportation through Air India.
Temple Architect:
Those who had the opportunity to visit first temple, might have noticed that building did not resemble any temple
we are familiar in India. This was not accidental, rather intentional. During mid-seventies, when Indians made their
presence visible around big cities in USA, there were some backlash and incidents were happening at some places.
Community leaders were afraid a typical temple architect may invite undue attention and vandalism. So building
shape was non-descript like any other building, not to attract any attention. Name Santiniketan also served the purpose and intention of the place. Fortunately there was no incident happened here though it is not uncommon other
places.
Architectural drawings: were prepared by HTS hired Architect Chris Porter. Original temple layout was only
40ftx60ft. P.L.Ghai worked closely with Chris Porter to complete the drawing.
Site Development, runoff development and drainage: plans were developed by P.K.Ghatak of Base Engineering
without any charge. P.L.Ghai followed the approval formalities with the Township Engineering and finally obtained
the approval in summer of 1984.
Construction of the Temple, December 1984-December 1985:
Kripa Singh & P.N. Beri- Co-Chairman.
P.N.Beri & Shakuntala Beri- Construction Project Manager.
P.N. & Shakuntala Beri worked together during initial construction and subsequent additions, extensions and improvements of the temple.
As community grew, temple facility was expanded twice and outside and inside façade undergone change and which
was a building now looks like a real temple.
(Note: The various milestone events and dates mentioned here are from ‘The Hindu Temple Society Annual Report
1985, a copy obtained from Kris Kapoor.
There are many men and women worked hard and contributed toward the success of the temple. Many of their
names are depicted on the walls of the temple. For the sake of space, we unwillingly not mentioning each name.
Next we will move 85 and beyond)
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2014 Temple Anniversary and Priest Shukla’s Retirement
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HTS Community Corner
To get HTS announcements and updates visit:

HTS APP

HTS website: www.hindutempleallentown.org
Radio announcements every Saturday 8.a.m to 10. a.m. on FM 91.7 FM

To contact HTS office bearers or for feedback use:
 [email protected]
 [email protected]
 [email protected]
 [email protected]
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The Hindu Temple Society
4200 Airport Road, Allentown, PA 18109
(610) 264-2810
RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED......
2015
HTS Upcoming
Events
Mark your
calendar for these grand HTS events and look
out for further updates in the HTS email blasts
and the newsletter.
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Lehigh Valley, PA
Permit No.22
JANUARY 31 - SARASWATI PUJA
FEBRUARY 7 - SANKRANTI/PONGAL
FEBRUARY 17 - MAHASHIVARATRI PUJA
MARCH 5 - HOLI PUJA
MARCH 28 - RAM NAVAMI PUJA
MAY 2 - HOLI FESTIVAL at Saucon Valley HS
SEPTEMBER 5 - KRISHNA JANMASHTAMI
SEPTEMBER 10-17 - JAIN PARYUSAN
SEPTEMBER 17 - GANESH CHATURTHI
OCTOBER 4 - DIWALI BAZAAR
OCTOBER 16, 17, 24 - GARBA
OCTOBER 24, 25 - DURGA PUJA
OCTOBER 30 - KARVA CHAUTH
NOVEMBER 11 - DIWALI PUJA
NOVEMBER 21 - MATA KI CHOWKI
DECEMBER 12 - HTS ANNIVERSARY DAY
Temple: (610) 264-2810
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