Inside the Lotus temple, Delhi

A silence - somehow being equated with peace - descends or ascends as soon as I step in.

Without, through bay-windows, the obvious symptoms of surrounding chaos and impermanence: trees waving, birds hopping about busily, people running and laughing on the impeccably-mown lawns. Within, a feeling of having exited this sublunar stratus, observing it from a one-way mirror.

closing one's eyes: the silence isn't actually silence. The room is not deaf but on the contrary, ever-reverberating. The whish and whoosh of clothes, the gentle patting of barefoot steps go on and on, perhaps until kingdom come or some similarly apocalyptic ultimatum. 360 degrees around, the sharp but flowing clinking and tinkling of wrists and ankles swirl.

The creaking of a bench, a cough, a baby's surprised utterance, past the initial burst keep on being heard for seconds, and seconds, with no noticeable decrease in intensity, bouncing geometrically against the oval walls in almost discernable patterns, until they imperceptibly join the silence.


The Lotus Temple in Delhi is one of seven or eight Baha'i temples worldwide.

The Baha'i religion, of which we knew zero beforehand, was founded in Persia in the 19th century by a prophet named Baha'u'llah. Its core beliefs pretty much make it beyond the usual arguments against other, older, organized religions: no Baha'i scripture allows a violent, segregationist, sexist interpretation of the religion. Baha'u'llah emphasized unity of mankind, regardless of religion or absence thereof (in fact he contended that all religions are simply born of successive manifestations of the same God, ergo, all religions are one), equality between men and women, peace among nations (one of his first initiatives was to write to several of the most important kings and leaders of world politics of his time and call for peace). He also stressed the importance of education and the validity of scientific research, believing in the harmony of religion and science, and asked of his followers that they strive for truth by themselves rather than relying blindly on holy words, even his.