Workers Racing Against Time To Finish Grand Ram Temple

Sudama Chauhan's life was never easy. But over the past month, the hours seem longer and more intense. The Jharkhand resident now stirs out of bed before the first streaks of red in the sky above Hanuman Garhi, stuffing some rotis in the dorm he shares with others, before joining them in the daily walk down to the construction site. Save a short lunch break, he'll emerge from its depths after 12 hours.

- Dhrubo Jyoti

Yet, he doesn't mind. "After all, how many people can say that they worked to build the Ram temple? I am lucky," he said, a smile lighting up his gaunt face.

Chauhan and 4,000 of his fellow workers are racing against time to finish work for the two-story Ram temple which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thrown open to the public next month.

In this cavernous 2.77 acre plot, the size of two football fields, locked away behind a fractious legal dispute for 150 years before the Supreme Court's landmark verdict in 2019-the pink sandstone structure is slowly taking shape. Built-in the Nagara style of architecture, it is held up by 392 columns and accessible through 44 doors, 14 gilded in gold.

"It is a matter of great happiness that the temple is about to open... the entry to the main temple will be from the east and the sanctum will be its westernmost point," said Champat Rai, the general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.

The temple will host two different sets of idols, the infant god Ram on the ground floor, and the adult king Ram holding court on the first floor. The temple-work on which began soon after the Supreme Court's verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit in 2019 - will be the first in north India to have a formal circumambulation path, known as a parkota, about 732m long, the trust said.

Stone from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Wood from Maharashtra, granite from Telangana were chiselled into shape by carpenters from Tamil Nadu, granite workers from Karnataka, idol carvers from Rajasthan, and sandstone carvers from Odisha.