Recently I had the opportunity of visiting two temples in the New Jersey area. The first one is Sri Ranganatha temple at Pamona, New York. I got the nice feeling when I had the darshan of Sri Ranganatha Perumal. Inside the temple , I felt as though I was in a Tamilnadu temple. All idols (moola murthis) are of black granite and look very grand.It being the markazhi month, there was chanting of Thiruppavai. Another unique thing in this temple is that there is no ticket for anything, whether it is an archanai or kalyana utsavam. Everything is donation as one likes (yatha sakti). The temple gives typical prasadams of Venpongal, akkaravatisal and curd rice. There is no cafeteria food, as in most of the N.American temples. Of course you can have more details in their website http://www.ranganatha.org/ .
The second one is Srinathji temple at Vraj, Schuylkill Haven, PA. The temple is managed by Pushti Margiya Vaishnav Samaj Of North America. This temple replicates the traditions followed by the temple at Srinathdwara. The idol of Srinathji is small but the temple provides binoculars to the devotees to have a close look of the idol.Again this temple does not have cafeteria but all are provided with Maha Prasad - conventional Gujarati food with puri, shak, bath, kadi and sweet. They entertain second helping. If you are going as a big group ,they want advance information for providing you the Prasad! More details can be had http://vraj.org/ .
