Although I had a great visit to Sri Vrindhavan Dham and Sri Goverdhan Dham last year, what moved me the most was the undiscipline of the maintenance of the area. Here, we have the holiest of the holiest places in the universe and all I could see everywhere was the dirt and filth. I remember having a conversation with a devotee from South America, I think it was, whose unhappiness knew no bounds seeing the uncleanliness of the dhams. He said that his heart ached to see the ponds drying up, the noisy parikrama routes and rubbish everywhere. I have traveled to almost every state in India and I must say that we have a terribly dirty country. An active social worker told me long time ago, “India is getting to be like a dirty cloth. Looks like we just have to throw it away!”.
Anyways, as I looked around the city of Brisbane in June 08, I couldn’t help thinking if some of our areas in the holy dhams can be designed like the ones I saw in Brisbane city. Below are my visions:
Well paved pathway for morning Sri Vrindhavan Parikrama?
An evening walk by the River Yamuna?
First 8 japa rounds by Sri Shyam Kund?
Next 8 rounds by Sri Radha Kund?
Well shaded, well paved and a full day Sri Goverdhan parikrama?
9 Days, 8 Nights 
please dont take it the wrong way, and by no means am i fanatical person. i also visit the dhams a lot, and i appreciate your reasoning, but i kinda feel that your visions of “modernized” tirthas are a type of sense gratification. We’re not here as struggling sadhakas in the material world to enjoy physical respite in the holy dhamas. rather we go there for our purification, and to do service to the dham-vasis. rather than this moderized approach, id suggest you help devotees like Ramesh Baba and the Braj Dham Sewa group who want to restore Braja to its original pristine beauty. The modern facilities offered in our ISKCON temples (as designed by Prabhupada) was originally to facilitate those already conditioned by modern life to be able to visit the dham peacefully without criticisms.
Hare Krishna Caitanyananda das prabhu,
Thank you so much for your comments and also taking the time to direct me in the right path. The photos or the title I gave to the article might have been misleading. My sincere apologies.
What I was getting to was the need to keep the entire dham clean as well as provide fantastic facilities and infrastructures which will be of great benefit to devotees. I see this as a great service to the devotees actually. My thoughts were not to create a holiday destination or in particular criticize the dhams.
I am a very low neophyte devotee so I have no clue whether my thoughts were on the level of sense gratification or not. It probably is. But I just had a strong conviction that having more trees, well paved pathways, proper traffic maintenance, floral gardens etc would be of great offering to thousands of visiting devotees. Also, I saw many articles on the internet by devotees about the state of the dhams and how it was not being cared for properly. So, it is on the minds of people. The number of people visiting the region is only increasing and I am sure we need to think about some of these issues so that there is less damage to the area.
Its great to hear that there are already actions underway to restore the dham to its original beauty. I read about some of them…I emailed a few too…no response… however, I shall find out about the devotees you mentioned on the internet and see how I can be of benefit to that goal. However, once its returned to that original beauty, we need a system in place to take care of those efforts.
Dear Prabhu, mighty thanks for your comments and hoping that you will come back here.
Prabhu,
I agree with what Caitanyananda Das prabhu says. But also agree with Manoj Prabhu. There is nothing wrong with sprucing up the dham sites and beutifying them. After all its Sri Krishna’s place. But the source of happiness should be Sri Krishna and not the beutiful environment around it.