Sunita and Kylie from HfHR
Over the weekend of October 31 and November 1, Hindus for Human Rights was honored to join the community of Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple in South Ozone Park, Queens, as devotees gathered to celebrate the reopening of the temple.
The two-day celebration filled the temple with prayer, music, conversation and the joyful bustle of a community returning to a sacred space together. Families, elders, children and friends gathered before the deities, shared food and fellowship, and marked the reopening through devotional singing and poosai.
HfHR co-founder Sunita Viswanath also addressed the congregation during the reopening celebration, connecting the temple’s mission to the idea at the heart of Seeing Equally, the book she co-edited with Prof. Anantanand Rambachan.
Speaking about the temple’s commitment to inclusion, Sunita reflected that “the work of service, wherever it happens, is temple.” She spoke about HfHR’s work bringing together progressive, anti-caste and inclusive Hindu religious leaders, and about the temple’s own place within that wider vision.
Sunita then read from a chapter in Seeing Equally by Pearly, which traces Pearly’s life and the evolution of Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple. The passage recalled a gathering before the temple first opened, when the community was asked why they were creating the space. Pearly’s answer was immediate:
“Our temple would give equal opportunity to everyone to touch Ma’s feet. There would be no gate around Ma.”
Sunita connected that vision to the Divine Mother herself: “That’s what our mother does. She sees equally. She sees no difference between any of us.”
She closed by presenting a copy of Seeing Equally to the temple, a fitting gesture for a reopening rooted so clearly in access, devotion and belonging.
Watch Sunita Viswanath’s remarks from the Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple reopening to the right:
For HfHR, it was especially meaningful to be welcomed into a Hindu space shaped so visibly by community. The weekend was a reminder that temples are more than buildings or places of ritual. They are places where generations meet, where traditions travel and take root far from their places of origin, and where people build relationships of care and belonging.
Queens itself is part of that story. Hindu traditions here have been carried and reshaped by communities whose histories stretch across South Asia, the Caribbean and many other parts of the world. Gatherings like this one show just how varied Hindu life in New York actually is, expressed through different languages, foods, musical traditions, forms of worship and relationships to the Divine.
We are grateful to the Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple community for inviting us to share in such an important moment and for the generosity and warmth with which we were welcomed.
May the reopened temple remain a home for prayer, celebration, friendship and community for many years to come.
Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple
135-26 Rockaway Blvd
