FINE FINISH: Shilpis here do not smoke, drink or indulge in other vices

Kauai has long been a favourite getaway for holidayers and romancers in the West. The picturesque destination in the Hawaiian islands with its swathes of luxuriant green set against the shimmering blue of the Pacific has provided the backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Honeymoon in Vegas. Now add one more exotica to the islands' attractions: a one-of-its-kind stone temple, which is being painstakingly built thousands of miles away.

For the moment Kauai is not where much of the temple action is. A clutch of some 70 sculptors in Mandanayakanahalli, a village near Bangalore in Karnataka, is busy chiselling away at grey granite boulders meant for the shrine. It is no mean task. After all, what they are working at is a hand-cut, all-stone Hindu temple to be erected in the Western Hemisphere. And the scale is gigantic in every respect: the structure weighs 1.45 million kg, costs $16 million (Rs 78.4 crore) and is taking well over a decade to be completed.

The brainchild of the late Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, an American convert to Hinduism, the Kauai project was conceived of in the 1970s. Encouraged by the response to his monastery in San Francisco, where he built the first Hindu shrine in 1957, Gurudeva spread his wings to Kauai and launched the grand San Marga Iraivan temple project in 1975.

There has been no looking back since. Two years after a giant six-sided quartz crystal-a sphatika Shivalingam-was acquired by Gurudeva in 1987 to enshrine in the Chola-style temple, Chennai architect V. Ganapati Sthapati was roped in to plan the outer stone structure. Soon, money was raised from devotees across the globe and others who wanted to help build a Shiva temple. The brief was categorical: no rock-cutting machines, electric tools or hydraulic equipment could be used at any stage, be it quarrying or etching. The entire structure had to be hand-made. There was another condition: the workers had to put their heart into it as well. Skill, as far as Gurudeva was concerned, could be acquired by anyone-there would be no bar on caste or creed. All that mattered was purity of intent.

It was a tough call but there were many takers. Once it was decided that the grey granite available in Karnataka would be best suited for the temple, two seers from the South-Sri Balagangadharanathaswami of Karnataka and the Tiruchi Swamigal-jumped into the fray to initiate sculpting at an 11-acre facility in Mandanayakanahalli. Scouting for skilful workers was not a difficult task despite Gurudeva's stringent stipulations.

The system demands that the stone carvers, or shilpis as they are called, do not drink, smoke or indulge in other vices. Many of them live on the site with their families and personal discords are not taken lightly either. Seventy workers have been fired in the past 10 years for violating the code, but those who have stayed on are more than happy. Dedicated and disciplined, they say they are there by the "grace of God". Explains Lokesh, 29, who came to the site as a helper, but has now graduated to a shilpi: "Smoking beedis is quite common on sites but there is nothing of that sort here." Rehmatullah, a Muslim co-worker who has pledged himself to the project, has even given up eating meat. The structure is only 70 per cent complete and may take another five years but no one is complaining.

The day begins early with a prayer and by 7.30 a.m., the shilpis are ready for work. As the hours progress, it's only the tap-tapping of hammers and chisels-there are 60 identifiable varieties-that can be heard. There is no time, or the inclination, for gossip. The intricate designs involved in the ornate lion pillars and other sections of the temple are time consuming and call for utmost concentration. As Jiva Rajashankara from Malaysia, who is here as site manager, points out, it takes nearly three years for two men to carve one lion pillar from a 10-tonne granite block. Small decorative tridents for the temple railings take almost 30 days. One wrong move could result in colossal damage.

Digital cameras and G-4 Apple Macintosh computers capture images of the workmanship from time to time which are then e-mailed to the headquarters at Kauai. Once approved, the masterpieces are shipped in containers. The long-distance transportation is adding heavily to project costs-Rs 5 lakh for every container-but the price hardly matters. What does is the prize: a mid-Pacific dream that would be a sculpted reality.