ALANGUOROUS water fall. Dew on foliage. Sunrise as a backdrop. Different images showing People in the pursuit of happiness. Children at play in pools, couples embracing, friends rafting together, a child blowing out a birthday candle. And then, the montage of vibrant visuals is frozen in a long moment of silence. A disembodied voice says, "We seek happiness. All of us, all the time. It's our nature... Then it's gone."

These are not scenes from a dream or sequences of an abstract play at Chowdiah, but from a multi-faceted show comprising of video, slide, audio, animatronics, hi-tech sound and light. This audio-visual journey takes one through the various countries across the globe before finally reaching a spiritual world. The 40-minute show priced at Rs 10 per head is pulling crowds not just on weekends but also on week days to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), on Chord Road.

The 400-seater theatre with the integration of several forms of media is considered an advancement even by New York standards. The panoramic vision can be credited to the size of the screens ¾ while the height is only 10 feet, the width of the screens is 54 feet. The slide screen is flanked by two video screens to give a unified, cohesive picture. To convey the "importance" of chanting Hare Krishna, Iskcon has used technology to animate dolls to communicate puranic ideas and episodes. The theatre has the Dolby digital 'surround sound' along with THX enhancements which results in a spatial orientation of the sound sources. The Rs 15 lakh sound system provides the audience with almost a true to life experience.

The Rs two crore theatre at present holds shows in English and Kannada. Says Varada Krishna Dasa, coordinator of Iskcon, Bangalore, "We are just propagating what is there in Vedic literature. To do that repeatedly, one needs some facility like the multi-vision cinema theatre. Philosophically. it is called yukta vairagaiya, we are using the advancements in technology in the service of God."

Iskcon is using computers to raise its efficiency. They have a seminar room and another projection theatre. Though 99.9 per cent of the Rs 30-crore temple is built as per Vedic standards, confirming to vastu shilpa, it has modern facilities like an elevator to carry the old and the invalids to the central hall.

Iskcon has also a guest house coming up along with the temple. "The five-storeyed guest house will have 70 rooms of different capacities," says the coordinator. The guest house is for visiting tourists and devotees who plan to spend a day or two here, learn about basic philosophy of Bhagwad Gita, practice devotional songs and learn chanting. Next in the pipeline are five computer-aided presentation theatres, each worth Rs 20 lakh, which will propagate the philosophy of Bhagwad Gita. According to the vice-president, Iskcon wants to present Krishna consciousness to specific groups of engineers or doctors or executives. The presentation will be tailor-made to homogeneous group needs, to teach them how the Gita is relevant to solving present day problems. It is also a multi-storeyed parking facility within the complex along with an amphitheatre and a plaza. Also on the anvil is a kalyan mandap. Varada Krishna says, "There is a growing in-house need for such a facility to hold satsangs, seminars, festivals, variety of programmes during winter and summer vacation for children." It is likely to be ready in the next five to six months, and will be hired out to generate revenue.

Iskcon in Bangalore has left no stone unturned in making itself attractive enough to be become an essential part of the tourists' itinerary. And egged on by the enterprise of Bangalore Iskcon, another large-scale project is coming up at New Delhi by the year-end.