Page 2. Krishna Das Kaviraj's place, early Feb. 2005

Webpage by Swami B.K. Giri

Walking upstairs to the first floor atrium.

Looking into the large upstairs room.

Standing on the roof of the original temple building and looking into the upstairs atrium.

Opening the doors and looking at the atrium. The large openings in the floor are intended as skylights into the nat mandir below and will be covered by metal grates.

Some of the marble floor trim being fitted. All the marble floors have been laid upstairs.

The outside balcony on the rear of the first floor.

There is a wonderfully large roof. The large openings are for skylights to the first floor and will be covered with steel fencing to keep out the many monkeys in Vrindavan.

Looking down to the first floor atrium through one of the rooftop skylights.

Going back to the ground floor we can see that much of the marble floor has been laid in the Nat mandir. Chandrapala shows us his work.

Here is a close-up view of some of the green marble inlays.

Chandrapala at work with one of his assistants. He can cut almost any design imaginable with the small grinder/cutter seen on the left.

Chandrapala's brothers have also learned the family trade of marble work. Here they're preparing and fitting the pieces. The white substance he is getting with his finger is pure white cement mixed with water to a very thick consistency [grout]. It is used to join and seal the edges of the stone. The marble pieces are set into a 1.5" mortar bed comprised of 6 parts sand to 1 part pure cement. After getting the marble perfectly positioned it is removed and a mixture of pure cement and water is poured over the dry sand/cement mix. Then the white grout is spread on all the joints and the marble is set in place where it may stay for hundreds of years.

Thus ends the second segment.

Your tour guide,

Swami BK Giri

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nabadwip
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