erawan revisited

A few weeks ago, a crazed man went to the Erawan shrine at the corner where the Grand Hyatt Erawan is located and smashed the revered image. People were shocked to learn of the news the following morning. Now the Fine Arts department is makinga new statue which is made of metal and cement which will include the smashed plaster statue. In another few months the new statue will be ready. When I visited the place, pictures of the old statue were placed in the shrine. Last week, as I was taking pictures of the walkways under the BTS line, I notices that they had erected white scaffolding around the old shrine with the picture of the original statue outside. I read in the papers that when they were building the old Erawan Hotel, so many accidents had been happening during the construction. The place was being declared as cursed. Erawan is the Hindu elephant god. So a shrine to the Hindu god Bhrama was constructed. After this was done, all he accidents stopped. I never saw the old Erawan Hotel. When I moved to Bangkok in 1990, the Grand Hyatt Erawan was already being constructed. With all the changes the old Erawan shrine was left untouched. Many people from different countries visit the shrine and make their wish as the shrine is well known to make some wishes to come true. I took the pictures using Leica M5 with a 50mm summicron lens. #&169 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.