Juhu Sarkar, a 35-year-old commercial artist from Calcutta, is engrossed in painting Hanuman on a canvas at the camp of Rambhadracharya, a sadhu.

The monk, who narrates the story of Ram’s life to congregations of devotees every evening, cannot see what she is painting since he’s visually impaired.

But his trust, Shri Tulsi Peeth Seva Nyas, has hired Sarkar and 19 other painters from across the country to capture Ram’s life, and that of Rambhadracharya himself, on canvas.

“I learnt painting in Calcutta, my hometown, but I recently shifted to Delhi. A relative is associated with Rambhadracharya’s trust; he suggested I attend the workshop from January 14 to 22,” Sarkar told The Telegraph, paintbrush working furiously.

She said the trust was taking care of the painters’ travel, stay and meals, but was evasive when asked how much she was being paid. “It’s mostly out of my religiosity that I am here,” she said.

Somnath Bothe, 40, a painter from Pune hired for the same job, hinted at a smooth co-existence between business and temple-fuelled religiosity.

“Most of us have been assigned to make paintings based on the Valmiki Ramayana. These paintings will be the property of Rambhadracharya’s trust, which may hold an exhibition somewhere and put them on sale,” he said.

He added: “We shall leave Ayodhya after the Prime Minister inaugurates the temple on January 22.”

Not just Sarkar and Bothe, all the bustle, glitter and pomp that is now Ayodhya will be gone within hours of Narendra Modi leaving the town at 3pm on Monday after the Ram temple consecration.

For now, the town is decked out in its finery and wrapped in ecstasy as it waits to welcome the Prime Minister, expected to arrive at 10.25am on Monday.

“The state’s department of culture has hired 100 troupes — 2,500 folk artistes in all — to sing and dance while the Prime Minister is here,” a state government source said.

“Modi may take a chopper from the Maharshi Valmiki Airport and land at the helipad at Saker College, close to the temple, at 10.45am. Or he may decide to travel by road. Whether he travels by car or helicopter, he can see the cultural presentations.”

The itinerary released by the local administration has Modi taking a chopper. From the helipad he will be driven to the Ram temple, arriving at 10.55am. His schedule has been kept free between 11am and noon, and there’s a possibility he might take a dip in the Saryu.

Modi will participate in the Pran Pratistha rituals from 12.05pm to 12.55pm and then address the gathering of over 8,000 VIP guests between 1pm and 2pm. He is scheduled to leave Ayodhya at 3pm.

“We will start preparing to return home soon after Modi leaves,” said Sugam Singh, 30, a Vantangiya tribal dancer from Gorakhpur.

Geet Sharma, 25, a peacock dancer from Mathura, said: “The department of culture has hired our troupe to perform, on a roadside platform, till 5pm on Monday.”

Huge decorative pillars of fibreglass have been installed on both sides of a stretch of the national highway as it approaches Ayodhya, and on the banks of the Saryu.

The administration has decorated all the houses near the temple with fairy lights. Labourers were hired to decorate the façades of the houses with flowers. They will all be gone after Monday.

“We have rented these fibre pillars and lights; they will be removed after the Prime Minister’s programme. The flowers will dry up on their own,” an official of the state information department said.

“This razzmatazz we have been seeing in Ayodhya for the past few days cannot be expected to be there every day. Our goal is to make this event remembered for centuries.”

Asked whether the ambience did not reflect a momentary carnival spirit more than religious devotion, Rambhadracharya said: “Modi is a historic personality and he deserves to be welcomed for giving the Ram temple to Ayodhya.”

Reminded that it was the Supreme Court that in 2019 handed the site over to Hindus to build the temple, he said: “We all contributed to convincing the Supreme Court to give us the disputed land in Ayodhya.”

He claimed: “I had furnished 441 pieces of evidence that there was a temple at the site before Babar raised the Babri Masjid at the birthplace of Ram.... I am now planning to bring back the Gyanvapi Mosque in Kashi and the Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura for the Hindus. Modi will obviously play a decisive role in that too. His welcome here should be historic so that he speeds up Kashi and Mathura.”

Some Sangh Parivar supporters have moved court saying the Gyanvapi and the Shahi Idgah were built after destroying portions of the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi and Krishna Janmasthan Mandir in Mathura, and the sites should be given back to Hindus.

Lamp fiasco

A diya (lamp) projected as the world’s biggest ever caught fire around 2pm, about four hours after it had been lit on an open ground near the Tapasvi Ki Chawani Ashram.

Paramhans Das, a self-styled sadhu known to be happy to seek the limelight, said he had got the lamp, 300 feet in diameter, made with 1,008 tonnes of loam. “About 21,000 litres of oil was poured into it just for tonight. About 1.25 quintals of cotton were used for the wick. I spent over Rs 7 crore in all,” Das had told reporters on Saturday night.

“Some 108 teams of workers took one year to make this diya. We used oil brought from Mithila, Sita’s birthplace. We are trying to recreate the celebratory scenes Ayodhya witnessed when Ram returned victorious.”

Eyewitnesses said a canopy erected above the lamp to protect it from rain and dew had caught fire as the flames rose. The fire then spread to nearby trees.

With open ground all around, they said, the flames died down by themselves. But parts of the diya have got burnt or developed cracks.

Das said he had asked labourers to repair the lamp so it could be lit again in the night.

Mahant Rajkumar Das, another sadhu who lives at Tapasvi Ki Chawani, said: “Paramhans has grabbed a portion of the ashram and is using the lamp as a gimmick to grab it entirely in the name of celebrating the temple inauguration.”