punjab

Updated: Dec 24, 2016 01:41 IST

Hi-tech story-telling at the basement of the Golden Temple plaza was launched and opened for public amid 5,000 pilgrims on Wednesday. Besides the daily footfall of pilgrims at the shrine, a large number of people had gathered outside the basement for their turn to witness the 3D technology and synchronisation installed in galleries giving a tour of the Sikh history and ethos.

The gallery is an attempt to unite technology with history and traditions, which left the visitors spell bound on the first day.

Maintenance engineer from Virasat-e-Khalsa Bhupinder Singh, Sukhmandeep Singh (Virasat-e-Khalsa) who is supervising visitor service assistants (VSA) along with his team and designer Amandeep Behl were seen to toes supervising the first day single shift show which started around 10 am till 6 pm.

“We have around 16 people who are appointed as visitors’ service assistants to make sure that people from other states who are not familiar with our culture are taken to the gallery and provided with guide ports in Hindi and English,” he said.

A VISUAL VISIT

There are four galleries at the plaza, the first — ‘Jot mei Jot’—describes the ten Sikh gurus and their teachings through a 10-sided glassed inverted pyramid using fibre optics and a laser show.

The second galley has ‘270-degree’ projection technology and the third used 3D technology to let the visitors explore the Golden Temple precincts on 72-inch screens, explained Harbir Singh, incharge of the audio-visual installation.

The fourth galley will make use of ‘holographic projection’ to describe importance and teachings of Guru Granth Sahib.

Designer of the project Amardeep Behl, while speaking to HT said, “The storytelling spaces had to be theatrical, they just couldn’t be a dry exhibition or a non-vocal museum that fails to narrate a story and connect with people. We are extremely happy with the first day response.”

He also said that lakhs of pilgrims get inspired after visiting the Golden Temple but majority return without knowing much about the religion, which they have tried to fulfill.

Notably, initially the footfall would be around 5,000 visitors and then gradually increase till 10,000 and finally around 30,000 visitors daily.