Indian-American Community Mourns

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) â€” From outside, the Govinda Hindu Temple is a mere storefront lost in the visual chaos of a thriving commercial strip in Jersey City's Little India. <br><br>But inside, barefoot

Monday, January 29th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) â€” From outside, the Govinda Hindu Temple is a mere storefront lost in the visual chaos of a thriving commercial strip in Jersey City's Little India.

But inside, barefoot women in long, black braids and colorful silk saris take turns at the microphone to chant rhythmic prayers for those killed in Friday's devastating earthquake in their home state of Gujarat.

They're joined, on the other side of the room decorated with Christmas lights, crepe paper and shimmering slivers of colored glass, by men clanging hand cymbals and beating drums.

In the temple's center, a woman has placed a bowl of milk and water, an offering of a bath for Shiva, the god, appropriately enough, of destruction.

``God bless their souls,'' said Haresh Puthak, the temple priest who fights emotion upon considering the magnitude of Gujarat's suffering.

His mother and sister back home survived the earthquake â€” news, he said, that had all three of them weeping over the phone the other night.

Jersey City, just over the Hudson River from Manhattan, is home to a rich mosaic of ethnic groups, evidenced by its Polish and Philippine diners, Korean Baptist and Egyptian Coptic churches, Haitian food stands, Spanish bodegas and Ecuadorean fish markets.

A little frumpy, and decidedly less hip than New York City, Jersey City is nonetheless a cheaper alternative for the immigrants who throng to the metropolitan area.

Perhaps no group is more established here than the Indian-American community, more than 25,000 strong. Most of Jersey City's Indian Americans came from the western Indian state of Gujarat, epicenter of Friday's quake.

The first Indian immigrants came to Jersey City in the 1960s when President Kennedy lifted restrictions, said Chiman Patel, who works for New Jersey Transit.

Today, the community boasts its own temple, social and civic clubs, and Indian-Pakistani restaurants, groceries, jewelry boutiques, and video stores. A few blocks away is Public School 23, renamed Mahatma Gandhi in the mid-1980s, for one of Gujarat's most famous citizens.

``We are family oriented,'' Patel said, explaining how the community grew. ``When one comes, he calls his relatives to join him.''

Along the main strip of Jersey City's Little India, posters on store windows declare the earthquake's horror and plead for donations, in keeping with an appeal by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for Indians to contribute aid.

``We never ask for outside help,'' said Pranav Shah, a shopkeeper. ``By nature, we want to be self-sufficient.''

Help is coming both in donations and in the prayers for the dead being offered every evening at Govinda Temple.

``After so many hours, we don't look for lives now,'' said Vijay Desai, a Jersey City pediatrician who heads the Garden State Indian Association. ``India was not prepared for an earthquake.''