Lakshmi-Narayan Temple, Modinagar (Modi Mandir)

Set on the old Delhi-Meerut highway in the industrial town of Modinagar, this Lakshmi-Narayan temple — known to almost everyone locally simply as Modi Mandir — is the spiritual centrepiece the Modi family raised for the mill town they built from scratch.

• When the industrialist Rai Bahadur Gujarmal Modi established his sugar mills here in the 1930s and the settlement of Begumabad was renamed Modinagar in 1945, the family also endowed the town with schools, colleges and this temple, in the philanthropic mould of India's great industrial houses.
• The result is a landmark that feels less like a pilgrimage destination and more like a well-kept civic garden-temple: a place where mill workers, students from the Modi colleges and highway travellers have paused for generations.
• The presiding deities are Vishnu as Narayan and his consort Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity — a fitting dedication for a town founded on enterprise.
• Around the central sanctum sit subsidiary shrines that draw the neighbourhood's daily devotees: a strong Hanuman, a Durga shrine that fills up on Navratri, a Santoshi Mata shrine popular with those keeping the Friday fast, and a Gayatri shrine.
• The architecture is a striking twentieth-century composition in the Kalinga style — the main shrine is structured almost entirely in red sandstone, crowned by spired shikharas above a pillared assembly hall, while the front courtyard is set off with white marble, fountains and brass artefacts — so come as much for the confident sandstone craft as for the atmosphere and the family history.
• What lifts a visit is the adjoining Modi Garden, a landscaped public park of lawns, flowerbeds and shade trees that wraps the temple precinct.
• It is the town's default spot for a morning walk, an evening stroll and a family picnic, and it makes the temple an easy, pleasant half-hour stop rather than a detour.
• Photographers will find the shikharas frame nicely against the greenery in the soft light of early morning.
• For the vegetarian traveller, Modinagar is genuinely comfortable ground.
• The temple itself is a pure-vegetarian, alcohol-free precinct, and the prasad and any langar are strictly satvik.
• The town's traditional halwai and mithai shops along the GT Road are vegetarian by long custom — ask them to confirm no egg in bakery items — while the nearest fully verified pure-veg names on our list sit in Meerut (about 25 km north) and Delhi (about 48 km southwest).
• Carry a bottle of packaged water, as this is a small-town stop with limited sit-down dining right at the temple gate.
• Modinagar is now on the Delhi-Meerut RRTS Namo Bharat corridor, so the once-tedious road trip has become a quick, comfortable rail hop — making this modest heritage temple an easy add-on to a Meerut or Hastinapur day out.