Faith or mechanics ?

Two days and lots of ‘sannidhi’¹ worshipping later, I have a made a few observations/introspections.
I have been observing people praying at the temples. Sometimes I see people with so much religious fervour it makes me feel guilty(?!). Many a time, when I was standing at a place with a nice view of the ‘vigraha’² I wanted to move away and give the place to the person behind me, who probably deserved it more, or who’d rather have a better use of the darshan. All along, in all the temples, through countless idols, I never could actually evoke any kind of religious reverence or even some kind of respect for what I was seeing. All that did was try and appreciate the sculpting, the architecture, the decorations, etc., but nothing whatsoever, to do with God, worship or faith. And sometimes, I even was really angry when I saw people worshipping. For instance, it’s understandable to suddenly become really all worked up (like lifting their joined hands up over one’s heads and shouting out the Lord’s name) when an ‘abhishekam’³ is being done on the idol (although i fail to understand, how that particular instance is more sanctimonius than when there is just the idol..although it’s supposedly the same God with the same powers!!!). But what really ticked me off was it’s been done so many countless times over that they fail to actually see what’s happening. So they do it mechanically as soon as they see the poojari⁴ is doing something to the idol. So when the abhishekam is over and the poojari is just washing away the ghee, or milk or whatever that’s been used, again the people start of with the whole hulla!

The next gripe that I have is with people chanting the mantras/shloka. To me, anything that’s been said without knowing/understanding the meaning is useless/pointless. So when I see people trying to keep up with the ‘shastrigal’⁴ in saying the shlokas, I really get irritated; irritated, because, even knowing whatever little sanskrit i know, i can clearly make out that they are horrendously mispronouncing the words that they have just mindlessly memorised. And even when pronounced correctly, they wouldn’t know what they are praying about. For instance, I have asked many people the meaning of verse in ‘Kanda shasti kavasam’⁵: ‘Dagu dagu digu digu dangu dingugu, vindhu vindhu mayilon vindhu” (I kid you not, those are the exact words), but i still havn’t got a satisfactory answer. And to me then, a “dagu dagu digu digu dangu dingugu’ has the same significance as a “laalakku dol dappima”⁶ !

To top it all, there is this commercialization of worship! Chidambaram Natarajar temple is something that i have been wanting to visit for a really long time. And so, it was quite shocking , that when i actually went there, i just couldn’t wait to get out of there. I certainly had my expectations right: I was not so religious, so i didn’t expect an out-of-this-world experience. In fact, the rule about asking men folk to enter the sanctum sanctorum bare-chested actually lent a spirit of something really important about to happen upon entry. But, with the crowd and all those sweaty bodies, I was happy to take a single glance at the idol (which anyway was not visible, partly due to the crowds and mostly due to the really dim lighting inside the altar) and make a quick getaway. But what really left a bad taste was the “kovil pattars’⁴ marketing the prasadams and selling the blessings. It is quite understandable that the temple is run completely by a family of ‘Gurukkals’⁴ residing at the temple premises and money is hard to come by! But it should not be done at the expense of taking away the devotees from what they actually came to place for: praying. After a point of time, I was feeling like a deer being stalked by hungry predators. I am actually feeling sad that i really could not appreciate the place, the architecture, the history and the mythology. All that I would think of, when somebody mentions the temple, is not Mr. Natarajar but the face of the sweet talking pattar who tried to get me to pay a whole lot of money to get ‘special’ blessings from God couriered fortnightly to my home!

I am not sure if I am being very critical because I am losing my faith or if it’s this constant exposure to such blind faith/unfounded beliefs/touting that has made me lose any respect for the Almighty, or atleast for the ‘messengers’ of the Almighty.

Footnotes: 

1. place where the idol has been installed/consecrated; an altar

2. idol

3. ceremony of ablutions and symbolic offerings

4. temple priest

5. a prayer to Lord Muruga asking for his blessings

6. the starting words from a Tamil movie song

Voila! This is one migration that i liked!

Yet another attempt to revive the asphyxiating blog !  

Finally after lots of second thoughts and dilemmas i finally have taken the plunge and have shifted base to WordPress! I really liked various options provided, although i should add i sure miss the freedom to manipulate the template that was available in Blogger. All the same, now that it’s a new place, a new beginning, let’s hope that things get moving!

I "Possess" it !

Oh What a phone! what a phone! what a phone

A Train missed ?!

She: I’m getting married.

He: Wow. Congrats.

She: Congrats? Is that what you want to say?

He: well…what else did you expect me to say?

She: …….

He: ????

She: Goodbye.

My first attempt at nanofiction

Reading right now….

Prodigal Blogger Returns

This is a weak attempt to clean up the cobwebs and dust that have gathered over this small and forgotten part of the ‘Blog World’. The spontaneous questions that might arise, if at all, would be ‘What happened?’ , ‘Where were you?’, ‘Why no blogging?’ can all be answered with one single word: Laziness.

I’m supposed to feel guilty about it, but surprisingly, I am not. It may be so, because, laziness has become so common and accepted to the extent of almost becoming a virtue (at least that’s what I tell myself).

Well, now that I have taken a genuinely big step (mind you, i am speaking relatively) to take this blog somewhere, I have decided to be consistent. This would realistically mean that i would make an honest attempt to post atleast once a month and then things can be taken foward from there.

However, to what extent the thoughts gets translated to action is something that remains to be seen.

Lucky me

Today, I received a Laptop backpack from my bank. I had not participated in any contest, nor had i filled any kind of form. Moreover, i have this history of succesfully managing to screw up anything which has the element of luck attached to it. So you can imagine my surprise, when i get this parcel at my office. Looks like lady luck’s smilling on me.

I am going right away to bet my money on the prancing princess in today’s derby.

"In the beginning God created …"

How to Begin?

The Greats have walked this path before me, leaving me spellbound and scared about one thing: How to begin? .Many might snicker, “what’s in a beginning?”, well, hold on to that thought right there, because beginning IS a big thing, especially for a guy like me who has nothing short of a malseizure and froths at the mouth at the mere thought of putting pen on paper(or finger on keyboard) and writing something meaningful.

Well, this blogmania (did i just a coin a new word?!) is such that it shook me out of this graphophobia and i decided to make my contibution to the already existing alphabetical gibberish in the cyberspace. But, then again I was once again stalked by the same problem. How to begin?

Deciding to write a blog was the easy part. But getting it actually done is really somethng (I salute all those who are doing a great bloggers who have laid out the path for us underdogs !). Coming back to my blog, i set out exploring to find out what bloggin was all about, what made it so popular that magazines have started printing articles from the blogs (which is what initially piqued my interest in blogs). I was expecting some kind of a chatroom where you have blogging rules where in you cannot call other person names, you have to respect others’ opinions, or else you get chucked out of some moderator who keeps a watch (I often wonder what a lousy job this moderator has: To keenly watch at every conversation that transpires, no matter how boring between people, who are basically jobless and whom he/she doesn’t even know or hasn’t even seen, sheesh!! ).

What I found out was quite contrary. Blogging is easy. you just go there and type whatever it is that you think of and that’s it. No rules , No moderator, Nobody to answer to. This is already sounding great! So, here I am blogging my fingers away, for whatever it’s worth. It nothing, it has atleast solved one of my problems.

How to Begin?