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

Lost for words?!

When you look at the world through the fog of your own worries, your anger, your frustration and impatience, many valuable things will just pass you by, completely unnoticed. Imagine driving through town while someone is holding a gun to your head. Are you gong to notice the new flower shop on the corner? Probably not. Your focus will be on that gun.

Are you holding a gun to your own head, by constantly focusing on what’s wrong with your life? Are you so obsessed with your own problems that you don’t see the opportunities all around you? Your attention can be effectively focused on only one thing at a time. Sure you have problems and challenges. Yet what is the point, what is the value of agonizing over them? Pay attention to what’s good about your life. Rather than worrying about what you don’t have, seek to make the best of all the good things you do have. There are a lot of things right with your life. Give your attention to them and they will grow.

- RALPH S. MARSTON, JR.

she’s taking her time making up the reasons to ju…

she’s taking her time making up the reasons
to justify all the hurt inside
guess she knows from the smiles and the look in their eyes
everyone’s got a theory about the bitter one

they’re saying, mamma never loved her much
and, daddy never keeps in touch
that’s why she shies away from human affection

but somewhere in a private place
she packs her bag for outer space
and now she’s waiting for the right kind of pilot to come

VM’s Original Thought : Residual Religionism

This is something I have discussed with couple of my friends and have been meaning to write about for quite sometime. This has also been the fruitions of one of those countless introspective sessions that I have.What lead me to this concept was just plain observation. I call myself an agnostic! For most of the time it holds true, except during certain circumstances: when i lay my foot on some paper, or my leg happens to fall on some person, whereupon i automatically do: touch the person as if asking for forgiveness. Although when i think about it later, i find the act unnecessary bordering on ridiculousness,but it’s a spontaneous involuntary action. And surprisingly, I have seen this happen not just to me but countless other people.

This is what led me to coining the term ‘Residual Religionism’. This is not religion as is followed but it is what that has been acquired. Right from our childhood, most of us are being brought up in an environment surrounding godliness. The inquisitive child is lambasted left right and centre with rituals, be it visiting temples, or during festivals or even day to day praying, that somewhere along the line inquisitiveness gives way to discipline and blind faith. So even when the child grows and eventually decides to pour out the religion out of his system, the rituals which are as much an integral part of the person as his flesh and bones is left behind as residue.

06/06/06

Beware of what you do today
for the day belongs to the devil
things might not go your way
‘cos everything today has a shadow of evil

Food for thought

Sometimes one of the hardest things of all is seeing things as they really are. Could have beens, should have beens, ought to bes, can’t believe it isn’ts – all these cloud our vision of the world around us. But seeing through these various illusions is the first step toward accepting things as they are. It could also be the most difficult. And why is it important to accept things as they are? Only then can you engage with the real world, which is the only way to really make any necessary changes.

link via here

The Water Boy

I was sitting in Café, in Matunga, having a nice lunch. And I see the water boy again.

I have noticed this water boy, roaming around with a jug filled with water in his hands and an intense look in his eyes. He is so focussed and looks like a man on a mission(which he is). As he prowls across the tables, his only focus of attention are the glasses on the tables, all the other things: the food, the table, the people, all fading into oblivion. All that he wants to look at are the water glasses. And when he sees that all the glasses still contain water that are well above the secret threshold mark known only to him, he gloats with a sense of achievement of having maintained order in a rather chaotic world.

As soon as he notices a single glass, where the water level has gone down, all his senses are in full alert and he is pulled towards the glass as if the glasses can communicate with the ‘water bearer’ and automatically draw him to it. He then dutifully pours the water with a flair that has been perfected through countless repetitions, scaring the person sitting at the table into believing that the water is going to spill over, and at the very last microsecond, draws back the jug , leaving the the glass exactly filled to the brim, a stunt matched only by the ‘Coffee mixing’ style of the roadside chaiwala. He then smiles self contentedly and resumes his beat around the tables.

The waterboy does face some very trying moments. A case at hand would be when TPATT(the person at the table) stops him with a simple gesture of his hand. Now TPATT probably doesn’t realise the damage that he has done. It is as if the waterboy has been hit by a water jug in the head. He is shaken, the earth which was a momoment ago under his feet having suddenly vanished,his very purpose destroyed and his very existence questioned. He then rallies himself, ready to tackle the situation. He roams around the vicinity of the table, never leaving the empty glass out of sight, sizing up the opponent and the odds stacked against him: the TPATT, the distance between himself and the glass, the amount of water required to reach the safety levels. He waits for the opportune moment and the instant TPATT looks the other way to speak to the waiter the waterboy strikes immediately. All it takes is another swing of the water jug and there, in a moment, the glass is filled and the waterboy saunters off trumphantly, like a hooded hero, who does not crave attention, but is satisfied by the peace and goodness that his acts have brought unto this world.

"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?