Money for God or God for Money

I was in Bangalore for two months, for the purpose of internship. What I liked about Bangalore the most was it’s climate. And, maybe it was the only thing that I liked apart from the fact that I was with gappa for two months straight after I don’t know how many years.

So, gappa and me would go for shopping and aimless roaming around on every weekend. She took me to nice eateries in the city and I was more than delighted. And, how can I forget the shopping sprees. We would plan the next weekend outings a week before, so that we don’t waste anytime planning on the last moment and end up going no where.

So, on this particular weekend, we went to some mall (I forgot the name, will ask gappa and let you know!) for no reason. Apparently, more than half the population in the malls are there for no reason. 🙂

So, after doing nothing or maybe some window shopping we came out and gappa told me that there is a lord shiva temple just next to the mall and if I want we can go there as the temple prides itself in owning some I don’t know how much tall structure of lord shiva.  I agreed and we went in. The entry itself fascinated me as the whole temple was a replica of amarnath. It was beautifully designed. We went a little inside and there were two men on the entry to the main area of the temple selling entry coupons. Till here everything was still ok with me.

We went further in and in order to visit the temple of lord ganesha (lord shiva’s son and there was another huge idol of lord ganesha as well) we were asked to pay again. I looked at the lady who asked for the money (apparently that was her job and she wasn’t doing it as a service to god) with a weird expression. The thing is we already paid money at the entrance and now these people were again asking for money in order to visit the indivivual temples of god. Oh god!

Gappa and I decided we won’t pay to visit lord ganesha’s temple and we move further inside where lord shiva’s idol was placed. Thankfully, nobody asked us to pay to pray there as it was anyways huge enough for anybody to pray without paying (some logic huhh!)

There was another funny weirdo thing inside the temple. A man-made artificial pond of water was created and people were blindly throwing money into the pond so that their wishes come true. I mean to say the whole temple was man made. I know that all the temples are man made, but I say this here because it was designed to give the Amarnath feel. The water in the pond was I am very sure tubewell water or from the local municipal corporation. Above all, because people threw all kinds of flowers and stuff into the pond, it was dirty as well. To my surprise, people were actually throwing things into the water thinking their wish will come true if they do as directed on the boards in the temple. Guys, ever heard of God help those who help themselves !!!

Also, there were big daanpatra I don’t know what you call them in english for people to drop money. I know such daanpatras have always been inside a temple premises for people to drop in money according to their convenience, but a daanpatra at every ten steps is heights of earning money in the name of god. At the top of it, if a person by any chance (which was not possible considering the number of daanpatras), forgot to drop the money, they were installed till the place where you go back to collect your shoes.

I don’t understand the point of building temples where the sole criteria is to extract money. I also don’t understand the reasoning of people to submit to such nuances. I again don’t understand the logic of Indians when it comes to religion. Like the famous saying goes, everything is fair in love and war, here everything is fair in the name of god and religion.

Recently, I had my exams going on and coincidentally even Janmashthami (Lord krishna’s birthday) fell in the same week. The village near our college played all kinds of songs in the name of lord krishna (not a single song related to krishna, forget his birth). Instead they played all the songs of the actor Govinda from sona kitna sona hai to Anil kapoor’s Kaate nahi kat te ye din ye raat all in the name of the auspicious occasion of the birth of krishna. Phew! And, the volume was so loud, trust me so so loud that while writing the exam next day, the songs kept continously playing in my mind instead of the answers.

All these incidents sometime make me think, have we really lost it? Is there no sense left in the average Indian’s brain? Educated or not educated do we really need schools to teach us the basics of what is right and what is wrong? Where has all the common sense gone? But then common sense is not common to all, right!

Rash is diligent when it comes to going to temples and doing pooja. He thinks I don’t believe in god. I always try to make him understand but fail to do the same, because he is a better at arguing than me, mind you Rash that doesn’t justify that you are always logical 😀 And, now you know why I get irritated, because it is less about believing in god and more about either earning money or just fooling around. How can I forget to mention the recent uproar regarding all the fake babas (some of them even molesters) who did everything from extracting money, to sexual harassment in the name of religion (god), some of them even claimed of being direct descendants  and people blindly follow such idiots (who in turn are very smart because they know the common man’s weak points).

I won’t say anything about truth, but I just hope that sanity, reasonableness and logic prevails especially when it’s exam time.