Shivoham Shivoham

Having just come back from the ‘Mother of all Religious Visits’.... a dip in the mighty Ganges... I am feeling all pious and invincible, myself. I was told that all my ‘sins’ have been washed away. My interpretation: I am ready for a new stock in my new pot of sins! 

I am totally sentimental when it comes to being religious and all. Religious, yet flexible. The customs whose logic I find irrelevant in today’s world and have the sanity to not pass on to my kids, I try to peacefully and respectfully discard them. At the same time, I am not judging someone who is still blindly following the age-old superstitious traditions. My reasoning says that the other person is yet to be enlightened. I also have the utmost respect for all the religions with ‘Live, and let live.’ being my ultimate mantra for life. I have been to various Churches and Gurudwaras and Dargahs and Jain and Buddhist temples, all in a hope to find calm. It is present everywhere. It is present inside you. We just need to look for it. It is in our own good to survive peacefully, with tolerance for other religions. They give us various holidays, after all, throughout the year. And you never know, when whose God might come to our rescue in the event called Life!

While I came back feeling all blessed from my recent trip, it is quite heart-wrenching to see the plight of such holy places. The horror begins the moment you put your foot in that place. The taxi guys and autowaalas are literally waiting to drag you down from the train, with or without your luggage; and pack you off in their vehicles to whatever your destination is. I am still recovering from a recurring back ache caused by the bumpy ride on the royal e-auto... the only vehicle capable of taking a group of you in the tiny bylanes, lined with all sorts of colourful and bright shops, of the place supposed to be huge on spiritual quotient.

By the time you reach the hotel, your everything is aching... by trying to hold all your luggage from flying off from the wretched zooming ride while trying not to hit your precious little head on its roof and also hanging on for your dear life. Somehow you reach the hotel, and look forward to a luxurious stay, while hoping for a truly life-changing, enlightening and an almost cosmic experience. But just then, you spot the mysterious ‘guide’ lurking in the corner. He is eyeing the unsuspecting travellers... waiting for his chance to pounce upon them while gauging their level of ignorance about the place. It is good to have at least some knowledge of the places to visit around and how to go about it, lest these guides take you for a ride.

We had a few rituals to perform during this trip of ours. We had googled for a ‘suitable Pandit’ and gone through his FB and LinkedIn profile to make sure that we were getting the real deal. The tech-savvy Pandit reached the hotel promptly to accompany us to the temple. We were all anticipating a spiritually gratifying worship session. May be that is where we went wrong!

Because we already had a local Pandit in tow, we were spared from the clutches of the other ‘religious vultures’. The road was lined with shops having tempting knick-knacks at very competitive prices. Their exceptional marketing skills are hard to find. They know how to manipulate you by mis-using your religious beliefs in selling everything from ‘actual rudraksh of the Lord, to be worn around your neck for mental peace’ to the ‘dust from His footprints when he stepped on some demon, to be sprinkled in your house for warding off all the evils’. The walk to the temple was shunted around from the shoe counter to the electronics counter to the ticket counter to the locker counter to the offerings counter to the... hushhhh... the final queue to the ‘darshan’ of the deity. 

The queue was long, hardly moving, and quite uneventful, except for the colourful ‘sadhus’ asking for alms and the cunning monkeys screening you for food and your spectacles. There was a very feeble lady holding a cane box with two bored snakes in it. She was charging 50 rupees to touch the snakes and seek the blessings of the Lord. In case, the snake lifts its head at that precise moment, you are declared ‘the chosen one’. My only concern was what if the snakes escape in the crowd... that old lady could barely pick herself up and walk, how will she ever manage to grab her escaped prisoners?!!

Finally, we reached the doorstep of the temple. Our hearts swelled with the devotion of the highest level, waiting to catch that one glimpse of your creator. But, lo and behold, there is a sudden maddening rush of the devotees and you get involuntarily tossed around to God knows where! Somehow, we managed to reach the altar. It was a blink-and-miss guest appearance marred by the space-consuming presence of the main Pandit right there, whose main job seemed to be evaluating us as to how much money we would be donating and then deciding as to how many nanoseconds more we could struggle to stand in that crowd, drinking in the beautiful glory of the Lord. The money was literally snatched out of my hand before it could go in the donation-box. By the time we were involuntarily and unceremoniously shown the exit, I felt like winning some battle! All battered and tattered... but with a triumphant sense of victory! 

The current state of commercialisation of such holy places, where the local Pandits have their monopoly and copyright over the God, is a very sorry state. To be honest, apart from the fact that I actually visited these places of religious importance, I get more satisfaction at my own home doing Puja. It feels as if the God, too, belongs to the rich! You get a VIP entry if you ‘know somebody important’. You get a fast-track in the queue if you are ready to shell out big bucks. You get more time in front of the idol if you are handing out cash under the table. It is not difficult to streamline the whole process, but the intention to do it is missing. 

Inspite of so many devotees shelling out so much donation, day after day, the cleanliness and sanitation and hygiene at such holy places is a big question mark. Let’s face it - In a country like India, Religious Tourism is never going to go out of fashion. Why not keep churning out the finances by providing the basic utilities to the deserving worshippers?! 

We completed our other rituals and sight-seeing of the place. The ‘dip’ in the Ganges, revered as the most holy river in the Hindu mythology, was done with a lot of soul and mind convincing as the water was shamefully dirty. A few drops of the water sprinkled on the head was one of the resorts, as the water was littered with temple offerings, wrappers, bottles, disposables and what not. 

All said and done, it was one more holy place ticked off from the list. Hundred more to go. The biggest shocker occurred when our Pandit requested us to give him a five-star rating on his work profile. Spirituality has also gone the techno-way, I say!

Reminiscing that quick getaway, basking in the glory of a few brownie points on the spiritual front and healing my mind and soul before even thinking of my next mandatory religious trip, in search of the ultimate truth. I sincerely hope that the sanctity of such places with their marvellous mythological history is restored to its former glory.  SHIVOHAM SHIVOHAM!!