Ginger & Cardamom

I had a chance to visit Shirdi temple on an extended weekend. The trip was quite a nice one specially given the fact, that it was a 400 km round trip from Pune where I got to hit the highway. The road was decent and the company was awesome. However, my friend who really wanted to visit the shrine inside the temple, being the extended weekend the crowd was overwhelming. We couldn’t even gather the courage to join the line (Okay, we includes only me) so we did a distant darshan of the shrine and came back.

All the time I actually analyzed the root cause of the problem, why visiting any famous temple is such a grilling experience physically. The result of my analysis refers that hard headed humans we Indians are we do not get it at all. Being a part of the society where who you are having “coffee” with is a business of supreme importance for the whole neighborhood, especially if both the parties of the coffee reflect can be classified into two distinct category depending upon their reproductive organs (well after Dostana I guess it wouldn’t matter to make the hue and cry). So we just don’t learn how to respect privacy. This war with privacy has actually reached to a level that even our dear god have not been spared.

If god actually wanted, being the supreme power in the whole world (No I am not talking about George Bush or Barak Obama, I am talking about the Real God) he could have gotten as big stretch of land right across the VT station stretching to Nariman Point & Marine Drive, or right in the center of Connaught Place, or Mount Road in Chennai. But no he chose places like Shirdi, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Tirupati etc. he chose all the places with difficult approach in interiors, sometimes at scary heights and altitudes. There ought to be some reason for it. Yes there is a reason and it is, he didn’t wanted to be bothered the whole day. You know he wouldn’t have liked every time a train gets delayed, a devotee crosses the street from VT station to have a little chat why his train is being delayed. Or a De-Vote-d politician walking across the Connaught place demanding an explanation why he couldn’t get a seat in the parliament. The god being the most visionary power present in the universe thought it would not be a good idea to choose his humble abode amidst the posh localities ( I am sure if he wanted he could have got it, Especially in the times of this recession the property is a steal deal).

But as with most visionaries, they miss out an element which comes as a surprise. With God it has been no different, he chose to stay indoors and run the world. He moved towards interiors putting up a metaphorical do not disturb sign. But we Indians being the superior of the breeds have always been genetically immuned to any kind of signs/mechanism/laws protecting privacies and hence we never get it. So harping all along our core competencies of stubbornness and no respect for privacy. We have managed to crowd the places that god chose as his abode with unprecedented persistence that he actually need a full blown cabinet to manage the visitor (I am hearing that elections would actually be held in the God’s Own Country).

From what I can see from here our god has only one option left to move under water with their abode so that they can have their privacy for still more time. Submarine travel is still not common and he just might have peace at last once the areas are under water. But when these temples like badrinath, Vaishno Devi temple would be under water it sounds like what we call as “Pralay”. Funny isn’t it, if it really would be for the sake of privacy.