SPECIAL DARSHANS
I just returned from a long pilgrimage to various temples and holy places of worship. I went, not because I felt a certain “calling” but because the only sort of vacation I can hope to go out with my parents is the religious kind; that constitute of a few famous deities to worship, melodious chanting and singing inside beautifully constructed ancient temples, a scenic view with the hills and rivers and most importantly some delicious south Indian meals on a fresh banana leaf.
This time we went to Tirupati, known to be the richest temple in this country. I had been there many times as a child and found myself recalling some memories. It is hard to forget a temple with its infamous darshan queues where people throng for more than 20 hours at a stretch just to catch a glimpse of the lord Balaji for hardly a minute, and that too if you shove rupee notes to bribe the security guards, who otherwise punch your sides so violently, yelling at you to move, that it makes you wonder if you had by mistake not reached hell instead.
However, my family didn’t have to go through this grueling torture. My father’s brother knew someone who knew someone’s uncle whose good friend was some VIP none of us had heard of. Our darshan was taken care of. Ours was classified as “Special Darshan.”
For us there was a special gate, cleaner pathways and no crowd breathing down your neck. We breezed through in a special queue, passing by lines and lines of people who had waited the whole night and half the day hardly without any breathing space, let alone food or water. It took 5 minutes flat and we were there at the final gate. For us, the guards and security were warned to not push or make haste. We saw the lord in his magnificent form, muttered our prayers and we were out.
I discovered that special darshans were mainly offered to people who paid a fee for it. For Rs.1000/- you could get to the lord in about 20 minutes. If you paid more you even got to go inside and stand at a distance of a couple of feet from the main deity. In fact, the more you paid, the closer you got to the lord, the longer you were allowed to stay and the more you were blessed by the temple priest!
Welcome to the age of special darshans where religion is the next biggest money making business. What’s more, it’s tax-free! A holy shrine once used to be a place you could go, to feel one with god. It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor or to what class of society you belonged. Today it matters – The richer you are, the closer you can get to god. Whoever said ‘In the eyes of god, all are equal’, should visit Indian temples to witness the most transparent form of religious corruption. The interesting part is that no one seems to protest. A special darshan today is as fair as paying your water or electricity bills.
It’s a simple unspoken rule. The rich are nearer to god than the poor. Thank god that it applies only to physical proximity, and not in terms of a spiritual awakening. Because then, that would give birth to a whole new issue: Politics of the heavenly kind.
I just returned from a long pilgrimage to various temples and holy places of worship. I went, not because I felt a certain “calling” but because the only sort of vacation I can hope to go out with my parents is the religious kind; that constitute of a few famous deities to worship, melodious chanting and singing inside beautifully constructed ancient temples, a scenic view with the hills and rivers and most importantly some delicious south Indian meals on a fresh banana leaf.
This time we went to Tirupati, known to be the richest temple in this country. I had been there many times as a child and found myself recalling some memories. It is hard to forget a temple with its infamous darshan queues where people throng for more than 20 hours at a stretch just to catch a glimpse of the lord Balaji for hardly a minute, and that too if you shove rupee notes to bribe the security guards, who otherwise punch your sides so violently, yelling at you to move, that it makes you wonder if you had by mistake not reached hell instead.
However, my family didn’t have to go through this grueling torture. My father’s brother knew someone who knew someone’s uncle whose good friend was some VIP none of us had heard of. Our darshan was taken care of. Ours was classified as “Special Darshan.”
For us there was a special gate, cleaner pathways and no crowd breathing down your neck. We breezed through in a special queue, passing by lines and lines of people who had waited the whole night and half the day hardly without any breathing space, let alone food or water. It took 5 minutes flat and we were there at the final gate. For us, the guards and security were warned to not push or make haste. We saw the lord in his magnificent form, muttered our prayers and we were out.
I discovered that special darshans were mainly offered to people who paid a fee for it. For Rs.1000/- you could get to the lord in about 20 minutes. If you paid more you even got to go inside and stand at a distance of a couple of feet from the main deity. In fact, the more you paid, the closer you got to the lord, the longer you were allowed to stay and the more you were blessed by the temple priest!
Welcome to the age of special darshans where religion is the next biggest money making business. What’s more, it’s tax-free! A holy shrine once used to be a place you could go, to feel one with god. It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor or to what class of society you belonged. Today it matters – The richer you are, the closer you can get to god. Whoever said ‘In the eyes of god, all are equal’, should visit Indian temples to witness the most transparent form of religious corruption. The interesting part is that no one seems to protest. A special darshan today is as fair as paying your water or electricity bills.
It’s a simple unspoken rule. The rich are nearer to god than the poor. Thank god that it applies only to physical proximity, and not in terms of a spiritual awakening. Because then, that would give birth to a whole new issue: Politics of the heavenly kind.
posted by shriya at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
nice one. identify completely and have therefore stopped pilgrimages.
jk
how true... man has found a way to bribe god too..
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