Let me start 2007 with yet another pet peeve of mine - Hindu temples celebrating the "New Year" with special midnight prayers.
It makes absolutely no frigging sense. The "New Year" is not a new year per the Hindu calendar. The new year, if one follows the Hindu almanac, falls at different periods, depending on linguistic distribution of the Hindu population: Tamilians and Keralites have it around mid-April, Gujaratis have it with Diwali (and so do many others in North India) etc.
In which case, why the bloody hell do all these temples have special pujai at 00:00 hours on Jan 1 every year? Of course this is a recent phenomenon, perhaps lasting a decade. But still, it completely defies logic.
Any Hindu temple is supposed to close down with special prayers to the deity at night and you wake them up the next morning, again with special prayers. But on just this one day, we break all possible aagama shaastras and conduct prayers at midnight.
Why do you think this is? Blatant westernisation and commercialisation of the Indian mind. Most of the western world, heralds in the "New Year" with special midnight mass in their churches. That's of course, for the families. The youth are anyway going to be parading around the streets, or filling in the pubs and discos to dance into the "New Year".
We Indians have to copy all this right? So we have all hooligans roaming the street on the night of Dec 31. Zipping on their bikes like maniacs. Drinking like there is no tomorrow. Dancing in pubs/discos for obvious reasons. Again, this is the younger demography's domain.
So what does the average Indian family person do? Use religion conveniently. Lets have a midnight prayer in the temple. That way I get to be out of the house to bring in the "New Year". And since there is a temple in the plan, the senior citizens wont be offended. And for the temple authorities - its money baby. No one is going to enter a temple on such a special occasion and not put something in the hundial or the priest's aarthi thattu. Not to mention, the allied businesses around the temple like the flower and fruit vendors, the chappal stand people and the beggars, all stand to benefit!
Basically it goes to prove my theory that the temples these days function purely as a business.
So if you have even the least bit of faith in the Hindu religion, PLEASE DON'T GO TO TEMPLES at 00:00 HOURS OF ANY JAN 1.
Oops.... Have I proven myself to be an atheist again?
1 comment:
The priests in the temples are like the steel Karandi used to chop the Borottas on the hot plate in any roadside shop. They make enormous noise and though they chop up the rich Borottas into small pieces, the Borotta comes out as a wholesome tasty product. But the Steel Karandi in itself is nothing, merely a shimmering unwieldy noisy tool. Exactly like the temple priest. It is the cook who is the culprit. The cook adds salt, spice and sweat to the Borotta, and any deficiency in the Borotta is the cook's fault. The same manner, the trustees of the Administrative Board of the temples, take the decisions for New Year Pooja, and the priests are used to make this happen. The trustees provide additional flavouring in the form of serial lights, concerts etc. too. If you confront the cook he will hit you with the Steel Karandi. The same manner, the priest will be scapegoat. If you need to set things right, drag the Hindu temple trustees to the middle of the road, and ask them to open the temples for special pooja for Bakhrid, videotape their refusal to do so and comments, and send them to Iraq and the video feed to Al Jazeera.
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