{"id":21628,"date":"2014-12-03T18:07:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T12:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.entecity.com\/?p=21628"},"modified":"2014-12-03T18:07:08","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T12:37:08","slug":"appeal-and-appease-by-aarti-panikkar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/appeal-and-appease-by-aarti-panikkar\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeal and Appease! By Aarti Panikkar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read a piece of news the other day. \u201cRs.3.17 Crore worth Gold plates and vessels as offerings to Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala for conducting temple rituals<\/strong>.\u201d That too from an organization that is registered as a charitable trust!<\/p>\n

Reminded me of my childhood days when I used to go to temples, see all the deities one by one, lay down my prayers, and put one tiny shiny coin of 25ps or 50 ps in those huge belly-sized donation boxes royally placed in front of each one of them. When I look back, I can clearly comprehend the reason why I used to do that. It was perfectly clear in my head, and I had a completely logical explanation which made absolute sense then. I used to think those were piggy banks of each god and that all of us supplicants who submitted our grievances were “supposed to” (like that was mandatory) bribe them with a little something if we were to be granted a favourable outcome for our requests\/complaints\/wishes. There were times when I used to run short of coins by the time I reached the last deity, n I would promptly append my prayer request with, \u201cSorry, next time I\u2019ll make sure I\u2019ve even valued coins to give everyone\u201d or \u201cPls collect your share from Ganesha, OK?\u201d (Since Ganesha never failed to get his cut from my kitty owing to his placement in temples).<\/p>\n

\"MP

MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy donating Rs 3.70 Golden vesture at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple<\/p><\/div>\n

To think that all this hokum made perfect sense to me then is quite a wonder to me now. I can only describe it as the naivety of an 8 year old. But the fact that this kind of appeasement seems quite logical to many (‘many’ would be an understatement) fully-grown adults makes me again wonder, in fact leaves me baffled. Is it because they are as gullible as a little child or is it plain stupidity? N sadly I can only go with the latter now that I have a perfectly rational brain! I wish I could get into these people’s heads and rack their upstairs a little to find the answer to why in the world they would not only think but also believe with complete conviction that the so-called gods (whose existence and the practice of putting faith in them itself is again debatable) would actually shower them with blessings if they pour them with gold, silver or pieces of paper. Gods, if you are somewhere around, I have only one thing to ask of you. Save these blockheads from squandering their money on things that you guys are actually least bothered about. Enlighten those dim-wits not to expect your philanthropic wand to cast magic over their lives, just because they dropped off a sack full of bankrolls in front of you in some temple, church or mosque!<\/p>\n

\"Pratap

Pratap Reddy of Penna Cement, Hyderabad donating Rs5 crores worth Diamond studded Golden Hands at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple<\/p><\/div>\n

I totally get it when people donate into charity boxes of religious institutions thinking the goodness would be returned somehow, somewhere, sometime in their lifetime. How much of the money actually does go to those who are worthy of it is another question altogether. However, it still makes sense in being altruistic even if you don\u2019t make certain your kindness reaches the deserving. But splurging your hard earned money on these so-called exorbitant “offerings” does not make any sense to me at any level of logic that I’m capable of thinking! I\u2019m sure such behaviour totally irks the guts out of many, but feel handcuffed at not being able to even comment on it, because they are bound to turn explosive at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n

There is nothing more pathetic than such people parading right in front of you, and ‘flaunting’ with pride their bribery list and expecting you not to at least mutter under your breath \u2018moron\u2019! Our people are so eager to pour money in truckloads, to be on the good books of these benevolent Gods. It\u2019s almost as if they get high on shelling out money for making \u2018gifts\u2019 for Gods \u2013 5-million dollar veil, bonsai-sized gold idol replicas, gem studded jewelries, beautification of idols inside shrines, and not to mention a gazillion other ridiculously extravagant religious practices. It is so disturbingly appalling that these people with their fully developed functional brains, think these so-called almighties expect them to spend even on building new palatial abodes for them that cost millions, in a world that is supposed to be home to a 100 million* odd people who are actually homeless!<\/strong> Have heard the adage that helping hands are holier than praying lips. And we seem to be living in a world where people are under the delusion that bribing hands are the holiest!<\/p>\n

P.S. :<\/strong> If any briber’s religious sentiments have been hurt, please feel free to blame yourself!<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> * United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 2005.<\/p>\n

Aarti\u2019s personal blog:<\/strong><\/div>\n
http:\/\/snippetsofmydelirium.blogspot.in\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read a piece of news the other day. \u201cRs.3.17 Crore worth Gold plates and vessels as offerings to Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala for conducting temple rituals.\u201d That too from an organization that is registered as a charitable trust! Reminded me of my childhood days when I used to go to temples, see all the deities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-news","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}