In December 2005, my dad had this wonderful idea of spending his last LTA(leave travel allowance), before retiring, on a trip to the holiest of all places in India - Varanasi.
It was winter holidays at IIIT and I had just joined the robotics group. My professor, after I informed him about my piligrimage, told me what I could do during the travel and hotel stays - read a bunch of papers and form a basis for my thesis. Of course, those were the initial days and I was really enthusiastic and I did take a truck-load of research papers along with me. And I am shi***ng you not, I did read a couple of them on the fourth day of my trip. The reasons for which you would know later on. After the end of each of the first two days, I wrote a mail to my friends about what I felt about Varanasi. Here's what I wrote:
mail dated dec 22, 2005:
hi fellows,
It was winter holidays at IIIT and I had just joined the robotics group. My professor, after I informed him about my piligrimage, told me what I could do during the travel and hotel stays - read a bunch of papers and form a basis for my thesis. Of course, those were the initial days and I was really enthusiastic and I did take a truck-load of research papers along with me. And I am shi***ng you not, I did read a couple of them on the fourth day of my trip. The reasons for which you would know later on. After the end of each of the first two days, I wrote a mail to my friends about what I felt about Varanasi. Here's what I wrote:
mail dated dec 22, 2005:
hi fellows,
now am in kaasi. visiting lot of temples daily. everything here is 'viswanath' mandir and the second language here is not urdu,not english, not bengali but our own telugu. you go near the temple side and everyone can understand and speak telugu. thats because andhrites are the largest number of visitors. guides can instantly recognize telugu ppl(even if u r not talking telugu) and come running to u offering this that and blah blah exploiting poor fellows. telugu ppl are easily fooled here, every hundi here has three languages written on it, hindi, eng and telugu. every poojari is an outright as***le, even the main pujari is no exception, everyone expects money, ppl call u into temples just like our 7 seater drivers, i was so ashamed to call myself a brahmin coz every brahmin here thinks he is the messenger of god. traffic is hell, u wouldn't want to drive a car here coz u'll never reach ur destination. u want to go by walk then the road is full of shit/dung and the famous banarasi pan. till yesterday i couldn't find any kind of bhakti here. today was a bit better, had bath in the ganga and visited a 200 BC dated buddhist site, saw the great ashoka pillar and the great 'lion capital' (the one after which india got its national symbol...4 lions ashoka chakra) that was really splendid. i went to the actual excavation site. visited japanese,chinese,thai buddhist temples, lot better than our temples. tomorrow we are going to vindhyachal and allahabad to see prayag..triveni sangamam. ppl say one has to be lucky to come to kasi and that not everyone gets a chance. for now i don't find it so, let me see if i'll be lucky in the coming 3 days.
okey dokey dudes, bye .
mail dated dec 24, 2005:
mail dated dec 24, 2005:
hi fellows,
today's trip was a worser experience, my dad emptied his pockets at every temple with the 'supposed' priests yelling and pleading asking us to come inside. nearly 2500 was spent on today's trip(including boat fare dakshina blah blah) for now i am thinking of converting to Christianity, baptize myself, change my name to karthikeya 'john' viswanath and celebrate christmas tomorrow. saw many 'historic' places again today where maa durga killed a rakshas, sitaji cooked meal for ramji, drank water from the well where ramji too drank..the pandit said water will be sweet but i only saw bacteria in it and drank it coz i was 'ordered' to do so, gave food to sea gulls and langurs but none of those brought any peace to my mind. i am missing my dear hyderabad so much, i dont even miss guntur this much, hyderabad is better in many ways i must confess, though it changes and corrupts people's mind, it still is the best.
today's trip was a worser experience, my dad emptied his pockets at every temple with the 'supposed' priests yelling and pleading asking us to come inside. nearly 2500 was spent on today's trip(including boat fare dakshina blah blah) for now i am thinking of converting to Christianity, baptize myself, change my name to karthikeya 'john' viswanath and celebrate christmas tomorrow. saw many 'historic' places again today where maa durga killed a rakshas, sitaji cooked meal for ramji, drank water from the well where ramji too drank..the pandit said water will be sweet but i only saw bacteria in it and drank it coz i was 'ordered' to do so, gave food to sea gulls and langurs but none of those brought any peace to my mind. i am missing my dear hyderabad so much, i dont even miss guntur this much, hyderabad is better in many ways i must confess, though it changes and corrupts people's mind, it still is the best.
perhaps i am the devil's son, u know, just like in the novel 'the omen' where the devil's son cries and becomes violent when he is taken inside a church, i too am getting revulsion for this supposedly holy city. this city is holy no doubt but the men sitting around the god have made this city more polluted than all the factories of india put together can ever hope of.
thats it from me fellows, bye c ya fellows soon on 31st,perhaps the soothing sight of hyderabad will settle me down. hope so.
I showed the above piece of writing to so many of my friends during the following years as it is very close to my heart. It was the first time I penned down an experience of mine and shared it with my friends, and it did succeed in bringing some peace of mind before I went to bed.
Those were the days when i was still a believer but, believe me, my belief was stretched to its limit after the trip. During the following many days, infact months, I used get cynical, gory, images before my eyes whenever I saw or imagined a shiv-ling. So after the first three days of the sensational shock, I preferred to stay indoors and let my mom and dad wallow in devotion. As for my professor, I read a couple of papers among the hundreds I had taken along.
I showed the above piece of writing to so many of my friends during the following years as it is very close to my heart. It was the first time I penned down an experience of mine and shared it with my friends, and it did succeed in bringing some peace of mind before I went to bed.
Those were the days when i was still a believer but, believe me, my belief was stretched to its limit after the trip. During the following many days, infact months, I used get cynical, gory, images before my eyes whenever I saw or imagined a shiv-ling. So after the first three days of the sensational shock, I preferred to stay indoors and let my mom and dad wallow in devotion. As for my professor, I read a couple of papers among the hundreds I had taken along.
2 comments:
I empathize with you, the situation is similar at many places of pilgrimage, not that i have visited many any ways. It is shameful how religion is used as petty money making business, what is more shameful how people fall for it so easily. When it is the matter of God, every kind of rationality takes a back seat.
I remember this particular incident, when I and my dad went to Trambakeshwar shiv temple ,somewhere near maharastra. I remember liking the temple architecture and all, and while we were standing in the queue, I was horrified to see, how every devotee was emptying a whole half litre pack of milk over the shivling ! I remember having an huge argument with my dad on how it was absolutely ridiculous amount of wastage, and how i would rather prefer to give our pack to some beggar outside than pour it over the shivling or better not buy it at all. Sadly I lost the argument and contributed to the insanity.
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