Amitabh to Ayodhya

Amitabh Bachchan falls ill. He is a legend. His family knows that. He is also the advertising face of several public service campaigns. Should not the family have had the sense to put up an appeal that they would much rather not be flooded with flowers, gifts and people thronging the hospital? Could they not have told those celebs and starlets to please stay away?

This has become a circus. National newspapers are giving front page coverage to his intestines; they have full page articles tracing his illnesses and his career. Now, readers can send in text messages, and this will be a huge killing for the cellphone operators.

Worst of all are the religious overtones. People crowded the Siddhi Vinayak temple in Mumbai to pray for his recovery; I read somewhere about a “Muslim look-alike” of the star who will offer some Muslim prayers. Then the churches will do their thing.

News channels with wide-eyed reporters are covering all this with the enthusiasm they should reserve for a war zone or calamity. Many of them look like they are ready to kneel down and mutter some mantras in any language.

And why do hospitals have an area with religious symbols? Are we trying to say that those who are waiting with bated breath for their loved ones to recover cannot silently turn to whichever god they believe in? Why the hell should others be assailed with the scent of camphor and incense?

Everywhere you turn, religion is dancing before your eyes. Music competitions have the judges screaming, “Jai Ho, Mangal Mai ho, “Jai Mata di” (strangely, I have not seen any of these programmes have Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and music, as their reigning deity). The participants are shown doing pujas and performing the namaaz. Damn. If you want to sing, then do riyaaz.

The deified business tycoons, the Ambanis, go to their ‘family temple’, whatever that means (does anyone have proprietorial rights over a place of worship even if they have donated a hefty sum or built it themselves?), and it becomes national news. The flashy brothers and bahus who have spent their lives in the lap of luxury and amassing wealth, not always legally, become these demure, ‘simple’ devotees covered with shawls scrawled with religious motifs. Is this all it takes to be considered humane?

I know one industrialist son who rolled up all the way to the Tirupati Temple to have his wish answered. He did marry the girl he desired (he would have got her anyway; her family thought he was a great catch!), but that marriage lasted eight months and it was a disaster from the first day.

We have bizarre instances of people marrying gods. I say, good for them, at least they are sparing another human being. But is this front page news? And if it must be covered, then why is it not examined under a microscope? Why isn’t there an addendum that this sort of behaviour is reprehensible and socially incorrect? Why do the devotees, who believe that god is the supreme being, accept charlatans?

Political leaders without spines suddenly stand upright to flaunt their religious affiliations. Why don’t we ban any religious display by them? I do not get excited to see these portly creatures placing chaadars at dargahs, or bowing at temples, or cleaning shoes at gurudwaras. If it gives them a personal high, they can always get their own cameramen or family members to record this for their home videos. We, the people, do not have to be inflicted with this nonsense. I’d much rather see the butt of a well-toned model selling jeans than some national leader bending awkwardly before some shrivelling marigolds and roses.

And Uma Bharti may go where she wants to for a walk, but let us not make her into some major rebel only because her destination is Ayodhya. We have milked this little town dry for all it is worth. We don’t seem to be in a hurry to give up. The Centre has earmarked Rs. 54 crore to protect this site along with Kashi and Mathura. New security plans include pumping up paratroopers and the police with fancy ammunition.

These cops cannot do a thing when kidnapped children are murdered, women raped (sometimes by them), senior citizens killed in cold blood even in the posh areas of large metros because often they are ill-equipped. But they have the best little weapons to protect places of worship.

I can understand that faith does give people some comfort. Ordinary people do ordinary things when they visit shrines, but they are happy with a little memento from the temple, mosque, church. Why do we need to have gallons of ghee, tons of flowers, sickly smelling stuff and expensive idols and filigree and stained glass?

When will we see a day when a temple has a box not to feed the idol (stones do not eat or drink), but to help cancer patients? When will mosques collect money for street children instead of adding one more marble slab? When will churches appeal for funds on behalf of HIV patients rather than importing mosaic tiles? When will this be done without putting the fear of god in the minds of the faithful, but because it is the socially responsible thing to do?

Will Amitabh Bachchan (now that he is talking) send out a request for people to stop crowding places of worship and instead visit a home for the needy on his behalf, or make an eye donation, or go to the slums to make sure that children get their polio vaccine?

Try looking at it this way: god is in the details.
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ChowKuote An interactor ardently supporting a ‘petition’ by another to write on sex has this to say: “I have always felt that sex and violence, both, sell. And that Chowk overdoes it on the violence side, and, "underdoes" it on the sex side.”

At Chowk, we essentially like it ‘rare’, not overdone. Just type the word “sex”, though, and search this site – 506 entries (well…). We have not tried other related terms like skin, flesh, sexuality, S & M, condoms, breasts, tits, ass, phallus, penis, vagina, passion, pleasure, perversions, kinks, orgasms, rubber, ball, Dick, Willy…heck, why live in the past? You might even try typing in lower case the name of the current US president.