So we have different categories here,the more you spend(lets say you buy an Rs.250 'ticket' instead of an Rs.100 'ticket'),the shorter is the route or waiting time to view the deity.Can anything be more incredulous?If crowd control is the idea then certainly something more innovative can be done to handle that.This,I believe is a system which promotes inequality in a society already torn apart and divided by lopsided growth.Agreed,money guarantees better and prompt service almost everywhere but visiting a temple is a completely different scenario and a temple is not a goddamn restaurant where you can pay more for better service.If people are in such a hurry and they are so damn busy that they cant wait in a queue to pray to whom they believe as god,if they cant respect the other individuals who are waiting in a queue for a longer time that they feel they can barge in by paying some extra money,these people are completely unworthy of any kind of faith that they possess and they dont deserve to visit a temple at all.
Even to those who are reading this blog now,this wouldn't seem to be a big deal at all and that exactly is the worst part of this social evil,the society sees no harm in it and it's being encouraged.
The other day,I visited a prominent temple in a town which is supposed to be the home to one of the most well known temples in the state.When we(I was acompanied by a couple of my colleagues) were inside the temple,one of the guys who had accompanied me gestured us to wait and disappeared somewhere with his mobile phone.He got back after some 20 minutes with a triumphant smile and a slip in his hand and guided us inside.The temple was fairly crowded since it was an auspicious day and while I was wondering how long we would spend in the rather lenghty queue,this colleague of mine had a word with the guy manning the crowd and that guy after having a look at the slip produced by my colleague opened the side gate and let us inside and by the time I grasped what has happened,we had bypassed the long line of devotees standing there and had gone right inside the 'sannidhi' and we hadn't even purchased the special darshan 'ticket' coz that colleague of mine it seemed had some relative in the temple trust and he had used his name(written on that slip) to gain access straightaway. (making a mockery of other devotees standing there for probably an hour or more)
When we came out,this person who had used his 'influence' to take us inside commented that it was satisfying that we had a great 'darshan'.I felt thoroughly disgusted.Forget the inequality in society caused by purchasing darshan tickets inside temples,what this guy had done was a completely despicable act and he was a properly educated guy of the twentieth century and to top it all he felt that he had accomplished something.I just put myself in the shoes of one of the devotees who was standing in the queue while we had cooly walked past him.I felt anger.
God save our nation.
