Santa Claus: The Salesman with Claws

Having emerged from the Christmas season, which is not yet over, a not-so changed man, I wonder how many actually did bring about a change in their lives in this year.

Well Christmas is indeed a time of cheer and goodwill among men but it is also the international standard for sales targets, advertising budget overruns, depleting savings and burning through piles of hard earned cash – all in the name of the Lord.

Image Courtesy: batman.wikia.com

Well, that’s at least what I’ve heard some of the clergy say this year what with the birthday boy, Jesus himself, disappearing out of the whole Christmas picture with every passing year. To put it into perspective, there seems to be a feeling that Jesus didn’t get invited to his own birthday party because somebody brought the cake, another brought the drinks, a third brought the food and the fourth brought the dessert and there was nobody left to inform the guy for whom they actually threw the party.

Sounds weird?

Some seem to be concerned that the commercialization of festivals has led Santa Claus to become an even bigger idol that Jesus today. And that should worry the leaders off the church if it doesn’t already. One has to admit, it is great for the propagation of religion but the essence as such keeps losing significance.

To kids today, Christmas seems to mean nothing other than the fact that their parents getting them gifts, for teenagers it’s all about the parties, for young adults it’s a day off of work and the others, some time to spend with the family.

This obviously doesn’t hold true for everyone but observation has led me to believe that the importance of Christmas has dwindled down to just the poster boy of a soft drinks company and means nothing more than just another holiday.

Image Courtesy: www.youthareawesome.com

It is just like what happens to other festivals celebrated here in India that I’ve written about in this post on Durga puja. But well, something needs to be done to drive sales and what better way than appealing  to peoples sentiments that inadvertently force them to show their love towards their family by having them make money for companies.

In the memorable words of Lord Cutler Bekett from Pirates of the Caribbean:

It’s just good business…

Image Courtesy: www.reddit.com

A very Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year!

Note: This post is not meant to be disrespectful to any religion, people or God/s. It is just my personal opinion on what I've observed in my vicinity. Any connection to people (living or dead) or Companies (and franchises) or Gods (and Goddesses) is merely coincidental and is not deliberately meant.

The Monk who almost wanted a Ferrari

Tales of organized religions running after money and trying to spread their faith all around either by force or through bribes are mire in the history of not only this nation, but the world. But these are just tales and conspiracies which may or may not be rooted in fact. What happens however, when such stories of a real incident come to light?

I know of one such incident and although I refuse to admit if this is fiction or fact, it makes it very clear that the voices reciting the vow of poverty are often lost in the need for materialistic luxuries of life.

Featured here: The Bishop of Bling, Germany.
Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Once there was a priest who, after many years, finally made it as the preacher of a large congregation. The place of worship was large and the number of devotees was also higher in comparison to other places where he’d been assigned before. This city he went to had a reputation of not being able to tolerate nonsense from their preachers and this priest, in his pride, managed to get on the wrong side of the entire council. It was just like the previous priest; he was transferred because of his arrogance.

This priest managed to run things his way for a while but ultimately the patience of the people ran out because he never stopped making them regret the fact that they didn’t contribute enough money to God and by that, he meant he wasn’t happy with the amount of money that went into his upkeep after paying for the maintenance of the house of God. He kept repeating the dire situation of the accounts, all under the statue of his maker while the congregation tried its best to keep him happy. But it was not to be and the priest’s senior had to have him transferred for his own well-being.

This priest was sent to a village whose faithful consisted of just a handful of people. He was appalled! How could he be sent to this place after heading a temple of a big city? It was outrageous. He probably thought that these villagers deserved a new priest without any experience while he deserved to be moving up in the hierarchy and heading another big place of worship. How dare the management leave him to rot in some godforsaken village?

And so, once again, senior had to transfer him and this time, even though he got a small town, which was technically a promotion from the village, the priest was sullen at this transfer too. Now this town had recently been upgraded, divided into two parts and another temple was built to accommodate all the faithful. This priest got the new temple and its people but he had to commute to this new temple everyday from his residence, which was still at the old place of worship. It takes time to shift quarters and it hadn’t happened yet. A minor inconvenience no doubt, to travel within the same city and pry for the people. But the priest now demanded separate living quarters for himself and a servant for his needs at the new place. The management decided this was too costly an affair and refused this demand.

Within a year, the priest demanded a transfer.

Looking at his track record, it does seem plausible that this person would have fared better as an IAS officer than he did as a priest.

It only goes to show how the people who serve God are also not totally immune to the pleasures of life and it’s not like they don’t deserve them but there are those who work to sincerely spread love and foster goodwill among people according to what their scriptures say. These sincere people try to do good in often horrible conditions, among hostiles, in dangerous territory and under threat of prosecution and death on a regular basis. The priest in the story and those like him give everyone else a bad name and are often the reason why even the most religious of people tend to lose their faith.

Death by Blasphemy

I’m writing this post today because I think I know that barring natural causes or a horrific accident, I’ll probably be alive reading the response that you so considerately are going to write in the comments section. But it is not so for a lot of other bloggers and by ‘other’, I mean bloggers in Bangladesh who don’t know whether they’ll be alive to see their message reach their readers or not. They don’t know if they are safe even within the sanctity of their homes.

Image Courtesy: The Hindu.

Two bloggers are already dead in our neighbouring nation because they apparently wrote blasphemous stuff on their blogs. They were supposedly atheists who wrote critically of religion. I’m not sure of the content of their writing but the answer to anything is never violence. It’s not that things cannot be solved that way, but it is nobody’s right to inflict it on another.

Obviously, it is wrong to write hateful things about other religions and their leaders and so on and so forth but the punishment for that cannot be death. Causing mass agitation and public anger can be argued to have severe consequence but death for anything without the due process of law is something I believe no brand of religion would condone.

Freedom of Expression is a basic right that cannot be taken away from anyone and those radicals who seek to do so cannot claim to be doing it on religious grounds. These people need psychiatric treatment and a thorough explanation of how civilized society is supposed to function.

It is not that I’m supporting the bloggers without knowing what they wrote. It is easy for a writer to become a terrorist and even if an assumption is made that they wrote something that could and did hurt religious feelings, I think the due process of law in Bangladesh could have taken care of the matter. In any case, writing anything against anyone is no reason for violence and it certainly didn’t make these two bloggers legitimate targets.

Radical behaviour has become quite the norm, not only in one country but across the board. Fanaticism is rampant In India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the entirety of Middle-East Asia, Northern Africa and Europe as well. Tolerance and co-habitation seem to be ideas of the past as different coloured flags are followed by the same weapons, murdering people with the same colour of blood.

Every day is 'Good Friday' in India

For those of you don’t know what Good Friday is, it is the day Jesus was hanged from a cross and killed. Just to make it clear, it isn’t literally a ‘Good’ Friday. The Vatican just thought it would be funny to confuse the rest of humanity, who, to this date, still very considerately text Christians ‘Happy Good Friday’. Well done Vatican, well done. I’m sure at least one Cardinal still tells this joke at the annual Papal dinner and the rest of them can’t stop chuckling.

However, the point is that Jesus died and the scriptures may say that he died for the sins of humanity and that it was foretold and that he had to pay the price to save mankind. This is what religion says. Now, if we just take it from the Roman and Jewish perspective, the man was stirring up trouble; Plain and simple. He was the whistle-blower who debunked old laws and gave the people something new to believe in. He spoke with an air of authority before those who weren’t used to people even looking straight at them. He defied almost all conventional rules and went even against the judicial system to protect adulteresses. He touched patients with leprosy and entered the house of a damned tax collector. That is why he had to die.

Shown here: Jesus whipping the crap out of money-changers in the temple of Jerusalem.
Image Courtesy: Google Images.

How many of you don’t know a person like this? How many of you haven’t seen stories of people in India trying to do good, punished for their deeds? Haven’t you seen whistle-blowers killed or jailed? Haven’t you seen honest officers transferred or killed? Haven’t you seen activists jailed or killed? Haven’t you seen leaders blown up for instigating revolutions?

Prophet – Sage – Leader – Activist – Son of God, whoever you are… if you go against those in power, you cannot live very long.

Jesus was a dissident of sorts. He strove to bring people around to the idea of thinking about what was right and not follow religious leaders blindly. It was the movie ‘Oh My God’, but playing out 2000 years back. Jesus spoke on law reform, commercialization of religion, better healthcare, and upper-class hypocrisy among other things. 

Son of God or not, the man Jesus was a revolutionary of his time and just like him, anyone who stands up to cry foul is shot down just like he was. The only difference is that Jesus was nailed to wood and today, revolutionaries and free thinkers are either buried in or burnt on wood.

Breaking Chains of Religious Hatred

One unfortunate result of this brilliant communication application called Whatsapp is that overzealous and people of a more religious mindset keep sending novenas, rosaries, prayers, deep cries for help from the depths of their hearts and sometimes messages that are deeply intolerant towards other religions. Sometimes, the last type of messages almost makes one believe they’re part of “ISIS Public Relations Group”. And this is not to single out any one religion; these types of messages come from across the board and are sometimes wrong on so many levels that sometimes an argument automatically erupts even though deep inside one knows that it’s like talking to a wall.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Apart from the harmless prayers and the propagation of religion, the things that really are disturbing are messages that call for a radical shift to stop the perceived persecution of a particular religious group whose traditions (read: holidays) are being eliminated by the government in conjunction with fringe elements who wish to convert the nation into one religion.

There is a strong call to action in these messages that is almost frightening to someone who understands the kind of repercussions that can accompany these messages once they are kept bombarding to the general public. It creates the kind of schism that can lead to a deep seated hatred in the long run and as someone who lives in a city that’s already seen brutal religious violence in the past, it is horrifying to read these messages and makes one wonder at how things have gone so bad.

Messages informing of attacks on places of worship and forceful conversions take a turn towards absolute outrage that has been unseen in India before. Allegations on television debate shows are one thing and the active radicalization of those who wish to live in peace is another. It only goes to reinforce the fact that religions are always going to be violent, however peaceful they might appear on the outside. This is not a comment on entire groups but radical elements that fester inside and are reactive to even minor infractions by others.

These are no better than the terrorists who age open war upon society. In fact, they are even more dangerous because they wage their guerrilla warfare through communication techniques and so subtly that the recipient might not even realize the shift in their mindsets until it is too late and sometimes not even then. In the media, this is known as the ‘magic bullet’ or the ‘hypodermic needle’ theory where the masses are fed an idea without their realization or recollection of the same.

It is important to see through such messages for what they really are before forwarding it to other people so as not to ‘break the chain’ of “prayer” as mentioned therein. This will not only stop the spread of hatred coming from diseased minds but also ensure the peaceful coexistence that India claims to be so proud of.

Teaching OR Preaching?

[Missionary schools, of a number of religions operate in India with a view to bringing up the children of their particular religion with a religious learning along with state-approved education. The young ones are taught the ways of their creed and are helped along the way by the holy ones who think it is their duty to bring up the next generation with as much piety as the previous one.

But there is one problem, not all children in some of these schools are of the same religion. People from across the cultural spectrum send their children to missionary schools.

One tolerates because one HAS to, but one accepts because one WANTS to. If children are educated in the way that they develop as citizens who view their fellow men beyond the boundaries of religion, I believe the world would be a better place to live in.

Religion aside, it is widely accepted that sending one’s children to missionary schools ensures better manners, better language skills, higher moral values and above all, a better human being.

Note: This post is written on the basis of my observations only. It is based on my understanding of missionary schools, not of one but multiple religions. This post has not been written to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments. This is also not a post against any missionary institutions. Anything and everything debatable or hurtful written here is purely coincidental.]

[This is my article for the Youth Connect magazine. You can read the entire article here: Missionary Schools: Teaching Or Preaching?]

The Power of Division in Religion (Guest Post)

[The communal riots in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) are not recent news. Muslims and Christians had been living in a state of unrest since its colonial power, France, granted them Independence.

Though we have seen it in India too, strained relations between Christians and Muslims seem a farce to me because it is widely believed that that the two religions along with Judaism had sprung from the same well. 

But today, Jews are fighting the Muslims, Muslims are fighting Christians and so on and so forth. 

Why?

One word: Power.]

[This post has been written as a guest post and you can read it on the Coffee Beans blog. This blog is authored by my very first blogger friend, Namrota Mazumdar.]

Haiku #7 – Ready Redemption

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Sins galore have I,

In acceptance lies the key;

Repentance absolves.

Of Archaic Traditions & Modern Culture

In almost every religious legend I've heard or read about, it is said or written that first a Man and a Woman were created into this world to procreate and populate this world. It is always been a belief that a man and a woman are the ideal pair and in the natural order of things, these two creatures should meet and propagate the human race. Well, one can understand the concept but what is it about that people are so against two people of the same sex loving each other? First of all, there is no further need to populate this world. Secondly, there is absolutely no record of any God mentioning that homosexuality is unnatural. On the other hand, I believe there are records and stories about homosexual love in great civilizations of the past.

History intrigues me and forces me to ponder upon what has changed so much in the near past which has led to the persecution of those who love.

Have we become more morally conscious as time passes by?

Have we a greater understanding of the workings of the mind of the higher being?

Have we knowledge of all what was meant to be?

And for that matter, who decides what is morally correct?

The decision by the Honourable Supreme Court of India to criminalize homosexuality by overturning the decision of the High Court of Delhi has left the liberals, the gay community and modern thinkers aghast and frustrated at the blatant disregard for the fundamental rights of Life, Liberty, Equality and Expression that constitute the foundation of the Constitution in this nation.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

It is not only the Justice Department, but also the Parliament of this country that should be held in contempt of the basic human rights that the people of this country were promised at the time of Independence from the British Empire. The compilers of the Indian Constitution, in their futuristic vision, left provisions in the same in order that with changing times, outdated laws and their sections may be amended to accommodate the changing times and be compliant with the wishes of the people. But alas! The representatives of the people represent only a certain section of the population and totally ignore the rest.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Today, there are religious leaders who claim to be messengers of God, saying that homosexuality is against the Almighty. That in public interest (to save our souls), the country must not decriminalize homosexuality. There are also precedents in history where people have tried to control the people by this very fear.  

King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta, a charter by the Barons to limit the monarch’s powers which were held by divine right.

King Henry VIII of England challenged the divine right of the Pope and instituted the Church of England, where he became the Head of the Church.

Adolf Hitler, through a painting of Jesus in his resemblance, believed that he had divine right to rule the world. We know what happened there.

And so, surprisingly I have come to the conclusion that ancient human civilizations were far more advanced than given credit for. Modern culture has been doing nothing but alienating people and creating divisions in society. Go figure!

Haiku #6 – Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

With empty bellies,

Standing under heaven’s door;

The Lord will provide.

VolksWagon Durga

So it’s that time of the year again when people who are neutral to both parties, have to decide where to go; to Garba or to Durga Puja. I had to make such a decision this year because of two reasons, the first being that the majority of my friends are Bengalis and the other being that the place I used to go to watch Garba, cancelled at the last moment due to torrential rains (that came out of nowhere).

So, this was the year of the Mother Goddess and so we went around visiting all the Bengali associations organizing the puja, clicked a lot of photos, ate a lot of chicken and also prayed a lot wee bit.

One of the main places we visited continuously over the days was quite close to my place and one of my friends was involved in service at the alter there. The first thing we noticed as we entered the place was a stall containing two shiny new cars of a certain company that had played a major role in sponsoring the event. I was amused and so was my friend because we were hoping to test-ride that very car the previous day. How curious! An omen? Maybe… Anyhow, we proceeded within and payed our respects to the Mother Goddess after which turned directly to the awesome and highly over-priced food stalls that one usually finds at such occasions. This became a routine for us and every day we couldn't help but notice the cars right at the entrance. We held our tongues at the religious sentiment of our zealous friend but one day we simply couldn't restrain ourselves and we told her what we had envisioned for Durga Puja next year. Goddess Durga riding a car instead of the Lion and running over the Demon Mahisasur.

Her reaction? Well, let’s just say that if she were Cyclops, we’d be charred remains of human beings; that’s how she looked at us. But after a moment she looked towards the massive statue, glanced at the cars and burst out in a fit of laughter that assured us that we were not going to be kicked all the way home after all.

This incident however has drawn me to think of events and especially those of the religious kind, which have become increasingly more commercialized over the years. When we look at Navratri or Ganeshotsav or Durga Puja in this instance, I’ve felt that religion has not only become more politicized as we know, but even more commerce driven. Asking conglomerates to sponsor such events instead of collecting money from the religious; leasing out food stalls to restaurants and caterers instead of having community meals and putting up hoardings and banners at a place of religious worship are all signs that, according to me, is leading the youth away from not only religion, but also spirituality per se. when we youngsters see our God/s being sold out in such a way, we tend to wonder about the futility of it all. It is exactly contradictory to what is taught to us by way of religious education here in India.

How then can the older generation rightly claim that we, the youth, are not spiritual?

Don’t they see that they have lost us somewhere down the line?

But I think, on the brighter side, it is this very disillusionment that has allowed the youth today to think freely and that in my opinion is what is required today; to think fresh, anew, without the bonds of religion to hinder the progress of this nation.

Note: This post is not meant to be disrespectful to any religion, people or God/s. It is just my personal opinion on what I've observed in my vicinity. Any connection to people (living or dead) or Companies (and franchises) or Gods (and Goddesses) is merely coincidental and is not deliberately meant.

Give me your money… in the name of God!

Yesterday, I was sitting and talking to a friend outside a McDonald's when this incident took place.  There came along a woman in a shining red albeit a well-worn sari, with a plate in her hand. I knew what this was before I even looked into the plate. It was, as expected, a picture of one of the many Goddesses from the Hindu mythology. I don’t know which one and I didn't bother to ask, for I had met many a person trying to sell blessings like this in my comparatively short time in this world. This woman was no different. She first tried coming dangerously close to crossing the line into my personal space but I like to think that I scared her into stopping short of doing the same. Then she made her bid.

“Paisa de do mata ke naam pe” (Gimme money in the name of the mother goddess)

“Maa dua degi aapko” (The mother Goddess will bless you)

When I outright refused to part with my father’s hard –earned money, she tried another tactic.

“Beti saath me baithi hai, de do beta” (The girl is sitting with you my son, come on give some money)

Yeah, she actually tried using my friend to shame me into giving her some money. But she didn't yet know how shameless I could be! So naïve, the devotee of the mother Goddess! Look what she tried next.

“Beti ko achha pati milegaa” (The girl will get a good husband)

“Bachho ko dua milegi” (Her kids will get blessings)

Oh, the look on my friend’s face, Priceless!  You might not believe me, but the woman actually talked about my friend getting a good husband and her future kids getting the blessings if I paid her. Heights of Divinity, I say!

“Chalo beta, kuch nahi toh tere naam pe ice cream kha leti hun” (Alright son, if you’re not paying me, I’ll just eat an ice cream at your expense)

I went, “Huh? Naa!” Since we were sitting next to a Havmor dealership, she actually tried to buy herself an ice cream on my behalf.

I was royally pissed by now. I was just trying to spend some quality time with a friend who I hadn't seen in over 4 months and this woman was trying to sell God to me! Well, she finally got the hint and moved on, muttering what I only assume to be a curse or something (not that I care) and trying to get hold of someone who actually gave a damn.

Note: By this post, I’m not trying to insult any religion or any person’s beliefs or anybody’s God(s). I’m just trying to portray the depths to which people will sink to earn a quick buck instead of working. I’m also not trying to question their spirituality, just their ethics and morals in having no qualms about selling blessings for a few coins, in the middle of the road.

Haiku #2 – The Miracle Worker

Image Courtesy: Google Images

On burning coals can Man walk,

But on the ocean’s

Living surface, only God.

Haiku #1 – An Act of God

Zeus pierces the clouds,

And the nectar gushes forth;

Impregnating Earth.

Is this the Hand of God?

The recent tragedy in North India, the flood, the devastation, the loss of life in that region got me thinking about the expiration date of things. I know it sounds a little insensitive of me to put it in a matter-of-fact way but I can’t help thinking about this series of incidents from an objective angle. Is it so that everything must be destroyed and then renewed again through a new process, is it Nature’s way of saying that we went too far or are these natural calamities God’s way of wiping the slate clean to start again?

I thought about the God angle and as I thought, I saw even deeper into it and came to the following conclusion. There are many examples of floods destroying those places where evil had bloomed out of control and the people become so corrupt that it seemed impossible to remove those stains from their soul and so they were washed away or one can say that they were perhaps smitten by the Hand of God. I’m not saying that it should have happened but it seems that it did. Now, as I mentioned earlier in this paragraph, there seem to be many indications of such incidents to have occurred in the past as well as in contemporary times. I have noted only a few which came through the top of my head because I’m too lazy to research anything in my vacations.

So, first up on the list is the incident from the Bible. In Christian mythology, God washed away life from the whole planet once upon a time and just kept this man Noah alive, supposedly because he was a righteous man living in a rotten world. God, it says, literally made it rain till the whole world was flooded and people of all races and religions and languages and colour and creed were washed away because they had become corrupt and their souls could not be saved. So, apparently, and I’m just guessing here, God wanted to start things fresh but didn't want to go through the whole man-making process again, so he left Noah and his family alive.

From Plato’s work we get that the Greek God, Poseidon destroyed the island of Atlantis with a flood because the people had become too corrupt to save. There is an alternate theory that says that he was pretty pissed at the Atlanteans choosing to elect the Goddess Athena as their protector instead of him, so he caused the tsunami that in turn caused Atlantis to sink beneath the waves, but who knows? Greek Gods seemed to do whatever the hell they pleased, at least according to Hollywood movies, and you know, the fact that they were Gods… So yeah.

So this was history. Now coming back to the present. India has seen her share of floods but what happens when a pilgrimage spot is washed out? What happens when a place of worship is inundated and a lot of people who have travelled to pray – are killed? It is often hard to believe how these things happen, especially for a devout person (which I assure you, I’m not).

How can a House of God be flooded?

How can pilgrims, who have gone to pray, die?

So, you see what I’m trying to say here is that there is a scarcity of Faith, a sudden dearth thereof.

For example, when India’s east coast was hit by a tsunami in 2004, the Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni in Tamil Nadu, India, was flooded and a lot of people died too. Then came the questions that I mentioned earlier and the doubt and the questioning of Faith. But, if one were to compare what happened here with those ancient floods and the theory of corruption and the anger of God, it may seem plausible that the same may have happened here. I have been to Vailankanni and it’s a beautiful shrine, but on the other hand, I saw how the people had converted the house of God into a marketplace. I was reminded of another incident in the Bible which describes how Jesus flew into a rage and started hitting the merchants and traders sitting outside and doing business at the Temple of Jerusalem. Maybe this was history being repeated, who knows?

If you have managed to bear with me till this point, you will now notice that I've come a full circle to the point where we started. The floods in Uttarakhand may be the anger of God being directed at the place of pilgrimage becoming a centre for tourism and commerce. Everyone knows that a place of worship, especially one which is much hyped, is sure to turn into a tourist spot as well. I think everyone who is well informed knows the prices at which things are being sold in these religious places and even more so because of this calamity. With that, the ‘Marketplace in the House of God’ scene is replayed. What can one expect then?

Note: Through this post, I’m not propagating that floods at religious places should be a regular visitor. Nor am I insinuating that all the people who died or were affected by such calamities were sinners and deserved it. I’m also not inciting hatred against God (because that would be kind of stupid). These are just my musings on a flood well travelled and one of the possible reasons behind the same.

To know more about the marketplace in the House of God, I suggest you read this post by 

Yamini Krishna

 http://krishnayamini.blogspot.in/2013/06/at-their-job.html