Lord almighty!

Man. God is in fashion. Real fashion. Many years ago I had been to Trambakeshwar and I remember it being a sleepy town and a sleepy temple. But last week I went there to be confronted with a three hour queue. Dam it, the architecture wasn’t even cool enough for me to wait in that line. And I am not too keen on worshipping stone. The queue outside the complex looked innocuous enough and we stood for an hour to get in to be faced with a long winding queue inside. Jasmine and I wanted out, but our friend and his wife wanted to stay. We would waited outside if not for Jispa who wanted to stay. Dam you Jispa. So we stayed on a snaking queue which was 22 lanes long. Another two hours. Very painful.
Only one way in and one way out. High metal bars so that people don’t jump the queue. Railings in the middle so that people don’t squeeze in thru the bars. Luckily there was a roof overhead and a few fans, but overall it was bloody tiring and hot. Here is a picture of Jispa waiting in the queue. I feel like cattle being herded in. Why do we mistreat our people thus? The people have no bloody option. There are only twelve special Shiva temples – the 12 jyotirlingas and if you want divine intervention you have to go in and pray there. After waiting for 12 hours, you get only 2 seconds in front of the deity with the ushers constantly pushing you out of there. The whole point of the 3 hour wait is to get an audience with God. To tell him I was there, that I waited. And my friends were very happy. They managed to get the Prasad that they had bought through to the God. The priest took their packet and touched it to the deity and gave it back to them. Awesome for them!
I got out of there and sat behind. Jispa came along and I explained to her; if enough people believe it, even a piece of stone can become a God. But I guess it works both ways. To me the lines show me that there is no God inside. This is pure delirium. To the others, the presence of this line might only ratify that there is not only a God in there, but a huge powerful God with boon granting facilities.
Its amazing how many people come in and follow rituals, how many try and beat the line, how many push and pull, how their tempers flare. How badly is the pilgrim treated? All this must an integral part of pilgrimage. Here is the photo of the line in which we stood. Its stupid and chaotic.



And if you think India is shining and that India is improving, one just has to look at the loo facilities provided. The common loo outside was a really bad place. It was dirty, dark, dingy and never cleaned. Luckily Jasmine had a scarf which she first gave me. I wrapped it around my face to get in. There was no way I could have held my breath for that long. In many loos in India we have suddenly understood that we can start charging money, but hell, we just understood that. We did not understand that after charging we must ensure hygiene and cleanliness.
Sacerdotal intercession. The belief that we need a conduit to get to God. The all-powerful Pandit in this case. He has a vested interest in keeping you insecure, in making you explain that all you need is a mantra or a ritual to set you free from the encumbrances in your way. I am lucky. I consider myself very lucky, I soon realized the fallacy in believing in this. I refused many years ago to believe in it. My mom and dad were practical about this yet we did go all over India to different places of religious interest, stood in lines, prayed and performed poojas. I think, like most others, we too were confused Jains. Fundamentally you can’t have the Jain and the Hindu faith intermingling in your mind. The Jain faith is about a way of life, a kind of athesism that says that the answer lies in living your life in a certain way. To give up desire and greed. The Hindu faith has pandits, who can help you. In Jainism there are monks who can only explain the path to you. But to my parents and to so many others I saw, it was all confusing. I like the way we called ourselves Hindu. Forget that – I love the way Shiva is a Hindu God when it seems there is no mention of him in the vedas. It seems he was a probably a tribal God of fertility or something that got well integrated into Hinduism. So many don’t even realize that the lingam in which form the God is worshipped is actually considered by many as a phallus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam) and it stands on the female organ. Of course there are numerous interpretations but people do worship blindly without knowing or understanding these concept as well.
But there is a line – a queue outside that is three hours long. And I dam it stood in it. Ok. In hindsight it was probably a smart decision. I don’t know what Jasmine and I would have done outside the temple complex for two hours in the heat. It isn’t like there is a café there to hang out in. no proper restaurants and like all Hindu towns, there are lots of cow, which produce copious amounts of cow dung. So the line was good. As the devout would say – you were there because God called you in there to witness his star presence. It was only willed by him. Cool. Thanks God. Was worth every penny. Just forgive me if I don’t do it again.