Our Dependence on God

Everybody has a god fetish. The pious need god to bless every act and burden every retract. The non-believers need god as a crutch for their non-beliefs.

As children, didn't we all have imaginary friends whom we spoke to, shared our secrets with, introspected our decisions with, and looked on for strength against our fears? Sometimes even blamed these non-exists for all the troubles that befell.

So how different were those child phased imaginary people from the adult phased god. The purpose is essentially the same, just different semantics.

Adults never wanted to grow up to take full responsibility of their actions. We have been thrust with it. I am not denying that we adults do not like the benefits of being so but we could do away with all the musts, shoulds, have-tos, and necessities. If we could retain the benefits without shouldering the difficult stuff we would gladly trade it.

So what is god for us? 

God is our crutch!

God is the magic that exists within our banal lives that gives us the reassurance to continue when all looks desolate. God gives us the hope that good times will continue and bad times shall cease. God is our driver into the unseen future. God is our 'get out of jail' card the the game of life when the dice throws in a bad number! 

We depend on God because we cannot depend on life and we all need assurances to continue from this moment to the next!

Heaven at Every Crossroad

Romantics glamorize, critics satirize. The bustle of fast paced life in an urban environment in any Indian city is awe-aspiring and nauseating all at once.

From the intermingled sweat laden bodies rubbing against each other whilst commuting to work to the whizzing past of automotive marvels of every shape and size rushing from destination to the next, everything is a blur.

Yet, somewhere in the midst of this maddening crowd of mechanized humans, inane cattle, rabid canines, and waning flock of city-dwelling birds, at every possible intersection of major roads or arterial junctions stand quaint little structures offering sanctuary to the cornea of religious beliefs. They are the symbol of today’s veneration to the divine: built towards a notion, paid obeisance enroute,  and then forgotten in the commotion.

These tiny dwellings of the gods offer neither glory to the divinity they house nor the space to their devotees to be able to offer any. If built to be sentenced to dereliction, why construct these miniscule minarets of misfit magnanimity?

Are they reminders of the mockery that we have made spirituality into or a proof of the antagonized history of communal disharmony groaning within the society manifested into religious zealotry growing out of the earth like billboards of crimes committed by people against each other in the name of some god for whom this of no consequence at all?

Spiritual Salvation Through The Airwaves

On my monthly annual pilgrimage to the grandparents I am greeted with by a feeble walking-stick supported old lady with the mighty conviction of a Greek hero when it comes to religion.

I am also greeted by a sporting and fanatical television with an inclination towards the ham. But today, I would like to explore just one of it’s character flaws: profaning unsuspecting victims with godly propaganda.

The television wakes up sharp at 6AM IST tuned to one of the channels offering spiritual salvation for TRP ratings. One god-‘person’ after another drums the same messages of universal truth with a twist of personal interpretation like a good bartender takes an old recipe and adds a dash and a splash of color and flavor.

But like every discerning patron, my grandmother waits till her favorite spiritual mentor appears and delivers his message to the loyal flock. His delivery is astute, poignant, and pursuant of the many ills that pockmark the general collective consciousness of this nation. Is the distil any different from the previous speaker? Not really. Just that this one has an ethnic appeal to a certain sect of society that my grandmother belongs to.

This brings us to my question.

Is it the message that is important or the medium?

What are we laying more emphasis on? What weighs more in our mind? If the messages are the same then any speaker, despite caste, cult, or religious inclination should be as popular as the other (assuming the fact that all of the creed are oratory maestros). Each messenger should be as popular as the other. Each flock intermingled with the other.

Had such been the case, this would have truly been a great win for the god-people. But to ensure their personal coffers flow unrestrained ensure that their subjects remain their own. Like a milkman with his bovine herd. He brands them, he milks them, he profits of them. But at the end, they are just a heap of lard swayed by the mournful ministrations of a melancholic bard.