Skip to main content

Temples and Tragedies


Long ago, when our ancestors descended from the tree and started walking on the earth, we allowed religion to hijack everything from our entertainment to our morality, from our pains and joys to our gods and devils.  When the immensity of the cosmic mystery overwhelmed those primitive creatures, it was understandable that they sought solace in superstitions and rituals.  Today, when science has broken through most of the mysteries, revealing the principles of gravitation and quantum mechanics, unseating gods from their celestial thrones, replacing heaven and hell with black holes and stellar bodies, why does religion continue to inflict us with tragedies?

For details: The Hindu
The latest tragedy in a Kerala temple, like most other such tragedies in places of worship, is a man-made one.  The organisers and operators of the fireworks display flung all norms to the cosmic winds for the sake of enhancing the impressiveness of the show.  It’s a kind of competition.  Our temple festival must be more ostentatious than the festival of all other religious institutions in the neighbourhood.  The grander the display, the greater the religion!

We have to liberate ourselves from our snobbery first of all if such tragedies are to be avoided.  Not only firework displays, but also religious processions, conventions and a lot of other means are employed to show off that one’s own religion is capable of making more noise than the neighbour’s.  The greater the noise and grander the display, the more attractive is the religion!  In other words, religion is not really about religion but about our pretentiousness and its satellite vices.

Secondly, we have to liberate our gods from their bondage in our temples, churches and other such places.  When the gods are gone, perhaps we will learn to look within.  And discover the delights of simple humaneness which doesn’t need temples and fireworks.


Comments

  1. Replies
    1. Undoubtedly. So many lives lost. So many wounded seriously. Houses destroyed.

      Delete
  2. If the God is omnipresent, why look in temples? Never understood the concept, really.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's just the question. And the answer is that people are not looking for god really. It's about a lot of other things: social celebration, display of superiority, psychological comforts...

      Delete
  3. Very tragic... some the pics were tear jerking ones. Hope they get well and recover from this trauma soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In addition, I also hope that people learn the necessary lessons so that tragedy won't be repeated.

      Delete
  4. Tragic indeed!
    'We have to liberate ourselves and our gods'..so wise and true!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Evolution is a painfully slow process, Amit ji. Mutual liberation is possible only through mutation.

      Delete
  5. TOTALLY with you on LIBERATE OUR GODs.. yes we need to I think its time we the people did something too ..

    it is a tragedy such a incident happened..

    Bikram's

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm happy to find more and more people who think like me. I used to wonder whether I was an odd man out.

      Delete
    2. No you are not, I am of the beleif that if we take religion out , people all over will be much more happier .. but then thats me ..

      Bikram's

      Delete
    3. Let our tribe increase, Bikram. Actually religion owes its popularity to herd mentality mostly. If the herd thinks secularism is superior to religionism we will be lucky.

      Delete
  6. When the roof of the Puttingal Devi temple fell down, hundreds of people died, hundreds of people were injured, but in this all, where was God? Did he die under that roof, was he injured in that chaos or did he ran away?
    Did anyone try to find where God was?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your comment reminds me of what Albert Camus said when he saw a car run over a child, "Look, the heavens are silent!"

      Delete
  7. Yes, liberation is the only solution.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I won't call it tragic or unfortunate. It's plain damned stupid! Brought on by bloody hypocrites! If it weren't for the lost lives, I'd have said that they were served right. But, do you think that they are going to learn from it? Of course not! There will be a bit of brouhaha, a few crocodile tears and everyone will gear up for a similar function on a grander stage. Bloody idiots!

    Only the Almighty will know when are we going to grow up! :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They won't learn, no doubt. People never learn the real lessons.

      Delete
  9. I really agree with your last paragraph, 'to liberate' our gods from bondage. What a tragic incident!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just imagine how helpless god must have felt sitting imprisoned in that temple while the tragedy unfolded.

      Delete
  10. 90% of the man made calamities are due to the disturbances by religious zealots. What a pathetic state that people somewhere follow similar teachings and talk about same similar God who has made everything on earth and then he fights over what exactly His real name is... He just can't stand others with different opinion... Tragedy across the Globe, religion today is everything what is wasn't meant to be!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Religion is the greatest cause of hatred, strife, violence, calamities... It's high time that mankind delivered itself from the nemesis called religion.

      Delete
  11. I like the coinage liberating our god Matheikal, it is such a shame that religion has become a matter of a societal pride than a personal thing. Kinda defeating the whole purpose of religion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The purpose has been defeated already in various forms. What good does religion do today? I wonder.

      Delete
  12. this festival happened because temple authorities neglected denial of permissions backing by some political masters which didn't bother to hurt religious sentiments in election time but are cool now to gain from this tragedy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The election plays a vital role, you're right. Mr Modi and Mr Gandhi rushed to the spot because of the election.

      Delete
  13. This was so sad, such a waste of life and all because of a lack of regard for safety.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser