Skip to main content

Obsolete Idols


When the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China was launching world’s first 6G satellite, India’s Prime Minister was inaugurating the renovation of Somnath Temple. Temples and statues are India’s PM’s priorities.

Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project was inaugurated by the PM two months before the UP assembly election. Of course, there is no link between the two events. Our PM is above silly sectarian thinking. He is a globe-trotter, we all know. Nay, he is the Messiah of the world, Vishwaguru.

Nevertheless, let us not ignore the fact that he is the chairman of Somnath Temple Trust. He inaugurated the renovation projects of that temple in August 2021 though the temple had been renovated after independence by the then deputy PM Sardar Patel.

Soon after Modiji became PM, he launched the renovation project of the Kedarnath Temple. Now that work is over. You are welcome to Modiji’s Kedarnath.

The grand Ayodhya Temple’s foundation stone was laid by Modiji in Aug 2020. The PM also launched the Char Dham project to connect the holy pilgrimage centres of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath.

The latest project is the Mahakal Lok Corridor of Ujjain, inaugurated just a few weeks back.

Revamping of the temples in Kashmir started soon after the abrogation of article 370 in 2019. The Union Minister for Home Affairs, G Kishan Reddy, claimed that 50,000 temples in Kashmir were going to be restored and reopened. Cynics, as usual, allege that the figure is an exaggeration. They say that there are no more than 4000 temples in the entire length and breadth of Jammu and Kashmir.

Modiji’s love for temples does not end with the Line of Control. In 2018, he laid the foundation stone for a majestic temple in Abu Dhabi. Next year, he launched a multi-million-dollar renovation project of a 200-year-old temple in Bharain. Hinduism is becoming a global religion, thanks to Modiji. Let us hope that one day Modiji will become an idol in some of those temples in the Arab deserts and beyond.

Modiji has given ideas to the world what kind of statues of his can be erected. He has given to the world the Statue of Unity (world’s tallest so far with its 182 metres), the Hanuman statue in Morbi (where a catastrophe happened recently due to the corruption of the very antinational builder), the Hologram of Subhash Chandra Bose, Statue of Equality in Hyderabad, and Shivaji Statue in Pune.

Envious people like Dr Shashi Tharoor says that Modiji is suffering from acute inferiority complex and that’s why he’s boosting the ego of all Hindus through these projects and constructions. Hindus see themselves as “having been invaded, oppressed, defeated and humiliated for a thousand years,” says Tharoor. “So now they want to hit back and assert themselves.” Let us all feel proud of these statues and temples. Jai Hind.

In the meanwhile, our enemy number one, China [Pak has relinquished that place accepting Modiji’s stature as the Vishwaguru], has been working on science and technology, and infrastructure development including building roads into India (well, almost). That country now holds the largest number of patents related to 5G and 6G. China is way ahead of other countries in 5G and 6G technology and research. China is the global leader for 5G with the largest 5G mobile infrastructure in the world with 1.43 million base stations.

5G and 6G will revolutionise technology in more ways than one can imagine. With 6G, the world won’t be what it is today. It’s not just about the speed of data transfer which, of course, is going to be 1000 Gbps [contrast with 4g’s 100 Mbps]. It’s more about connecting everything and everybody together in an intricate network. You can operate your vacuum cleaner in your Chennai home while you are relaxing in your Delhi hotel after the conference on the role of robots in the classroom or something like that.

China has not stopped with 6G. It has built some marvels like the Sichuan-Tibet railway, South-North Water Transfer Project, Yantai-Dalian Underwater Tunnel (90 km), and the Taiwan Strait Tunnel.

But, in the end, that is a godless country. What good is it then? We have our abundant gods and a lot of temples. Thank God.

PS. Written in response to Indispire prompt: China is moving towards 6G digital technology. India is still obsessed with statues and temples. Don't forget that we were the 70th country to switch to 5G and that too only in a few cities. Aren't we being given obsolete idols to worship? #ObsoleteIdols

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    ...ah but don't forget that once one has reached moksha, one is in communication with the entire universe... 🙃 Of course, it is but one in in ten million of us who can attain that level of connection. While at least one in a thousand will be able to afford 6G. And share it around.

    I know so many who are in fear of China's rise - but forget that so much of what they use in everyday life already is down to Chinese manufacture and low cost tech. Ignore this at peril... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. China's rise is intimidating not because of their progress in sc & tech but their greed for territories. They trespass too much.

      I like your humor on the cosmic communication that Modi is offering us 😊

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...

Chitrakoot: Antithesis of Ayodhya

Illustration by MS Copilot Designer Chitrakoot is all that Ayodhya is not. It is the land of serenity and spiritual bliss. Here there is no hankering after luxury and worldly delights. Memory and desire don’t intertwine here producing sorrow after sorrow. Situated in a dense forest, Chitrakoot is an abode of simplicity and austerity. Ayodhya’s composite hungers have no place here. Let Ayodhya keep its opulence and splendour, its ambitions and dreams. And its sorrows as well. Chitrakoot is a place for saints like Atri and Anasuya. Atri is one of the Saptarishis and a Manasputra of Brahma. Brahma created the Saptarishis through his mind to help maintain cosmic order and spread wisdom. Anasuya is his wife, one of the most chaste and virtuous women in Hindu mythology. Her virtues were so powerful that she could transmute the great Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva into infants when they came to test her chastity. Chitrakoot is the place where asceticism towers above even divinit...