It was a Sunday lunch invitation from one of my office colleagues as he had become a father of a baby boy a month ago. So I went there, with a feeling that I am going to get bored as I won't know anyone there. But met another colleague and felt a little relieved. As soon as I reached there, I knew it was going to be a tough time as I had to participate in the ongoing Pooja as well which was being done for the welfare of the newborn.

While it totally went tangentially off my brain as to how a Pooja can ensure the well being of the newborn for whom, for the first year, every day is a new day, I think it went off tangentially my friend and his wife as well but due to elder's present in home they were probably doing it is what I could read from the ambiance there.

My friend has done a masters in IT and his wife is a masters in arts and so seeing them believing in this made me wonder, how much can education do to salvage the intellectual rampage done by blind faith, superstition and intellectual black holes created by vested interests who intend to rule the society and people's lives.

Normally I can envisage a scenario wherein the educated lot may have protested against such practices but the conservative lot must have protested saying that just because they had got the children educated does not mean the children have outsmarted them and can have a say in everything. Or may be worse, may be these people got degrees but forgot to get educated and so even being the so called white-collared educated intellectuals believe in these rituals which have near zero relevance in today's age.

As these thoughts transcended the horizon of the gray matter of my brain, the Pooja proceedings continued. The Pundit was blabbering some mantras, best deciphered to him (probably I guess so), my friend pretending to understand them to the extent of decoding them and throwing flowers at the deity setup at the instructions of the Pundit. I was watching all this; meanwhile my other colleague took me out for some time. Meanwhile, aunty requested us to get some tomatoes for salad. So we two went, and got them from the nearby market.

On returning we saw the 'flower shower' was over and now the Pundit took out a small booklet. I was like, "Oh looks like you forgot one of those encrypted lines written allegedly centuries back making relevance today?" but life's tough. The Pundit told us that he was going to tell us stories from the book about the Lord Satyanarayan. I was like, "Gosh, I was doomed to see this day on earth as well." It was only because of a good relation with my colleague that I went through the torture without protesting and worse, participating in it, however, I'd decided it then I am going to blog it and so here it is.

I will not narrate the entire story here, but some gist goes like as far as my memory serves me right. The Pundit told, the basic gist of the story was that all saints on earth had gathered for a large meeting, (Oh wow, even the best CEOs with an array of technological gadgets have not been able to do a universal business conference so far), but from what transcended it looked as if the saints had managed to organize some round table conference to discuss the future of Earth with the Lord.

The Saints were worried that now bad times are gonna transcend upon the people of Earth and sufferings of human beings are going to increase and wanted to find a solution to the inevitable menace. So they all approach God, (sent an email, or an SMS, or some meeting request?), and apprise the Lord of the situation.

The Lord tells them that if they perform his Pooja regularly and praise him, nothing will happen and human beings will be liberated of their sufferings. Now that's news to me. I was told everyone's responsible for one's own karma (actions) and the result shall be as per the karma, good karma - good action, bad karma - bad action. But here from what it seems like, even if you have done bad karma and hurt others, you perform Lord's Pooja and your sins will be washed away. And the shocking part is, educated people (including myself) were listening to this bullshit and participating in it as well.

Whatever it is, the story progresses further and the saints then ask the Lord, if people have been benefitted by this activity in the past? Now that's cool, God's Appraisal, ehh? So the Lord starts narrating as told by the Pundit.

The Pundit tells of a story of a poor Brahmin who could barely manage to make ends meet, who was told by the Lord that if he prays the Lord and praises him, his worries will go away.  The Brahmin agrees to do so and promises that once he gets a kid, he will pray to Lord. The Brahmin gets a girl child, then gets some business and prospers in it as well and forgets about the promise he'd made a year ago about the Pooja.

As he gathers wealth in business and his daughter also grows up and gets married one day. Then he and his son-in-law do business together. However, by a chance of misfortune they are arrested by the King. Meanwhile his wife and daughter suffer a lot and his wife remembers that they have not done the Pooja as her husband had told, so maybe this misfortune is due to that reason only. So she prays to God and the God then enters the dream of the King and gets them released with three times the wealth.

Now how is God here different from a businessman? He too gives only when you obey him. And that too till you obey him.

Further forward, as they were going with the wealth, God takes up the form of a saint and asks them, "What is inside the bag?" the men lie. They tell, "Its vegetables", and they find that the wealth has been actually converted into "Vegetables". That's when they realize, it was God talking to them and then go and fall at his feet and apologize to get back the wealth. Lord also gives them Prasad.

Then they return to their house and give the Prasad to their wives, however the daughter does not eat the Prasad. So the next day, when her husband goes for fishing, he does not return. Then God tells the lady that since she had refused to eat his Prasad, he has drowned her husband. She eats the Prasad and then God returns her husband.

Now how is God different here from a terrorist? A terrorist also spreads terror by hijacking issues and creating a clog and the same thing is being done by God to create fear about God.

Now here comes the analysis of the entire issue. First of all, no one knows how true are these stories, but since they are narrated by Brahmins (the highest caste), they pass off unchallenged. That is a very unfortunate part since highly educated people waste thousands of rupees in such ceremonies while there are scores who sleep hungry and can benefit a lot if the thousands are spent well.

And for these urban rich educated people, these occasions are nothing more than a get together and a socializing opportunity. Just because they want to ride away their guilt feeling of either being too 'modern' or 'non-religious' or not as religious as their parents were, they waste money in such parties whereas if they really believe in such poojas, they should actually feed those poor people with the same money rather than indulging in such acts of Double Standards and Hollow Faith.

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