MUSINGS

Guys and girls, I’m writing this blog with helluva lot of irritation. I have been trying to push this incident from my mind, but in vain… and now I finally turn to the ever dependable and ever ready... ilanders.

You guys might have gathered from my earlier posts that I seem to have taken a sudden and unexplainable love for slumber. Very soon I will push the sloth, know to be the animal which sleeps for the longest period far behind. Now it so happened that my mom… my dearest mom decided to put an end to this affair I have developed with sleep. She seems to have signed a pact with the building workers demolishing a house in my neighborhood. The banging noises never seem to cease… every hit they make seems to be on my cerebral hemispheres and my poor neurons are screaming… “I cannot take this any more…” Very soon I can see the scope of them turning into Eminem fans!!!!!

Well lemme get back to the point.

So my mom pulls me outta de bed and plans outings every day.. just to keep me awake.

OK…I say

‘Today we will go to the Azhakodi Devi temple’, She says.

I raked my brains and tried to force my disoriented neurons awake. Yea… it is a famous temple in our city. The only times I have gone there are during the vijaya dasami days… that also… 3 or 4 years back.

In about an hour me, my mom and my grand mom were at the temple. In spite of being a sleepy head.. I was some what happy, as me going to temples was a rarity. All the slokas and sthotras I had learnt came flooding to my memory.

Boards hung on the wall of the temple seemed to stare at me. And these boards my friends are the cause of my irritation. ‘Devotees clad in salwar/chudidhars, pants, jeans, shirt are not allowed inside the temple’. I stood there reading this cursed notice board in my favorite pale green kurta and white salwar. I failed utterly to understand the logic behind this practice. What the heck is wrong if a woman decided to dress modestly and offer prayers!!!! As I stood there irritation mounting on me, a family came in. the girl among them was wearing a long flowing skirt and a black strapless top.. revealing bare shoulders and ample cleavage!!!! The top threatened to fall off any moment. I stared aghast as the temple supervisor coolly let her in… I stared in disgust as the guy who made me stand out followed after her!!! I could hear her lungs banging against her rib cage pleading for space to expand in that top of hers…

My mood to pray was ruined.. I jus felt miserable for the poor deity inside. I moved away and read the rest of the notices which hung on the wall. There was one announcing that the chief priest had donated five huge copper vessels to the temple. Another one was asking the devotees to avoid using mobiles inside the temple.

Breaking my thoughts a mobile wailed the ‘Bacardi blast song’ as the girl stepped out of the temple after her ‘worship’. A croaky voice flooded the silent area as her caller wished her a happy birthday. The guy at the other end went on to sing his wishes… GOSHHH he brayeddd!!!! And the idiot did not even care to reduce the ear piece volume and walked away with her croaky admirer at the other end… and parshad in the other hand.

And me?????? Standing transfixed staring at her…

Now tell me guys… in this growing age of atheists agnostics and rationalists… where existence of gods is a matter of doubt, do these idiotic practices take us anywhere??

Cant we worship when we are in salwars and jeans??? Is there any logic behind this… if any one knows…. Pray tell me!!!

                                                                         ANITHA KAVERI