Sacred spaces

I rarely go to temples, churches, mosques, gurudwaras or other places of worship. The reasons for my avoidance are intensely personal and too complex to go into here and now. In spite of this, I have been to so many sacred spaces that my mind reels at the multi-theistic existence that I have led and at the multitude of blessings that I could have accumulated had I been thusly interested. For me, it was a matter of a family outing, pleasing Mama more than anything else. And perhaps somewhere, deep down, there has always been a small little kernel of something that makes me believe in a power that is greater than humanity. But I never understood it and I have never showed it. So while Ma prayed, I watched people, priests and monkeys (which almost any temple in India is home to), gaped at the sculpture and wondered idly when lunch would be.

When I was very young, my parents took me to the Sharada kovil in Sringeri, a shrine revered by many the world over. I was, according to family lore, so enamoured by the place that when I met my grandmother again, I told her that it was “a beautiful place, you should go there some time soon”. A little later in life, when I was at that stage of school when exams needed a little divine assistance, Mum and I made regular visits to Mumbai’s famous landmark – the Siddhivinayak mandir in Prabhadevi. It was a small shrine in which Lord Ganesha nestled, cushioned by mountains of flowers and offerings from the devoted. Today, it is topped by an impressive pale pink stepped highrise, which has put me so completely off that it has been years since I had a face-to-face chat with the elephant-headed god whose images our family seems to collect.

When on a holiday from college, my parents took me to the Pandharpur Vitthala temple in rural Maharashtra. It was a particularly holy time of the year and the small town and its environs was a teeming mass of madly praying humanity. Paying a little extra - as is the norm in any sacred place in this country, I am beginning to learn – we crowded right up to the idol and did our own puja, under command of the priest in charge, with very little clue about what exactly we did and why. Maybe Mum knew, maybe Papa had been paying some attention on their previous visit. I was filled with not a sense of holy reverence, but with great indignation that we could jump the queue so easily, passing all those who genuinely believed but did not have the wherewithal to get closer to Thee, my Lord, in a shorter time.

Perhaps my last visit to a temple was when I went to say hi to the reigning deity of this city, Mumba Devi. I had come back to live in Mumbai after a stint away and it somehow seemed the right thing to do. She was, after all, the goddess after whom my beloved city, warts and all, was named. She protected all those who lived and worked around Her, and gave freely of Her bounty of resources, in the air, on the land, from the sea. And there, too, I found myself feeling disgust rather than awe. I was not left to have my own conversation with the lady, but was hemmed in but security personnel (to protect Her, not the visitors), rapacious priests and beggars, clamouring for money, handouts, speed of worship and more. Neatly sidestepping a persistent pujari who insisted I take some kumkum from his thali and give him some baksheesh for the honour, I said my brief greeting to Mumba Devi and fled, as the clamour in the tiny, sun-heated courtyard yielded to the noises of traffic and cart-vendors alike on the narrow street outside.

Worship in India is all about avoiding outstretched hands, ready to beg for alms or money or pinch a nicely rounded bottom. In the crowd of people, animals (monkeys, cows, rats, birds and dogs) and stern-faced guards (especially after the terrorist violence that rocks our nation every now and then), prayer is difficult. They say God can always hear what his children say. But I have always wondered: Can He really? Over the volume of all that we are, we say and we do today?