Skip to main content

God ... by invitation only


What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home...

If God was in Chennai over the weekend, he'd never have gotten into the special stadium hired for an ostentatiously grand Srinivasa Kalyana Mahotsavam pooja held on Sunday night. If he hadn't had a VIP pass, he wouldn't have gotten the prized first class tickets -- right next to the pooja pandal. If he hadn't had a tier two, three or four invitation, he wouldn't have gotten into the second, third or fourth class entrances.

If, as Joan Osbourne sings, he was "just a slob like one of us", then maybe, he'd have gotten in through the "Public Entrance -- All Are Welcome" gate located approximately three kms away from the main action. Then even if he'd craned his neck and stood on somebody else's shoulders, he wouldn't have been able to see those silk-clad priests chant
homas, pour the purest ghee into the sacredest fire and sing the most devotional hymns in his honour.

Can't be helped, I suppose. He wasn't a VIP.




Comments

Anonymous said…
If he comes by invitation only,how can he be a God!
Exactly my point, dear friend

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...

Morning scenes

The wind blustery Skies grey blue A light so muted Birds are quiet too We walkers go Sidestepping Couple-dancing No touching Looking or meeting Glances…Oh no!   Masks dangling From chins Below noses Hanging from one ear Or sometimes Fitting so properly Covering everything So no one can see Or know What we’re really like.   Runners running Soundlessly Iron determination Seeping through So much so   That dogs being walked Know they cannot Wag tails Or even Bark a greeting.   Two men Creating content One breaking into Hair flipping, body popping Dance Faithful friend filming In fits and starts As a security guard Sips his chai Utterly bemused.

A meltdown

Some days ago, I had what you might call, a meltdown. I went from anger to intense anguish in moments. I worked myself up into a frenzy. I wanted to lash out at my family. Hurl words that would wound and scar. I wanted to hurt myself.. Physically harm my own self or something/someone else. I wanted to break things,something... Anything would do, I felt, at that moment. Just to cope with the heaving emotions inside. Just so I could make sense of what I was feeling. So, I shouted at my loved ones. At my son for something he did or didn't do. At my husband for slights real and imagined. For angry words we have exchanged over the years. For everything we have ever done to each other. Then, I shut myself up in a room Immersed myself in all that was and is torn and tormented inside And I cried my heart out. I ended up with a migraine that day. But later, when I calmed down, I felt better. But more than that, I found that my family still loves me. My young son s...