Monday, November 14, 2005

Dum maro dum..

Religious fervor can only be understood, when one lives, travels and learns in the heart of South India. On my trip to Tirupati, with a gaggle of office mates.. which we shall comment on at greater length in another rave/rant party… we found ourselves with 24 hours as god had decided against giving us darshan.

Deciding a day in hand in worth two in the..well, whatever, we fell to doing our own bit of sightseeing. After much arguing… I found myself resigned to running around multiple other temples that seemed to be EVERYWHERE. In an effort to placate me, I was told that we would go to this place called “paapvinashanam” which was a WATERFALL, where one would also be able to wash away one’s sins, as the name suggested..

If any of you have seen Charlie Chaplin movies, you will know what I am talking about. As we walked down huge stone slabs crawling with people, saw an area where men would stand in line fully dressed. Each would go into a little room, and from the other side, would pop out a guy, wearing what can only be called “chaddis”.

By this time I was mystified AND skeptical. And my skepticism didn’t fail me. Paap-whatever turned out to be a huge wall, in which were embedded 5 PIPES.. from which sprang water. Millions of ghastly looking men, swarmed around in their underwear, vigorously having a bath under aforesaid pipes, in a concentrated effort to wash away god-knows-what sins. The Lifeboy ad put to shame…

Sigh!!! It WAS a trip all right…

No comments: