TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
This is indeed a remarkable vindication of the time-old adage that for an accomplished thief to commit the theft and go scot-free, all that is required is to escape the eyes of the watchman who stays awake at the nightly hour when everyone else including God is asleep. After metallurgical analysis, around 198 kg of gold and over 81 kg of silver offered by devotees over the past five years at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi temple… one of the most venerated places of religious pilgrimage in the country…. was found to be fake.
On a lighter note, the disturbing thought that instantly comes to mind is…. what if, like fake offerings at Mata’s Durbar, the Mata also chooses to respond with fake blessings to fake devotees or decides to determine the genuinity of her blessing in the same measure as the genuinity of the offering. But, there is also a vaguely reassuring after-thought… may be, in a country known for widespread practice of adulterating everything from cooking oil to foodgrains…. the revered diety ‘‘Mata’’ may take it in stride and turn a blind eye to the adulterated offering at her feet.
There are also a number of instances, quite well known to the care-takers of Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, wherein some of the country’s leading business tycoons visit the Vaishno Devi shrine at regular monthly, quarterly or annual intervals to offer a certain percentage of their income at Mata Durbar in the hope that this would exonerate them of all the sins and misdeeds including the evasion of Income Tax. Now, it could be a subject of serious research study to follow up all such cases and find out the quantum of heavenly favour received by each one of them in return.
Incidentally, it is the rich and wealthy who make the most frequent trips to Mata Vaishno Devi and who also contribute maximum to the offerings…. in cash or kind… at the shrine. The poor and resourceless make a pilgrimage but seldom and make an offering but meagre. Now, whether this also has any correlation with the divine benevolence…. is a different question. But, at least on the earthly track to the holy shrine, it does make a significant difference, as is conspicuously visible at another equally revered shrine of Tirupathy where higher the rate of entry ticket purchased, the shorter the route to the spot of holy Darshan and more important the VIP, easier the access to ‘‘Balaji’’.
Be that as it is, in the contemporary age of fake devotion, fake commitment, fake currency and fake offering, thank God… God is real and despite all the consumerist haste, nobody could invent a ‘‘fake’’ God. And, that is the only saving grace for a common man who has nothing to offer but his honest obeisance at the feet of Almighty. Believer or non-believer, it is the conviction of conscience rather than pretence of religion that God expects of his mortal beings as Umapathy cites Allama Iqbal’s hymn ‘‘……Mazhab Na Chahiye Mujhe, Imaan Chahiye…..’’
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