A nine-year-old boy was being readied for his first visit to a famous temple in Kerala. A small brocaded dhothi was wrapped around his tubby waist and secured with a fastener, ignoring his protests about being bare-bodied for this major event. A smart little boy who enjoyed school, his life was otherwise filled with bicycles, swimming, books, assembling dinosaurs and playing board games at which he excelled.
His father, a non-believer, politely declined to join the gathering of cousins, aunt, uncle and mother who persuaded the unenthusiastic temple-goer that he simply had to experience the atmosphere and rituals before deciding whether or not to opt in or out of religiosity as guaranteed by the faith he was born into. “It’s God’s house” and so on were the lubricants applied on the boy.
As the milling crowd of fervent worshippers thronged into the narrow passage that led to the unforgettable vision of the deity millions had believed in and still do, the boy was propelled by bodies known and unknown, his face mashed against someone’s back and body sandwiched with others even as his mother yanked him along by the inch. As he drew near the stupendous aura of the presiding deity, he could sense the mounting emotional tension and struggle. All he could see through carefully protected spectacles was someone’s sweaty midriff. The air filled with scents of sacred basil and sandalwood paste. Meanwhile, over his head flew the priestly litany — “move on, move on…” — as he too was swept along.
Finally the family emerged at the other end of the seemingly unending queue. He blinked in the sunlight, looked up around and finally at his mother, and asked the universal question: “Where is the God?”
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