No, my discerning devout Hindu Readers should not get disillusioned that yours truly was exposed to listening to some 2nd grade version of Bhagwat Puran, while travelling Indore to Delhi by train!
I know the art of politely moving away from the sites, where all these punishing Hindu Mythological Stories ( Kathas ) are being narrated. Travelling in a train, my methods of escape from these would be exchanging my seat with someone who has a better ear for these stories or alternatively pulling the chain and creating a ruckus over this cruelty being done to me and in the end if nothing worked; plainly smashing the faces of the benevolent people on a mission to show the path of divinity to all listening the Katha, willingly or unwillingly.
The later is though my most preferred method of ‘Satyagriha’ in all unpleasant to me situations; may someone has irked me at the work, pinched my girlfriend’s bottom in a disc or failed to honour his word which has resoluted in some wastage of a valuable asset like time to me, I waste no time putting my boxing abilities to work. This works faster than the other means of resolving uncomfortable situations. Some bruises are usually provided to me also during the process, but the end result is favourable and fast.
I am of firm faith that Mahatma Gandhi who had hijacked The Indian National Congress in the Kolkata Conference, post his return from South Africa, had allowed the other people like me who believed in boxing it out with the British with some gunshots, bombings etc, to function their & my way, we would have been an independent nation some 2 decades before 1947.
The Mahatma had this uncanny ability to call off his own extremely powerful revolutions like The Non Co- operation Movement or Quit India movement at the time of their peak if in some part of the country, the freedom fighter’s got more enthused and boxed the British a bit !! Entire thing were to be rolled back to zero again by the Bapu so that his method of getting Independence by ‘ Ahimsa ‘ and not going head-on against the ‘ Raj ‘ could be achieved. And funnily Bapu expressed solidarity with the British in the War. I am sure that Bapu must have been confused as to British were going to fight a non-violent World War !!
Ok ! Coming to the genesis of this story fast; I am given to believe that in Rajasthan there exist two dominant castes. The Gujjars & the Meenas. The Meenas have been provided with some benefits by the State and Centre deeming them backward like reservations in jobs, educations and polity. Whereas The Gujjars had been denied similar benefits i.e. they have not been found to be backward enough. Gujjars are hell-bent to prove that they are more or equally backward as their rival caste Meenas and are asking for a 5 % reservation. Now, if Gujjars caste demand is met by any government, the Meena society will take an offence and will drift away amass from the government which does so. Even though Meena were enjoying reservation, they do not want anything to be given to the Gujjars !
Catch 22 situations for any government. Here at the State level & Centre level the same party is in rule. We poor electorates think that we vote and put in governments in place to do things for us. Actually though the biggest job any government has to keep itself going and keeping the party & party men coffers tinkling to keep them ready & fed for new elections. Kyunki Kal Ho Na Ho….!
As such we are a caste dominated society & polity. And we are not ashamed of it. We accept it I totality. The parties while allocating their tickets to candidates for any election first calculate the caste concentration / distribution in that constituency. Second comes the candidate being a Bahubali i.e. a real muscle guy ( big goon ), his financial muscle to fight the election, most parties want/ask the candidate to deposit ugly sums in the Party Fund for getting an election ticket, which is more like a Party President’s/ Core Team’s khandaani fund, which reaches the desired places in India or abroad with the speed of communication.
As such, all political seats, right from local elections to the Parliament are previously reserved / unreserved as General/SC/ST/Woman etc. Now the further caste game happens within these available parameters for a given seat. How many Yadavs, Jats, Baniyas, Patel’s, Muslims etc these factors somewhat priory decide the formation of an Election Contest & later the Government.
Funnily, no educated societies/countries consider class, creed, race, religion to consider one’s eligibility for getting educated, voting or to be voted; running for any office political, social or a job; but our Indian society runs in a different way. We go by the above caste calculations, which even on reading by make us pity our own system.
To a certain extent, yes, this is required to provide opportunity to backward classes as per the reservation provided by our constitution to them, but for sure a mechanism should be in place that the people who come out meritorious on some grounds to be given the tickets; but no, we keep on getting charge sheeted, financial embezzlers, criminals as the runners of our country.
Samajwadi Party had fielded the good for nothing Dacoit, Phoolan Devi as a Member of Parliament’s candidate. Her opponent was a learned person, but Phoolan won; she even got re-elected. In that constituency her caste The Mallah’s vote were highest and Phoolan had a name that the illiterate voters saw as a celebrity. Sitting on today, I let my imagination flow to the functioning of the Lok Sabha, where crucial bills are presented for discussions & voting’s, amendments made, in nut shell the country functioned, what value a Chambal Dacoit, murderer, illiterate Phoolan Devi would have had added value to the functioning of the nation ????
She indeed stopped a train while travelling at unscheduled stops to create chaos. At the Gwalior jail she again created a chaos over meeting times with the inmates.
In the earlier case the then Railway Minister Paswan did not do anything and in the later all Gwalior jail officials who had requested Member of Parliament & ex dacoit Phoolan Devi to remain within the permitted limits of times for meeting her gang mates, were charge-sheeted !
Ours is a only country where the political parties have matters like construction of a certain temple in their manifesto’s. Now some other policies and programmes are also discussed but the heart of the manifesto remains, construction of a temple or demolition of a mosque.
We are the only country, which has seen formation of a government at the centre promising the electorate formation of the Ayodhya Temple; but fell or did not come to power again as ONION prices had skyrocketed!
This way I am sure that I will live to see a day that Barak Obama has to resign for say, Sausages went short in The US of A & a cartel of Pepsi and Coke doubled the prices of aerated drinks ! Would this ever happen!
Currently again in the country the inflation is high…but it is clearly appearing…as the govt is safe.. the elections are some time away..the Agriculture Minister is being the big brother to all traders…importing at will, not upon requirement. Just before the election air builds up, all required Economics will be applied and prices & inflation will be curbed.
Narsimha Rao, when was facing the no-confidence motion; an M P from Jharkhand Mr. Munda had come drunk that very all important day to the Parliament ! Mr. Narsimha Rao needed his vote; rather Mr. Munda’s vote was critical to his government. We may imagine how the drunken rather dead drunk M P would have been made to cast his vote!
In 2008, Mr. Manmohan Singh faced a no-confidence motion. Sudden death was certain. But he was smiling his famous Buddha Smile!
It so happened that the opposition party BJP sent a whip to all its M P to vote for the motion of No-confidence. One M P of the BJP Somabhai, though openly voted for Manmohan’s government going against the party whip. After the aftermath, he replied to the party that the whip which was issued to him was in English and he could not read any language apart from Gujarati. Few days later there was demonstration of INR 20 Crores received by this M P to remember reading only Gujarati on that day particular day !
These are routine examples, we have Raja’s, Kalmadi’s, Chavhan’s, Sharad Pawar’s etc to discuss currently…then just imagines what must have transpired since Independence? At Centre & State level? Then we had a babu raj, an inspector & licence regimen, Fera’s, MRTP’s. All these substances are ready material for restrictions on free enterprise and were the invokers of corruption.
Ooops ! Sorry I forgot my journey…….It has so happened that because of this Gujjar ‘Andolan ‘- the Gujjars had made all the train routes passing through Rajasthan impossible. As a resultant impact, the flight tickets from Indore-Delhi had got jacked up to become unapproachable at least to my shallow pockets. So I decided to board a train from Indore to Jammu Tavi which would have taken me to Delhi maybe in 22 hrs, compared to 14 hrs with the one which went thru Rajasthan ( if it ever started at all ! ).
I was banking upon my Journalist Card, which usually gets me some small privileges like a berth in a packed train. But here, there was no listening. At the most the conductor made me sit sandwiched with 4 old Hariyanvi ladies from decent backgrounds. They were all part of a large group within the same bogie who had come to Ujjain to listen to ‘ The Bhagwat Katha ‘ & now returning back to Haryana!
Since my growing up, in my 2 tier city, I had listened to so many Katha’s. Here a small stage was made at the place of assemblage of all, the mike was tested several times…hello..1 2 3 ..hello..Announcements were made of delay in the arrival of pundit jee etc. When pundit jee arrived he after looking at the quorum..if found it suitable…strated to play his harmonium; popularly called as a ‘ Peti’. And then the pundit used to start telling some ‘ Katha’ of some Satyanarayan Bhagwan and his marketing act used to be in the midst emphasize that all those were listening to the Katha would get these benefits as a certain place in the heaven.
Also as an astute fundraiser he would in intervals make a plea to the listeners to contribute towards the divine cause and used to announce the name of the contributor over the mike. It used to be great fun for me; but truly I failed to survive one full episode of these Katha’s anywhere, anytime.
Now, Satyanarayan Bhagwan who was so prominent in the past have gone out of vougue ! One hindi movie released with the story of miracles available to the Hindu’s if they worshiped a certain newly invented ‘ Santoshi Mata ‘ ! This movie was a super duper hit. And now this Santoshi Mata took the centrestage of the common man’s devotional energies. Now, even Santoshi Mata has become out of fashion.
Then we used to receive postcards that Sai Baba or Sanoshi Mata had come to certain person’s dreams & the recipient of the postcard should send seven similar to others or bad luck might strike !
Being a Jain, my family or relatives used to keep recitals of some Jain ‘ Strotra ‘ called ‘Bhaktamar Strotra ‘. It used to be something like a marathon reading of the Mantras, 24 hrs or 48 hrs alternatively in Hindi & Sanskrit. As a kid and then a teenager I used to participate in the happenings with great gusto. But trust me entire exercise use to be to read it up loud from a book, in a chorus over a mike….NO MEANING ! Yes, now at this ripe age I can just laugh and say that what non-sense I was participating in.
Now, new Katha Vachaks have joined the bandwagon. Several are from Gujarat; out of which one is facing criminal charges & one Kirit Bhai, who I remember left his Katha midway in Indore as his ‘ Fees’ instalment which was in lakhs of rupees didn’t reach him by the promised time. Thousands of devotees who had assembled to listen to his ‘Bhagwat Katha’ had to return unresolved! But Kirit Bhai remains a professional! Pay me…as you are supposed to pay me..The Gods about whom talk..do not pay me!
With the advent of all Spritual Channels like Sanskar, Bhakti, Aastha the way for the general public to switch on and take a dip in the pool of divinity / virtuousness has opened. But most people like me who are aware of the game of broadcasting biz, know that these are big businesses…much like pre sold products. The Baba’s buy time slots here, give a rehearsed discourse, the astrologer answer some phony calls and in the end is the way given as to how to connect with the Baba’s & Jyotish’s thru telephone numbers. Trust me these are mini call centre running and the practice/collection of all is whooping! TRP’s are also high!
Now, in the train the ladies who were sitting across me was talking about ‘ The Bhagwat Puran ‘ !
All Hindu ‘ Purana’s to me are stories; let us call them mythological stories. I probed one of them a bit to brief me as to what had she retained from all those days of ‘ Bhagwat Katha’. Seeing me interested, she came out with a small story from the ‘ Bhagwat ‘ – Some mumbo jumbo types !
There was a king. ‘ Death ‘ approached his kingdom. The king was virtuous, he questioned the intentions of ‘ Death ‘ or Kaal to enter his kingdom. There was some question answer game. The King won in all but one. So ‘ Death or Kaal ‘ said that okay, it won’t take all of king’s kingdom. Only 4 places.
Wherever there will be Gold I shall stay. Wherever there will be Insult to Women, I will stay. Wherever there will be Gambling, I will stay. And wherever there will be Alcohol, I will stay! And thus Death stays in these 4 corners of any kingdom!!
I thought for a while, and then replied to the lady – that Bebe’ ‘ Gold is now traded by nearly all, wore by nearly all, There are licenses to alcohol & gambling. Women, at least in the modern society, are giving enough problems to men. There are funny laws for the same.
I said, “ I think DEATH has now permanently made its hose in our Legislature. Our Lok Sabha’s, our Rajya Sabha’s, State Assemblies and so forth. Whatever comes out of here, even though it might appear like AMRIT to the common man; is actually DEATH. We crib about Onion prices; somebody has already made Millions over it. We crib about Telecom, the magician has played his game such that out of 1,76,000 lacs; maximum has already been converted into profits & booked. We wanted a great CWG, people are richer by 1000’s crores.
The Parliament is not functioning for months, it’s our taxpayers money going to waste. The Security of a useless Politician snubs us, it’s actually been hired on yours money!!! The rules they pass; they have a hidden agenda ready to either to convert them into votes or money or both.
SO BHAGWTH DOESN’T WORKS IN THIS COUNTRY. NOTHING DOES. BUT WHY CARE? BE ON A TRANCE. LISTEN MORE KATHA’s. THERE THE TRUE SORYTELLER’s, SITING IN THE PARLIAMENT ARE INJECTING A NEW KIND OD EDUCATED, INTELLECTUAL, PROGRAMMES DRIVEN DEATH IN THE COUNTRY. JAI BHAGWATH KI…AUR @@@@GUJARS KI !
