Is God hugely egotist?

As soon as I stepped out of the Golden Temple, Vellore, I had to immediately switch on my laptop and type my thoughts into this word doc, before they escape the feeble confines of my mind. For those of you who are unaware of this temple, it is a somewhat new temple which has risen in fame to almost rival that of the Tirupati temple, at least in the temple goers circuit.

I have not seen a temple as grand as this one, yet. It reminded me of the Ramoji Film City. That is how grand it is. I was a little disappointed at this as I am a man of simple tastes. Initially, my thoughts turned in the negative with this display of unnecessary grandeur. Then as I walked to the main temple, it got me thinking. And I had a lot of time to do that owing to the long around the temple route that you have to take to reach the main temple.

The first question that popped up into my head was, ‘Is God really this egotist, that he will be pleased by this grandeur in his name?’ I just could not digest this revelation and was actually terrified that the answer to that might just be a yes. But then I recalled the Ramayana that I have read and knew for certain that my Ram was not. But the moment I thought of Ram, Krishna popped up into my head and though they are supposedly different avatars of the same God, they are so different. Somehow I could imagine Nitish Bharadwaj (the guy who played Krishna in BR Chopra’s Mahabharata) giving that smile of his on seeing this temple.

This led me to another question, ‘How could the same God have two such different and opposing characteristics attached to itself?’ And I think the answer to this lies in the simple fact that God understood the complexity and the diversity of man best. He knew there would be men like me, of simple taste. And he knew of the existence of men who would worship grandeur. If a touch of grandeur helps man to stray towards the good and curb evil even if in a very minimal amount, what’s wrong in it? In fact, statistics show that currently there are more men who believe in grand gestures than simple ones. Just compare the devotee traffic of Tirupati or this Golden Temple to that of say Hampi or the Shore temple.

Of course, whether God exists or not is a completely different debate for a different piece, but something commonly called God definitely is worshipped and does help somewhat in taming the evil within.

Educated India, are we ready?

How many of you reading this believe that good, quality education is a basic right of every human being? My guess is, there will only be one in a hundred who will disagree. Well, my argument is kind of in support of that one person. I know the thought is pretty pathetic, but humour me.

Before you judge me, let me be clear that this is just a thought and not my belief.

Now consider this, you live in a world where you don’t have auto/taxi/bus drivers on the roads; where you will have to clean the roads outside your house yourself. You live in a world where there is no labour to construct your home and you have to do it yourself; where there are no truck drivers to transport your favourite soap, shoe, grains or deodorant from the factories to the store next door. You live in a world where there are no road side eateries and you don’t get your cutting chais and hot, simmering vada pavs anymore; where there is no labour available to work in the various factories producing all your necessities. You live in a world where you have to completely lift your own load and do your own work – from scratch. Get the picture?

These are jobs that no well educated man/woman will choose to do (except in desperate need). Now, some of the points I have mentioned above might sound to you like luxuries, but nonetheless, they are luxuries that we have taken for granted. So will we be comfortable without these luxuries?

Like I said earlier, I am not proposing that we keep the uneducated uneducated. I am merely pointing out that are we ready, and do we understand the radical change that this will result in? Of course, every self righteous person will answer to that in the affirmative. Even I did. But as the famous saying goes, ‘we don’t really know what we have, till it’s gone.’

You might argue that the westerners live life the way I have pointed out above. But, there are two points I think that differentiate us from them. One, our economy is not strong enough yet to create job opportunities for every additional person that will get educated (we are not even able to provide for the current number). Two, (and this is an assumption, mostly based on Hollywood flicks) the westerners have a good amount of immigrants to do the somewhat lower level jobs. Are our relationships with our neighbours like Pakistan and China good enough for that? Do we want them to immigrate into our country?

It’s just a thought. Think about it.