Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Long Qs reduce the overall spiritual experiene

Whether it is Siddhivinayak temple in Dadar, Mahalaxmi temple, Tirupati Balaji temple, Shirdi  etc, temples are associated with long Qs for darshan, or else activating speed money, contacts etc to get a quicker sight of God. One of the reasons I hesitate to visit temples in person(more so the famous ones) is the fear of a long Q-recently, I spent 4hrs in Q to visit Shirdi Saibabab temple. While some of it was my own making(I understand it takes 2hrs in morning vs 3-4hrs later), the temple had a blatant VIP/VVIP and donor pass based parallel entry system which really irked me. But temples being outside the preview of RTI and Consumer court, one has little power to change or question this. C. So while one might need to wait in Q, it is not likeable

As the magazine Swarajya puts it corectly,
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/not-just-smart-cities-india-needs-smart-temple-entrepreneurship-too
"Temples..are run by the state, more to maximise revenues than to build faith. They run a quick-moving assembly line, where the devotee, often after hours of waiting in a queue, gets less than 10 seconds of darshan. Getting into the Tirupati temple is no different from getting into a crowded suburban train in Mumbai or Kolkata. One is surprised how faith even survives this push-and-pull"



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