Seven births of good karma...

India is the sacred land. If you're reborn after seven births of consecutive good karma, you're born here, the land of the Himalayas and Ganges. In this birth, you have a chance to be liberated, and attain Nirvana.

In Raam Raajya, a mere dhobi could point a finger at the Queen and have her banished. We have come a long way from those days, and that is why your chances of liberation have increased a zillion times. You see, dear sir or madam, we are now in India that is 'Daam Raajya'. That means everything here has a price, and nobody can Lokpal even a corrupt Prime Minister. Someone who points a finger at him, like Raja of the 1.76 lakh crores scam, is already in Tihar Jail and has no credibility. So no dhobi can sanitise our nation. Politicians are protesting that public accountability is a tyranny of the unelected!

If you want to become a pilot or a brain surgeon, we have a price for it. No need to go to school. No need to write exams. There is a price for everything in Daam Rajya.

It takes, as someone said, six minutes to cross a zebra crossing on a busy road. Better you take your six minutes. If you're run over, it is unlikely anyone will entertain even a police complaint, forget insurance.

If you want to join a decent college, you must know that the cut-off is 100 percent. Anything less and you better be willing to pay the price.

Pay taxes. Be honest. And suffer a thousand miseries: Power cuts. Water shortage. Dengue and malaria and swine flu.

Who cares for you? Your favourite godman. He will show you the way to Nirvana. Meanwhile, he may be raided, or filmed in a compromising posture, or be found with a few billions of cash.

You see, the god of your salvation in Daam Rajya is Kubera. He happens to be the brother of Ravana. And he strikes a handsome pose. See the picture at the top.

Happy Nirvana!

Beedi Basava Bhimplas

On many a weekend I find
A colourful visitor on our streets.
It's a bedecked Basava or bull(ock) behold!
Strolling along with his master playing his beguiling pipe-
Nadaswaram - the happy music of temples and weddings.

I won't call it begging although some coins are expected from every onlooker.
Because
the piper charms with his music, and the beast is indeed a beauty.
I am reminded of our star musicians, with their spouses in tow.
The spouse seems nonchalant, without a care-
Unmoved by the music, or our stare.

When did we Indians become greedy?

Today's Hindu features an inspiring interview with the surviving king of Travancore, who calls himself Padmanabha Dasa. He explains that being a king, like Henry VIII, confers enormous acquisitive powers and one can excuse greed by adducing the title to himself as the Defender of the Faith. The other extreme attitude, which goes even beyond trusteeship, is to call oneself the servant of God. Even Gandhi was impressed with the utter simplicity of Travancore kings, and their temple was the first to allow all castes to enter its precincts.

These days we read only about two things. The greedy thieves who become our politicians, and how rich are our temples and god-men. For a yoga guru to own an inland off Scottish shores and declare a mere Rs.1100 crores ($2B and change) as his assets seems passé. After all, we have always called God Ishwara (possessor or riches) or Sri Devi (the goddess of wealth).

But juxtapose this with our idea of sannyasa, the stories of Buddha, Ashoka, and Gandhi, and even this story of Padmanabha Dasa, and we arrive at a conundrum. Indians worship poverty, and yet show immense greed. Perhaps the two go together, as fasting and feasting are both endemic to our culture!

But all this discovered temple wealth (the recently catalogued wealth of Rs.100,000 crores and more in Padmanabhaswamy Temple vaults) and hoary fables of Vijayanagara where precious stones were weighed in scales like common commodities raise one key question. It does seem that India had immense wealth once. Like in Somnath temple looted and ravaged by Ghazni; and the Kohinoor diamond and the Peacock throne, which invited invasions and pillage. It is well documented how the East India Company methodically stole the jewels from our crown, as it were. Now, can we relate the three together, our historic wealth, our historic spirit of worshipping self-abnegation, and our recent symptoms of untrammelled greed?

My theory is this. In a land of plenty, man starts to aspire to higher things. Hence wealth becomes a mere means to an end. Sacrificing lower wealth to aspire to higher ends (witness the Story of Puran Bhagat as narrated by Kipling). But when Indians have lost our higher moorings and also been bitten by the fear of losing all to invaders and thieves, we become victims of lobha. That is the Sanskrit word for greed.

And perhaps in the past we worshipped God as not a symbol of lucre, but a higher value of bliss or Ananda. So we went to Badrinath and Padmanabhaswamy temples, not known for their wealth.

But having lost bliss, we now settle for $$$$. So the greatness of a god-man and the popularity of a temple are to be a function of their wealth, measured in tons of gold and dollars in billions.

The first ten days in Bangalore

Bangalore is busy, dug up, smelly in spots, and quite tough to navigate on any given day, especially Saturdays and Sundays. Everyone is on the verge of road rage given the missed meetings and wasted hours.

A million eateries have sprung up offering every kind of regional fare as well as fancy international cuisine.

Most waiters are clueless what the dishes are and can't speak your language, whatever it may be.

People are lovely, wanting to help and trying to make a living.

The TV is full of Bollywood Khans, godmen and marauding newsmen.

Mosquitoes have become extra-powerful and bite at all times of the day and night.

Come to Bangalore, the 24/7 city with all action funda:

The Khans sear my screen all day.

Godmen hop and mosquitoes don't stop.

Stuck in traffic, I don't care.

I have a date with my favourite buffet.