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The Rath Yatra or Chariot festival at Jagannath Temple, Puri is one of the most popular Hindu festivals in India; and also one of the largest, judging by the footfall. But, there remain certain controversies and conjectures that projects the temple of Jagannath and Hinduisim in a different light.
Idol
The idol of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra, interestingly, are made of wood and unmistakably resemble tribal gods and godesses worshipped by various tribes and clans in India. It must also be noted that wooden idols are rarely to be seen in Hindu temples in India. They are either made of stone or of some metal. What prompted the Jagannath idol to like as it does, is a mystery. The legend says that Lord Vishnu had come disguised as a carpenter to carve the idol while the king who commissioned him was asked to wait outside until the idol is complete. But curiosity had the better of him and he opened the door only to find these unfinished idols. The carpenter had turned to thin air.
Rath Yatra
A similar chariot festival is celebrated in kandy in Sri Lanka. There the chariot carries the tooth relic of Gautama Buddha. It is believed that the chariot festival actually originated in Puri and was taken by travelling Buddhist monks to Sri Lanka, later. The place where the Jagannath temple now stands was probably a Buddhist Stupa and was demolished (like many others) and transformed into a Hindu temple. The stupa is believed to have contained Buddha’s relic. Even today, there is a sacred and secretly guarded box inside the Jagannath temple which is referred to as Brahmabastu. What the brahmabastu actually is nobody knows. This is the life that resides inside the Jaganntah idol. The carpenter who carves the Jagannath idol every 12 years transfers this life from the old deity into the new ones. During this process he is blindfolded so that he cannot see what that bastu or pinda actually is. It is conjectured that this pinda is nothing other that Lord Buddha’s relic - his tooth.
I am feeling like going to Darjeeling. A couple of months ago, I was within 10 kilometres of Darjeeling but couldn’t make it to there. You know, ours is a life bound by schedules, time tables, sanctioned leaves, boss’s fury, unfinished work and so on. But my yearly pilgrimage to Darjeeling is overdue; I can’t stand it any  longer.
I have been asked time over time - “what’s so special about Darjeeling?” “Why do you run to Darjeeling so often?” “Why are you always on the lookout for a reason, an excuse to go to Darjeeling?” Well, the answers to all these questions are one - you have to be there in order to understand its magic.
Its colorful shops, the colorfully dressed people, the kanchenjunga, the momos, the Keventers, the Glenary’s, the hot chocolate, the mist, the cloud, the sun, the rain, the Planter’s Club, the mall, the wrought iron benches, the crowd, the fashion, the lipstick, the straight hair, the flowers in the window sill, the chhurpi…………….the smell of coffee, the smell of cold, of booze, of the wish to come back.
 The undisputed Queen of Hills, Darjeeling for me is not just a place anymore; it’s a phenomenon. I bow down to the elegance of her past glory - the grandeur of British tea planters and that of forgotten bungalows with colorful window panes and sloping roofs. The queen’s gown is now tattered, her throne decked in gaudy and tacky imitations; but the smile, oh the smile is still the same and can still launch a thousand ships. With her I can be alone with myself. Sitting next to her on a wrought iron bench in the mall I listen to her stories of lap dogs and evening balls and Saturday races in Lebong. Stories over she pauses and turns to look at the mall abuzz with tourists, tea sellers, pigeons and ponies, smiles, turns to me and says - “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Then we get up and walk hand in hand like teenage girls down Nehru Road towards Keventers hoping to get and empty table on the terrace to sit with our hot chocolates and wait for the Kanchenjunga to come out of the clouds.
1. To die in a poisonous gas leak/explosion - This is one of the surest ways to hit the headlines in India. All you have to do is stay near a chemical factory and die choking in some poisonous gas emitted from the poorly managed and negligently handled factory.
2. Be struck by a mine planted by Maoists or be present on a train that falls victim to a Maoists ploy, gets derailed and is then hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction. This is about one of the surest ways to hit the headlines. Your photo, your spouse’s your family tree, all of these will be gleefully published.
3. To be on a plane that skids off the runway and kills you. Even better if you were supposed to get married within a month’s time of the disaster.
4. To be killed by your or your spouse’s family members for marrying outside the clan/caste.
5. To be at a railway station/cafe/5 star hotel/your home while gun brandishing terrorists break fire on you.
6. To be present at an old building in Calcutta and be burnt alive in the middle of the day for being unable to reach the fire exit (as it doesn’t exist) or the terrace (which remains locked). The TV channels and newspapers will show your mother’s wailing photos besides your charred remains.
7. Be molested by the Inspector General of Police and then commit suicide. This will ensure you are remembered for the coming 19 years as that is the time the judiciary will take to punish your molester.
8. Come to India as a missionary to work among tribal poor and lepers and be burnt alive in your station wagon along with your sons by some communal fanatics.
9. Be ripped apart into pieces along with hundreds others while traveling on a suburban train in Mumbai.
10. Light candles in memory of the dead; appear on news channels and answer questions related to the deaths; sympathize with the family of the dead; protest against the atrocities of the govt. and…..do nothing about anything anyways.
Respected Mrs President,
I am an insignificant citizen of your country and I did not lose any of my relatives/organs in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. But looking at the state of things, anyone of my intelligence can guess that someday, any day it might be my turn to get maimed. And then, just like in the case of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, your govt., our govt., will give the person/people responsible, a safe passage with salutations.
Don’t these people, all these ministers and leaders feel sorry for themselves? Have you ever met any of the ex-big shots of Union Carbide? If you have, did you feel like asking them how they manage to sleep at night with so many people’s blood on their hands? How did they get other jobs in India after the tragedy? I thought our constitution is ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’, but as things have turned out, it is now, ‘by the rich, of the rich and for the rich’. Even if the govt. cares least about our lives, they should at least care about our votes, isn’t it? What are we? Playthings? How did you ministers and heads of states even dare to take us so for granted? Is it not your responsibility to for once seriously try to give justice to these poor people who had voted and elected the govt. who ensured safe passage to the murderer Warren Anderson? And the rest are being given only 2 years sentence considering their ill health and old age? Wow. THEIR health is the state’s and the judiciary’s holy responsibility and what about ours? Are we vote-generating garbage? These people, Keshub Mahindra and all, they should be HANGED. Just about the time we started having some renewed faith on the judiciary, comes this catastrophe. Will please tell me, what is it that you really want? You want to delay he sentences/trials so that they can die a natural in the peace of their plush homes? What shall we call that? POSTHUMOUS JUDGEMENT? Hats off to you Mrs President and hats off to your Legislature and Judiciary. And SHAME ON YOU.
I have just sent this letter to the President of India. You can too at http://helpline.rb.nic.in/GrievanceNew.aspx. Not that this will be of great help, but it can at least be our way of telling them all that we are not going to take it all lying down.
I have always respected Mr Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka for showing the guts to crush the LTTE despite considerable international pressure and I firmly believe that our holy govt. will never be able to do any such thing for fear of losing votes; and this stands true for all parties that are and may be part of the govt. at the centre.
While it is true that perhaps the time for an armed revolution is past, after the Gyaneshwari Express incident at Midnapore on 28th May, my idea that those godforsaken Maoists should be crushed has been reinforced irrespective of what is possible and what is not in the socio-political fabric of present day India. The Maoists should be bombed from the sky using fighter airplanes. True, a few innocent people will die if such an operation is carried out, but they will have to be considered as ‘collateral damage’. These innocent people who died in the Gyaneshwari Express train crash gave their lives for the Maoists’ so called fight against the administration. Similarly the innocent villagers who will have to die in the fight against Maoists will lay their lives for a greater cause.
Earlier when the Maoists were killing CRPF jawans, policemen and cadres of the ruling party it still made sense as these were the people they had branded as their ‘class enemies’. But nowadays it seems they have become so desperate and cruel that human lives have ceased to matter. If their fight is as they claim, against the cruelty and insensitivity of the administration, then how does killing innocent people fall into their agenda? I wonder why the villagers whom these Maoists exploit and threaten to achieve their ends do not silently report to police about their activities. The govt. is too afraid to lose out on votes and the villagers of course are afraid to lose their and their family members’ lives. But it is this fear and our over smart press who are keen on giving our Maoists leaders a celebrity status that have clearly helped them go so far. They should also know that these Maoists who have always banked on the ‘lack of development’ factor to provide fuel to their movement, actually steal money meant for development from the BDOs. And how do they use this money? To buy arms of course; these bunch of shameless cheats.
I hate the Maoists and I think that if the govt. of India honestly tries, it will not be difficult to eliminate them from the face of the earth. We have enough problem of our own already, we do not need the help of Maoists to expedite the death of innocent people.
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