The recent tragedy in North India, the flood, the
devastation, the loss of life in that region got me thinking about the
expiration date of things. I know it sounds a little insensitive of me to put
it in a matter-of-fact way but I can’t help thinking about this series of
incidents from an objective angle. Is it so that everything must be destroyed
and then renewed again through a new process, is it Nature’s way of saying that
we went too far or are these natural calamities God’s way of wiping the slate
clean to start again?
I thought about the God angle and as I thought, I saw even
deeper into it and came to the following conclusion. There are many examples of
floods destroying those places where evil had bloomed out of control and the
people become so corrupt that it seemed impossible to remove those stains from
their soul and so they were washed away or one can say that they were perhaps
smitten by the Hand of God. I’m not
saying that it should have happened but it seems that it did. Now, as I
mentioned earlier in this paragraph, there seem to be many indications of such
incidents to have occurred in the past as well as in contemporary times. I have
noted only a few which came through the top of my head because I’m too lazy to
research anything in my vacations.
So, first up on the list is the incident from the Bible. In Christian
mythology, God washed away life from the whole planet once upon a time and just
kept this man Noah alive, supposedly because he was a righteous man living in a
rotten world. God, it says, literally made it rain till the whole world was
flooded and people of all races and religions and languages and colour and
creed were washed away because they had become corrupt and their souls could
not be saved. So, apparently, and I’m just guessing here, God wanted to start
things fresh but didn't want to go through the whole man-making process again,
so he left Noah and his family alive.
From Plato’s work we
get that the Greek God, Poseidon destroyed the island of Atlantis with a flood
because the people had become too corrupt to save. There is an alternate theory
that says that he was pretty pissed at the Atlanteans choosing to elect the
Goddess Athena as their protector instead of him, so he caused the tsunami that
in turn caused Atlantis to sink beneath the waves, but who knows? Greek Gods
seemed to do whatever the hell they pleased, at least according to Hollywood
movies, and you know, the fact that they were Gods… So yeah.
So this was history. Now coming back to the present. India
has seen her share of floods but what happens when a pilgrimage spot is washed
out? What happens when a place of worship is inundated and a lot of people who
have travelled to pray – are killed? It is often hard to believe how these
things happen, especially for a devout person (which I assure you, I’m not).
How can a House of God be flooded?
How can pilgrims, who have gone to pray, die?
So, you see what I’m trying to say here is that there is a
scarcity of Faith, a sudden dearth thereof.
For example, when India’s east coast was hit by a tsunami in
2004, the Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni in Tamil Nadu, India, was
flooded and a lot of people died too. Then came the questions that I mentioned
earlier and the doubt and the questioning of Faith. But, if one were to compare
what happened here with those ancient floods and the theory of corruption and
the anger of God, it may seem plausible that the same may have happened here. I
have been to Vailankanni and it’s a beautiful shrine, but on the other hand, I
saw how the people had converted the house of God into a marketplace. I was
reminded of another incident in the Bible which describes how Jesus flew into a
rage and started hitting the merchants and traders sitting outside and doing
business at the Temple of Jerusalem. Maybe this was history being repeated, who
knows?
If you have managed to bear with me till this point, you
will now notice that I've come a full circle to the point where we started. The
floods in Uttarakhand may be the anger of God being directed at the place of
pilgrimage becoming a centre for tourism and commerce. Everyone knows that a
place of worship, especially one which is much hyped, is sure to turn into a
tourist spot as well. I think everyone who is well informed knows the prices at which things are being sold in these religious places and even more so because of this calamity. With that, the ‘Marketplace in the House of God’ scene is
replayed. What can one expect then?
Note: Through this post, I’m not propagating that floods at
religious places should be a regular visitor. Nor am I insinuating that all the
people who died or were affected by such calamities were sinners and deserved
it. I’m also not inciting hatred against God (because that would be kind of stupid).
These are just my musings on a flood well travelled and one of the possible
reasons behind the same.
To know more about the marketplace in the House of God, I suggest you read this post by
http://krishnayamini.blogspot.in/2013/06/at-their-job.html
No comments:
Post a Comment