35mm HiGhLiGhT rEeL

During my engineering days in Mumbai, I made it a point every Tuesday to visit the Hanuman Temple, which was a part of the larger Balaji Temple premise on the hilltop behind our residential complex. The ambience of the temple made me feel very calm and rejuvenated. The backside of the premise opened to a downhill road. During rainy season, it was extremely pleasant to stand there and enjoy the cold breeze and some drizzle. The evening prayers were carried out with full enthusiasm by the priests who lived in the same apartment complex, where I did, just a level above.

Whenever there was a conversation around the temples in which people had some serious faith and belief, the name of Siddhivinayak Temple always surfaced up. I made up my mind to visit this well renowned temple. As I made my way through the chaotic streets around Dadar and got closer to the destination, I was quite impressed to see the huge rush of people scattered all over the place. As a part of the ritual, I bought the offering from the nearby stall, which was just one amongst the entire row stretching to the other end of the road.

There was a long queue and the devotee standing in front of me appeared to be a tourist and was carrying a camera. At the security check, the guards stopped him and din’t allow him to carry his camera inside. There was a lot of back and forth, before the man finally decided to step outside the queue. The security personal suggested him an alternate solution to purchase the small image of the shrine from the small store inside the temple.

These different levels of filtration process fall under the jurisdiction of the committee managing the temple premise, but what I failed to accept and understand was the bias towards the big celebrities in the Bollywood. Whenever they would visit Siddhivinayak temple, there would be cameramen inside the premise with their gear shooting these stars right next to the shrine along with the priests. The news would flash all over the content hungry and quality shy news channels, magazines, news papers and online portals. The celebrity managers would even recommend the actors to pay a visit to this temple before their upcoming release to create a buzz and highlight the strong belief they have in the almighty.

I don’t mean to offend anyone, but getting exposed to such biased portrayals fills me with bitterness towards the people running the show. I feel more at peace to just close my eyes and offer my prayers to the almighty and thank him for this life, rather than standing in queue to get past the barriers men have created to exploit an individual’s religious sentiments for their own needs. This is not the case with just Siddhivinayak, ironically the most renowned temples in the country have a separate queue for devotees who pay money for cutting across the common man.