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Sunday, May 14, 2006
The Visa God
Reader Deepak Krishnan points my attention, via email, to this story of a deity in a temple in Hyderabad that grants visas. Heh. Everyone who goes to the temple to pray for a visa will almost certainly already be a believer, and will tend to credit the deity if they get the visa, and blame something else if they don't. That's how belief gets perpetuated.
It's interesting to see how religion evolves to fit our modern needs. Perhaps shopping malls should have small temples at their entrances as well, where people can pray to discount deities and suchlike. And offer gory sacrifices.
"I have brought thee the head of an old communist goat, o Discount God," I can imagine someone saying. "Please bestow upon me a free frying pan to go with the widescreen bluetooth fridge I just bought."
Update: Multiple readers write in to inform me that the temple is called the Visa Mata Temple, and Tony says, "[E]very rickshawala at the airport or the train station will take you there directly when you mention Visa Mata."
He also tells me about a Pressure Cooker Mata Temple at Siachen. He writes:
It's interesting to see how religion evolves to fit our modern needs. Perhaps shopping malls should have small temples at their entrances as well, where people can pray to discount deities and suchlike. And offer gory sacrifices.
"I have brought thee the head of an old communist goat, o Discount God," I can imagine someone saying. "Please bestow upon me a free frying pan to go with the widescreen bluetooth fridge I just bought."
Update: Multiple readers write in to inform me that the temple is called the Visa Mata Temple, and Tony says, "[E]very rickshawala at the airport or the train station will take you there directly when you mention Visa Mata."
He also tells me about a Pressure Cooker Mata Temple at Siachen. He writes:
The Pressure Cooker Temple, is so named because they [the soldiers there] worship the remnants of a pressure cooker that saved the lives of jawans from a heat-seeking missile, fired from the other side, that went straight for the pressure cooker.Well, yes, so their lives were saved. But what about their lunch?
