The Reward

A terrorist once successfully bombed himself killing hundreds in the onslaught. After death, he was led to the gates of heaven where he met the gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper asked him, "Were you the suicide bomber who was just blown up?"

The terrorist answered, 'Yes, I am... I mean, I was."

The gatekeeper glanced him from top to bottom and made a note in his book of records.

"So, are you gonna let me into heaven?" the terrorist asked.

"Well, we will see about that after I finish calculating your tally of sins and good deeds in your lifetime", the gatekeeper said still peering into his record book.

"Oh, I don't care if I go to heaven or not! I'm here to claim what was promised to me", said the terrorist.

The gatekeeper looked up and asked, "Please be kind enough to elaborate what you were promised back in there as I do not seem to have any mention of it here."

The terrorist turned on his either sides to see if there was anyone listening, and making sure there was no one overhearing him, thus spoke, "Um... Well, during my recruitment and during my training, our leaders repeatedly stressed on one thing which kept us going and motivated no matter how difficult our tasks were. I did not care to see if there were children, women, old people, or innocent among the dead. I just wanted to kill. It was so much fun killing all those infidels!"

The gatekeeper was quietly listening. And the terrorist finally asked, "So, what about the 72 virgins that I was promised?!" with a grin of achievement on his face.

The gatekeeper immediately changed his demeanor and bowing to him with all the respect, said, "Oh! Please forgive my rudeness to have kept you waiting for so long, my dear Sir. Pardon my ignorance that I failed to identify you were a martyr in the Holy War. Your promise is right this way. Please follow me..."

He led the terrorist inside the gate and took him along a corridor. There were several rooms from which aromatic scents emanated and colorful ornaments were decorated on the doors and windows, which although remained closed. Trees bearing colorful fruits and flowers lined the corridor. It was truly a heavenly sight. The terrorist struggled hard to contain his excitement and paced up his steps to match up with the gatekeeper. After a couple of turns and passing a few rooms, they finally arrived at a beautifully decorated villa.

Upon entering inside, the gatekeeper said, "Here is the Heaven you longed for. Here is your destiny. The rewards for your deeds, my Sir. Step inside and glorify your afterlife as you deem fit. Your 72 virgins are waiting for you inside in the first room to your right."

The terrorist almost jumped with joy. "Thank you so much, Praise the Lord! My mission is finally successful!"

The gatekeeper said, "All right, Sir. I'll leave you here. Have a good time and a good stay!" and walked out of the house. The terrorist immediately closed the door and rushed to the room and pushed open the door. What he saw made him scream in shock! He rushed out to the main door and tried to open it but it was locked from the outside. Without another thought, he called out loud to the gatekeeper, "Hey, Mr Gatekeeper. You traitor! Come back here. I'll rip you to pieces..."

The gatekeeper, who was not very far, came back to the villa and saw the terrorist shouting from inside through the window. The terrorist, upon seeing the gatekeeper, frantically said, "Hey, open this door! Why is it locked from outside? I want to get out."

Approaching the terrorist, the gatekeeper calmly asked, "Why, Sir? What is the problem? Are you not satisfied with your present?"

"You moron, when I asked for 72 virgins, I meant girls and not 72 men of all ages", the terrorist protested. To this, the gatekeeper, maintaining the same calm gesture, replied, "Apologies, my Sir. Once allotted, the presents cannot be taken back and have to be enjoyed by either parties, which is the Law here. Uh, by the way, we have not lied to our word either. Those men in there are all virgins! And they're no more complaining if it's a man or a woman. It's only a matter of days that you'll get along with them. Anyway, enjoy your stay, Sir". Saying this, the gatekeeper walked away to check on the next person waiting at the gates.

Blinded Faiths and Greedy Deeds

Temples are the seats of divine energies where we all throng to purify our spirits and be blessed by the Almighty. Oftentimes, the number of pilgrims visiting such temples increase in turn boosting the popularity of such places and attributing a special divine relevance to them. Last week, I had been to the Pushkara Snanam in the divine Godavari river that flows through A.P. and Telangana, covering the shrines that lie on her banks. A few incidents that happened to me personally (not mentioning the stampede that took place in Rajamundry) gave not a spiritual, but a disgraceful feeling lingering about the people living in and around the premises of these temples. Except for the first incident that happened last year, these are a few of my experiences that shattered my divine expectations.

Incident 1 - Srikalahasti Temple in Andhra Pradesh

The bad feeling started right from the parking lot when rudely speaking parking attendants hosting private tenders charge exorbitantly for parking your vehicles inside the temple premises (around Rs 75/- for a car). Disregarding that, once led inside, we visited the temple with the shrines of several idols with a priest designated to offer teertha and prasadam to the visiting devotees. I was bowing to the holy idols and also to the supervising priests by falling at their feet, seeking their blessings. While I did that, I offered a small amount of money (Dakshine) to each of them. After about 4-5 idols, I passed the queue and came across a priest who was standing in front of a Ganesh idol with a plate on his side that had a few currency notes and coins. With my usual habit, I bowed to the lord and bent to fall at the priest's feet. He immediately moved away and said, "Bow to the Lord," followed by a murmer, "Mee karmaalu maakenduku!" which means "Why do we need your karmas?" I was ashamed by his gesture and walked away without looking at his face. If he was unfit to not bless me fearing my karmas, was he a collection agent begging with a plate in the name of God?

Incident 2 - Dwarakapuri in Andhra Pradesh

A newly constructed temple with a lot of beautified statues made out of plaster of paris, this temple is a sure shot eye candy to all the devotees visiting this temple. Right from entering the temple, the employees in the temple throng to you holding a ticket book in hand that has different prices for, say, taking pictures in phones, handycams, video cams, leaving the footwear, surrendering your phone in a locker, surrendering your bag in a locker, etc. It was obvious that more than keeping you hands free to visit the temple, they looked for sources of drawing revenue from everything that you had, including a water bottle, all for money. Oh! Even the bathrooms, resting rooms, and the toilets! You have to pay for everything here. It's okay to pay within the rules of management, but the problem is when these people talk to you in a rude and disgusting manner, not considering that you are a pilgrim longing for a divine blessing. A cleaner woman started abusing me for wearing slippers inside the temple complex (not inside the shrine) where a lot of people including the management wear their footwears and walk around. I pointed out to her slippers and she tried to justify that she was cleaning and was allowed to wear it. I lashed out equally at her and answered back in her own language questioning how different she and I were in front of the same God. She later received an earful from her manager for misbehaving with the pilgrims.

Incident 3 - Godavari River Bank, Rajamundry, AP

After the Pushkara Snanam, we headed out to where our buses were parked but were soon overwhelmed by the inflow of lakhs of pilgrims rushing to take a holy dip. My brother, uncle, and I had to hold on to my grandmother and protect her from the mercilessly pushing devotees who, despite noticing that there was a weak old woman in our group, kept on pushing. We requested them to not push but it fell on deaf ears. We had no other choice but to push them back in rugby style to make out way out until we got an auto rickshaw (overpriced, of course). After we got into the bus, we learnt that five unfortunate people had lost their lives in this frenzy of pushing around.

Incident 4 - Rally, Andhra Pradesh

The temple complexes are situated opposite to each other and there are rails that are set up to guide the pilgrims to visit the temples, for those entering and exiting. After visiting one complex. I was heading towards the other one when I was confronted by a young man about 20 years old, who was dressed like a pilgrim going on a pilgrimage to Sabarimala, holding a portrait in one hand and begging with a scarf in the other. About 5-6 kids, aged around 3-8 surrounded me and started begging. I understood they were all from the same family and taking out my purse, gave him a Rs 10 note and moved ahead. The children followed me begging and I told them to follow me to the temple where they were offering prasadam in case they were hungry. But they backed off after that. After finishing seeing the second complex, my mother told me what had actually happened as she was behind me, watching everything. After I handed the note to the boy and moved on, he indicated a girl in the group who later triggered the kids to follow me begging and in turn, distracting me and flicking off my wallet. I have a habit of keeping a hand on my pocket where I keep my wallet, for which the girl had backed off earlier, unsuccessful in her attempt to steal my purse. I went back to the boy who was still standing there, and told him, 'I tried helping you by giving you money and you wanted to rob me instead? Are you aware that you are committing this in the middle of two temple complexes? What would you do tomorrow if you met with an accident and would permanently lose your limbs? You'll come back to the same place begging! Beware of your actions" He had nothing to say and quickly realized his mistake.

Incident 5 - Bheemavaram, Andhra Pradesh

After completing the darshan, I came out and waited for my bus to start. It was a terribly hot day and I saw a frail puppy sniffing around for any traces of food and water in front of a shop and licking of a few drops of the water that was for sale. Yes, people sell water in these places and it is not FREE. The puppy weakly examined and collapsed with disappointment. My brother had offered me a cookie which I had half eaten until I noticed the puppy. I crushed it and gave it to the puppy in front of it and a few crumbs fell on the ground. The puppy ate it and picked up the tiny rocks that had traces of the cookie, chewed and spat them out. My brother, who was disheartened to see it, went to the shop and bought a pack of biscuits and lifting the puppy from where there were moving vehicles, placed it in front of the gate of a house where it was safe for it to eat. He went to the can where the water was sold and wet his hands with a few drops of water. The shopkeeper shouted at him saying it was for sale and not for use. He apologized and returned back to see the puppy happily eating the biscuits and wagging its tail. Soon, the owner of the house, a woman, came from outside and noticed the puppy eating at the corner of her gate and gave a nasty look towards us, which clearly suggested that she thought we were feeding a useless dirty puppy in front of her precious house. We ignored her look and my brother went again towards the can. The shopkeeper shouted again from where he sat and my brother said, "Sir! The water was leaking so I tightened the knob." The shopkeeper kept quiet after that.

These are only a few incidents that I have mentioned here, but the entire experience, more than filling me with a divine satisfaction, filled me with disgust for the people staying in these premises who blindly believe in going to temples and taking holy baths to wash away their sins but not by honestly earning a living, selling normal water in the name of mineral water, and getting pissed at the sight of feeding a poor animal. Someone having visited the temples with high inflow of devotees would relate to my experiences here. If they haven't realized such basic rules of existence, they will forever remain the farthest from God and its realization despite lying on the temple porch and calling themselves blessed souls.

Cassettes: A Nostalgic Collection

If you were someone born in the last 2-3 decades, you would have definitely grown up singing along or dancing to the music on the cassette player. Sure, newer technologies and digitization of music has revolutionized the way we listen to music today. mp3 and digital audio files are extremely easily accessible and given to the popularity of earphones in today's world, enjoying music has become more of a personalized experience than a group session like it used to be in the early days. Earlier, in the times of the radio, huge radio sets would take up important places colloquial to the ones our TVs would occupy today. Since it was the only home entertainment and information source, whole families would gather round it and listen to music or cricket commentary or news or anything that would be aired. It was the same with gramophones, except that they gave a more personalized option of playing the music of our choice. Cassette came in as the next generation audio devices that further altered our music listening experience.

My memories begin with my mom gifting me a Videocon tape recorder when I turned 4. The first cassette I listened on it had Aashique on A Side and Dil on B Side. Though I had no clue at all about the lyrics, the constant listening to it had made me learn them by heart (I've forgotten them now however). With more time, more cassettes added up to the tape rack. I would religiously play a cassette everyday and listen to the songs. Most of the songs would be from the movies I had watched. At the same time, listening to music of movies that I'd not watched was more of an imaginary experience where I would imagine the visuals according to the music.

As I grew up, I began to sing along with the songs and tried to match up the scales. This gave me an insight into assessing where I went off and where I fit in and work on my singing skills. I am not a formally trained singer except for music classes in school which I seldom practiced. But I would surely listen to the music on tape and sing along.

As I got a little older, I learnt about Stereo technology and would sit in front of the tape recorder with my head placed at the center, between both speakers for perfect stereo experience and listen to cassettes, sometimes for even hours. I would intently watch the tape roll to the other side through the plastic pane and be amazed as to how such a thin tape could contain such beautiful music.

With access to a few genres and restricted to a limited number of cassettes by both choice and availability, I would play the same cassette again and again so much that I can still unconsciously recite the lyrics of the hits of yesteryears, even while not paying attention to as what the lyrics meant as long as they sounded right. Over time, the cassette player gradually wore out and died one day. During it's lifetime, it had immersed me in a world of blissful experience for 20 years. In the middle of its life, it had fallen a couple of times owing to careless handling and non-availability of genuine parts.

Every time I sing something out of memory, I would definitely have heard it on tape. For the lyrics of the new age songs, I have mostly depended on the internet and haven't bothered of seriously remembering it. This is generally true because the songs that we had heard in those cassettes back in those years are all now in our hearts, no matter what music we all listened to. Even though we seldom listen to those songs or admit we listen to them, we can unconsciously recite them anytime a cue is triggered.

I was cleaning a cupboard in my room where I found a box full 50-60 of cassette spanning across three decades. These are the things that inspired me to sing and write and find joy. Playing a cassette on the tape recorder for me is a way to spark up nostalgia and travel to the times of my childhood. Every time I hear those songs on youtube or TV, I am transported to that timeline where I had spent days together relishing that music from the cassette.