GOING TO SIDDHIVINAYAK TEMPLE

I believe in God. I believe in his energy, the source that helps us get through life.

Recently, I started visiting Siddhivinayak temple. Again. [More precisely after the wall was constructed around it] I thought I had a calling.

I went to the temple on a Friday, albeit the ubiquitous Tuesdays. I was hoping I would get lesser crowd and more time and perhaps special attention from God.

I reached at the time of the Aarti so I like lots of other devotes stood outside seeing the aarti on a plasma TV. I saw the usual indifferent look on Ganesha and wondered, what is the difference between Ganesha you see from your eye lens and the one you see through the camera lens. What is the difference between this Ganesha and the one lying in my house mandir. What’s the difference between this Ganesha and the one in my friend’s cars or in my office?

Aren’t all of them the same?

As I kept my shoes in the one rupee area, I saw the 50 rupees gate shut. Now, fifty rupees gate is the special gate through which anxious people, like me, get to go in quicker.

“Fifty rupees gate shut madame, “ the shoe keeper gleefully said. “Today is less crowd no”

Less crowd! My eyes scanned the long, never-ending line of people in front of me.

“See- See” he pointed at the half filled shoe racks.

I nodded, a bit amused by his calculation. I imagined how would the shoe rack be looking on Tuesdays. Perhaps competing with the mount Everest. I wandered towards the ubiquitous sweet shops aligned in tandem with each other.

A Prasad shop guy came tottering towards me. ‘madame welkom, please come,” Screaming at someone inside his shop he said, “ ah show madame, 120 rupees and 150 rupees baskets,”


“No thank you, “ I quickly said. “ fifty rupees please,”

“Oh make fifty rupees basket for madame,” he added in his usual fancy style of a marketing guru.

They are such excellent sellers, that I wondered what would really happen if they get a MBA degree. I guess survival teaches all of us to become master sellers!! After all it is all about selling at the end of the day. Selling and making money. And then it doesn’t matter what you are selling. It could even be God.

Smilingly, he added “I can get you an entry from the VIP gate. Madam only 100, ruphees.

“1OO!! Why, take 50,”

“No madame, If I take 50, then I will not have anything left, for myself,”

No I wasn’t ready to let people take undue advantage of me, or of God, so I walked ahead.

Another boy came stuttering towards me, “Rs.250 madam only, through the VVIP gate”

Oh, so the rate had increased as I neared the line. I checked my outfit… was I wearing something fancy that they thought I could give them so much money for an entry.

The doors of the mandir were finally opened as the aarti was stopped. I was in the end of the line. Finally the line started moving and to my surprise in 5 minutes I was inside the Mandir. Wow I thought, perhaps I don’t need to get in through the 50 rupees gate any more.

As the swarms of people headed towards the main mandir area where Ganesha was actually sitting, the noises increased. The girls in the next line were randomly chatting about their boy friends, The couple behind me was trying to pacify their agitated daughter. The man in front of me was eyeing the woman in front of him. The girl in front of her was bitching about her new boss. The mandir pujaris were screaming at the top of their voices- chalo chalo, move fast!

And then I started wondering, why did I ever come to the temple. Why does any one come to the temple? Why did these people come to the temple, when they had to get their mundane lives along with them? Where they had to be what they are everywhere?

Why did I come to the temple? What was I doing here? Would God even notice me amongst this huge spectacle of people? I delved into my mind to think of one reason I had come here… And the only reason I could find was that temple was meant to be a place where we could find peace and tranquility. Where you can spend some quality time, alone, with the only energy you believe in and have surrendered to. Where you can shed off all the negativity which has accumulated over the time in your mind and soul, negativity given by the same people who also go to the temple, perhaps the same time and day as you.


“How do you live here?” I looked at Ganesha and wondered.

So much noise, so little peace, so much commercialization.

The entire purpose of going to the temple was defeated. Why do you go the temple? Why did I go to the temple? I am still wondering.

Will I go there again?

I don’t know.

Perhaps wait for another calling!!