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Gods must be Crazy – X

(Warning --Blasphemous content ahead. Read at your own risk!)

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“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time”

– Friedrich Nietzsche


HE looked down the heavens, and had a hearty laugh. The long serpentine queue was moving slowly. With his divine brain HE calculated that mean queue length was nearly 600 and mean service time was 150 per hour. That meant people waited an average of four hours just to have a look at his statue, be awestruck for few moments, seek blessings and ultimately offered gifts in cash and kind. The PR agents in form of the priests in the temple collected them ostensibly for benefit of masses. The PR agents used various kinds of tactics and strategies to up the number of visitors; most important being the fear appeal which is often used by advertising agencies, in which the ill effects of not worshipping the deity for him possessing extraordinary supernatural powers was propagated.

The marketing channel to improve the number of visitors worked in various ways. The head priests were at the topmost level of the hierarchy. Next came the priests who formed bulk of sales force and also doubled as PR agents, each associated with a fixed set of people who were divided as per their caste. Caste system was sacrosanct. Ill effects of not following it were … well … no one knew as no one dared to challenge it. The PR agents also came in handy while collecting all the gifts – cash and kind, so that HE could bask in luxury. Of course, PR agents got a fair share of the pie. After all HE never played dice with universe!

Time and time again reinforcements were given regularly in form of few stray punishments. For example that lady who said that she wouldn’t offer a generous bounty to the priests and won’t sing aartis to please HIM … She didn’t know that in few days she would be nursing a fractured hand for 3 months after a near fatal accident. Or that guy who called everything a form of ‘ego massage’ and sycophancy … little did he know that in few days his girlfriend would ditch him. And that businessman who believed in some other deity and not HIM was to suffer huge losses in coming days. These … and many other stories. After all, how dare they question things! Therefore, the punishments were apt … actually they were well deserved. Such people needed to be taught a lesson.

As of now, it was the peak season. After all it was his birthday in few days time. That day HE would relish in tones of milk, water, bhaang, food, sweets, flowers and god knows which all things. HE would indulge in revelry, enjoy all the sacrifices, create folklores around him and be the center of attraction that day. Then the peak rush to the holy place would subside though people would continue to throng the pace in thousands. HE shall continue to be served as he was being served before … today, tomorrow, and ever after.

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