Bollywood, Babaji and the Balls

                                             Bollywood,  Babaji and the Balls

India, my motherland is a land of dreams and stories. In every nook and corner one can find stories. The stories that begin with people like you and I, move on with emotions, faith, sex, lust, politics, crime and tragedy and, continue endlessly, thriving and sustaining on the hopes and dreams of happy ending. These inherently beginningless and endless stories are also as mystical as my country, but they always provide a good fodder for different scribes of sorts. In this series of articles I am going to tell you three different stories. My first story is of the political, commercial and corporate styled babas and their quick-fix solutions.

In May, 2012 I was in my home city Udaipur. Like every year, it was terribly hot. Often, it was extremely difficult to go out until seven in the evening. We had lazy and sleepy afternoons. I would often have my late lunch around 2:30 in the noon with a tumbler of buttermilk, which made the afternoons even more seductive and rendered me incapable of doing any productive work except enjoying long sleeping siestas for hours. While having lunch, I would watch our news hungry primetime channels. Often, at that time, there was no substantial political news or any crime news so they would telecast a program on the babas of India, who promised short term solutions to all your miseries. One such show was of Peermal baba which used to start exactly at my lunch time and ended at three. It was called Peermal durbar. It was a court of a guy, who claimed to have spiritual and supernatural powers. He would come in his signature yellow colored, silk-kurta pyjama and sprawl on a big chair which resembled the peacock throne of Shah Jahan( Quite possibly, he stole peacock throne from British queen, through his supernatural gifts !!!). Most of the people including my over-religious uncle found a very radiant and holy smile on his face. I always thought that he was having lots of red wine and cherries. For a moment, even I tried to search some holiness, but I ended up getting a glimpse of local construction tycoon with all the powerful connections and the signature smile of ‘ruthless power’ after one is down with four drinks of Johnny walker.

In one of his courts, there was a young student, Nayan, who had come for seeking Babaji’s blessings. His dad’s worry was that the child never prayed, studied, and was passionately into football and girls. It was a very crucial year for Nayan as he had to write his grade 10^th exam viz. board examinations. Having looked at the child, I felt that the poor lad had hardly steeped out of the house and was too scared of his ‘wise’ elders. His father got up and narrated his sorrows and a burning desire to get the son admitted in the best engineering college. He cried in supplication, as if that would multiply the force of his prayers, and conclusively said that if his son did not get into the Jhamaklaal Badamilaal Engineering College, his motivation for a happy life would end, as no one would ever marry his son. Babaji also loved it when their devotees cried in front of the camera. After a while the boy also cried saying that he could not concentrate and whenever he tried his would get perturbed by the evil thoughts of soccer balls and women. Then Babaji made a serious face as if a diplomat would do before breaking the ice in WTO talks or saving the world from a nuclear crisis. After a while he asked, “Do you wear chappals(slippers) ?” .The father and boy replied, “Jee babaji( yes my lord)” . Then he asked the brand of the chappals to which the father-son duo replied, “Hawai”. Babaji made an angry face as if the duo had violated some cosmic law and he roared, “Why don’t you wear lakhani(a brand of slippers) chappals?” The confidence with which he said simply showed that he had the key to all the problems of the world including the crisis in middle-east and Kashmir. He said that they should wear ‘lakhani’ and the boy will be fine in no time. The duo again cried while giving thanks to babaji.  In that auditorium, there were about 20,000 people and most of them looked decently educated. In one of his courts, Babaji suggested a middle-aged scientist, whose daughter had eloped with a muslim rickshaw driver, to offer a hen at a local Durga temple.

One day, my over religious uncle (he wants all the eight siddhis (powers) and nine types of nidhis or wealth mentioned in Hindu mythology). He offered me to introduce me to his guru and get his prasaad(holy food at the ashram) and blessings. His guru had come to his house. He claimed to have thrown Sonia Gandhi out of his ashram and initiated the dialogue with Mujahiddin groups in Kashmir. The babaji had been ordained with the tile of peace ambassador by United Nations. My uncle was to participate in a ritual called ‘padya pooja’(worshipping the feet of the guru) . He washed his feet with milk, butter, honey and chandan and then offered 25,000 rupees in dakshina (offering made by a devotee) then babaji made an unpleasant face and gave him an earful, asking for another 25,000. The rationale he gave was even more interesting. He said that his right foot had the blessings of lord Ganesh(elephant god) and the left one had the blessings of lord Shiva(god of destruction)  so he should not displease any of them. My uncle, who is a headmaster in the local school, was overwhelmed and felt the presence of lord Shiva and Ganesh. Finally he offered 25,000 rupees and got the blessings of the lords. In the evening we went to meet babaji and have a cup of tea with him. Babaji was busy arranging all the mangoes, oranges, laddus which he got. He made separate boxes of the dry fruits, sandalwood sweets and dhotis.  He kept the cash offerings in a separate box and then with due care and safety dispatched all those boxes to his ashram. He then took a deep sigh and had a cup of tea and declared that lord shiva was very happy with the devotees. Lord shiva had accepted all the offerings. Next day his devotees sent him back in a business class air ticket. Babaji promised to come back soon. That one trip’s cost roughly amounted to 5 lakhs.  Next day, my uncle got the real blessing. He rammed his motor cycle in cow shed and broke his leg. Even then he said that he was saved from a bigger injury by babaji’s kripa.

After few days, I heard that Peermal baba was caught in a sting operation and, all his wealth and assets were made public. The news channels launched a diatribe against him. People cursed him like hell. Then I came to U.S. I thought that people must have realized their foolishness and forgotten babaji and his hen and chappal solutions but to my utter surprise, I found that he was back on the news channels and people were again crying in supplications, ,with the same vigor and same desires like  admission in Jhamaklaal engineering college or getting an MLA(local assembly member) ticket with BJP(one of the political party). His devotees said that he came out scot-free because of his super-natural powers and he was back with the same silk kurta, pyjama and peacock throne.

Hope you liked the story.  My other two stories are in the next posts. I will post them tomorrow. Please read them and in the final one real story will come out. That is the story of me, you, the society we live in and the nation we have made.