musings 109

A few days ago, during a long trip, I happened to visit a Shrine with a mutt attached to it..

After having darshan, we were offered free meals too..

And strangely there was a separate dining hall for catering to the threaded community..

And I was directed towards that hall..

We were sitting and the hall was just filling up..

Of course everyone was sitting around with their upper torso open with the cotton threads all visible prominently..

It was obligatory that men should remove their shirts to be allowed entry..

Equal number of ladies of the threaded community were also waiting..

I noticed some girls in their teens , all in modern dresses, and apparently well educated and affluent, carrying mobile phones, and laughing and giggling and exchanging loud words, sitting along with all of us..

We were all waiting for the plantain leaves to be laid..

But the girls who had brought some water with them cleaned the marble-laid space before them and waited..

When the leaves were laid, the girls were not offered such leaves..

I was just curious..

Were the girls some activists.. who had entered the hall in stealth to mark protest against the food being offered to one exclusive community.?

. Maybe, that is the reason why plantain leaves were not laid before them,, and I was rather sure that some people of authority would appear and order the girls out..

But it was not so..

Rice, and sumptuous side-dishes were served to us in the plantain leaves, but the same eatables were laid before the girls in the open ground before them.. and they were mixing the rice and curries and other dishes with their hands .. all on the bare floor before them and eating with great reverence..

Yes, it was the custom for people who wanted some prayers to be answered by the God there, to sit in that hall, in the presence of that large group of and eat their rice from bare floor..

It is done out of faith and absolute respect for the deity..

Some may term it as a third rate act of sadism and bigotry..

When I understood the spirit, I could not bring myself to think so..