Religion or Torture?

It is very depressing to know that there are some people who would go to any extent in the name of religion. I am not singling out any one religion at this point of time, there is fanaticism in every religion, but a recent incident was what made me think so deeply about it.
I had only heard of Thaipoosam- I knew it was a Hindu festival widely celebrated in the South East Asian Countries. Little did I know what really happened during the festival!
I saw people who had imposed self-torture. They passed sharp objects, considered holy and revere, through their cheeks and tongues. Many had taken the vow, not knowing what they were setting foot into and were not able to bear the pain. I am sensitive by nature, though many prefer to term me “over-sensitive”, and these sights really made me feel miserable. I fought back my tears, but apparently, I did not do a good job of it, as I was noticed and questioned about my gloomy mood. Not able to bear it any longer, I broke down when I was questioned. I confessed, and I was advised to take life more easily and to be tough because there was a lot more to life than appalling sights. I realized this was true. I was consoled, by all my near and dear, and I calmed myself.
I wondered where our world was going. On one hand we talk about globalization, and on the other we still believe in such antiquated superstitions?
Here again, I hope you are not getting a wrong picture of me; I’m not an atheist, only agnostic, but yes I am not superstitious. I pray in my own way, I don’t like to be forced to adopt certain ways of praying. These are the times I feel that the Indian Government is too lenient with their rules. Every citizen has a right to practice their choice of religion and anything in the name of religion cannot be questioned, may it be self-torture or blaring megaphones!
Besides this, we have old-fashioned people who believe in fasting whether they are diabetic, or have high blood pressure. They really think they would go directly to heaven if they do such things. I don’t mean to be discourteous, but doing such things would definitely send them somewhere, but I have my own doubts whether that would be heaven! Fasting is an excellent practice, no arguments, but it has its own dos and don’ts.
It is time we get more practical. It is time we think. It is time we are avant-garde.

Stop the adulteration

It’s a while since the Rajasthan Royals won the first ever DLF Indian Premier League after a close match with the Chennai Super Kings. After 44 days of “cricketaintment”, people are still searching for programmes to substitute the entertaintment provided by the IPL . The league was a welcome change after a horde of reality shows, which seemed to be the success mantra of several channels, desperately trying to pull up their TRPs. None of the shows provide quality family entertainment as the IPL did. In fact some reality shows attributed their failure to the IPL. (All I can say is, it wasn't too intelligent of them to start relaying their shows at the same time!!)
e IPL concept recived a lot of criticism in the beginning, and I don’t deny being a part of it. It would have been more easily accepted if there was not so much commercialism in it or so much of money involved. The auctioning of the players seemed a ridiculous idea at first. But nevertheless, the man behind the whole concept, Lalit Modi, was confident of its success and went ahead with the idea.
Everything depended upon the janta of India, a cricket crazy nation, and the people supported the league whole heartedly by turning up in large numbers to support their favourite teams and favourite players. As T-20 is such an exciting format of the game, it seemed to be a crowd puller.
Another aspect was the involvement of Bollywood stars as owners and ambassadors of teams. A majority of the crowd would go to see Shah Rukh Khan or Preity Zinta support their teams, rather than to watch cricket.
Another negative to the league was that the teams were based on states and cities of the nation and this was not promoting national unity. I found myself rooting for the Chennai Super Kings, not because they were a good team or because it had my favourite players, but because I belonged to Chennai; it gave me a sense of pride when my team was winning.
So this leads to the question: Should the IPL go on at all? (Its not that if I say it shouldn’t, it wont, but anyway). I am a cricket fanatic, so I’m not going to say that it shouldn’t, but some changes ought to be made to it. If not, money is going to lose its value, cricket is going to get adulterated and it may not be a gentleman’s game anymore!
Hats off to Lalit Modi for have thought of such a brilliant concept, but lets hope that the Indian Premier League will give cricket a new impetus for the better!