Ours is a country of temples; rather of rising temples. Modern temples come up overnight or gradually over a pavement or at a corner of road and the process starts with an installation of small idol and then claiming right over it and then camping there itself to perform pujas; the whole process is calculated to grab public land. Slowly, on public land and funds contributed by faceless people, these temples attain legitimacy. This can even start with a humble milestone depicting kms. Some carry boards “pracheen mandir”, “pandav mandir” etc. to pull crowd and installation of shani bhagwan ensures regular Saturday crowd plus the donations. Governments also use this façade to grab public land. Akshardam Delhi happens to be the case in point. Built during the bjp regime, all building laws were flouted to grab yamuna riverbed; “land use” was amended, great chunk was allotted and construction was carried out at war footing pace and thus pil was thwarted. Ironically baps was keeping regular eye on the games hearing in the delhi high court!
However, for a change, modi was in news for right reasons; complying with the directions of gujarat high court in re illegal encroachments by temples, around 200 temples have been demolished. Similar line of action needs to be adopted by all States to bring down temples encroaching upon public land.
Veering to an allied topic, temples for actresses are on rise. It all started with khusboo; fans built a temple for her near Trichy during her heydays. However, the same was razed down when she commented on aids and chastity. Now it seems construction activity is going on for namitha at nellai and nayantara at alvakurichi. Tamil fan clubs, it seems have undertaken a solemn pledge to usher the age of kali. Thankfully! This phenomenon is not to be seen in bollywood. I also read about upcoming temple for dhoni bhayya; this happens only in India!
And mostly in our own TN.
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