Religious sentiment as an instinct —

Though this incidence is so old in occurrence. The reason to recall the incidence is in context to grand event of Mahakumbh, that just held in distract Prayagraja ( old name Allahabad) of province of Utter Pradesh in our India. The religious sentiment in we Hindus is of another level. It’s a unique feature inscribed in our DNA. In our culture, it’s  like a pilgrimage to take a holy bath on the occasion of such religious grand event. Along with the bath, doing some charity and doing some good deeds too considered the part and parcel of this pilgrimage. A surprising feature is now surfacing up in the behaviour of us Hindus. As much as, we Indians are getting more educated, our religious feelings too are shaping as an instinct in our person.

One may mock at me for applying the term “instinct,” but the anecdote I am going to narrate will prove my judgement. This growing inclination in observance of religious activities has got some reasons as well. On becoming educated, we have begun to apply an inquisitive sense and trying to find the logic behind our every religious mooring. This option has inspired us, to put our religious celebration to test and it has surprised us now that all our religious festivals are propped upon some deep and strong  scientific principles. And when someone’s faith measures up to the test, it helps increase one’s trust in it.

Otherwise also, our all festivals been arranged by taking into deep consideration about weather cycle, harvest and social harmony. This is evident from the diversities in delicacies prepared on  our different festivals. Apart from it, we too have developed a tendency of Thank-giving to god, whenever we occasioned to gain some unexpected-positive- fruitful results in life. It’s not that this Thank -giving tendency exists in our culture only, in other existing cultures the same tendency is also in practice.

If we throw a glance around our existing social system, we find a good deal of numbers of charitable inn, schools religious places etc, our forefathers erected and donated that all to the welfare of the society. This they happened to do under the impression of religious sentiments. This phenomenon is simply based on the psychology that when a person attains some achievements monetarily, then under “the spree of pleasure”  he desires to share his moments of bliss with others.

Further,  doing this also incurs more amount of pleasure to him. The anecdote I am going to share here, belongs to  a period of time dating back to the year of 1990 of last century. It was the beginning of the summer season. In our Northern Part of India, there situates a famous Temple of Mother goddess Vaishno Devi. It’s located in the Jammu district of Jammu and Kashmir territory. The location of temple is at a far distance in the height and in the lap of hills. In this temple, every year, more than one billion devout happen to visit the pious place.

A belief  afloats about this temple, until and unless you are not called in by Mother goddess, you can’t succeed to plan a visit to this auspicious place. People too with the core of the heart too vouch this belief. I in myself too, only once been able to visit this temple and later on, despite of repeated plannings, I could not been able to reach there again. This anecdote is related to that same and only one religious trip. Whatever long introduction I have given is about this anecdote only. My some family friends had insisted me to join them for this religious trip and we all were heading on to our destination in our private car. This temple is at a far away distance about 550 km from my city.

When we were traversing through Punjab Province, we noticed a convoy of about five to six buses loaded fully with passengers. This convoy of buses was being followed by a loader truck. This truck contained victuals in bags, LPG cylinders, cauldrons and others items of catering in its back carrier. The one thing which made us sure that this convoy of buses were part of a single religious tourist party  was, every bus and loader truck was decorated  with the same banner of clothing. This banner was hung at the down part of the front of every vehicle, just below the front view screen. Every banner was embossed in bold letters.”, ” The Vaishno Devi tour – from Delhi to Katara.” Katara is foot hill base town, from where the on-foot religious tour to  the hill side Vaisno Devi temple is initiated.

At that moment, we took it as a normal incidence.  Since, in our country such type of religious tours are often arranged and managed by various travel agencies in every district for various spots of religious importance of the country.  No doubt, to witness this was a soothing experience to the eyes either. That convoy overtook us on the high way. We kept on going,  enjoying the journey by taking small halts on several spots and ultimately reached Katra town. On the next day, early in the morning we initiated our religious journey on foot from Katra.

From Katra, goddess temple lies at a distance of approximate 14 km. First span of 12 km is of climb, then two km. slightly downward slope and you reach to the temple. In between this arduous track, on various spots, Temple Trust authority has erected various sheds, where on-foot pilgrims can have some rest and after refreshing resume the pilgrimage. When we were at the downside of the slope of the Temple and I was taking rest with my companions in a shed, in the same shed some other people to were having a rest.

In such kind of places, we Indians happen to initiate conversation with strangers, just to know  from which part of the country they have come. It helps to refresh one’s mood as well. Under the same mood, I queried from one of the persons of the another group, who already occupied a place there, ” Brother, from where you have come here?” He replied. ” ” from  Old Delhi.” Then I asked , ” It seems, you are with your friends?” Upon which he replied, ” we are in a huge group and landed here in seven buses. Some of us gone ahead and others are tolling behind. In fact, we are waiting for them to join us.”

The reply generated a curiosity, hence I asked, ” It seems you all are coming through the help of some travelling agency?” His answer was swerving from what I was expecting in reply. He said, ” No Sir! It was the invitation of Goddess as a blessing for people of our locality, hence we been here through  a kind of sponsorship.” The reply was enough to raise further curiosity, hence I requested him to give some details of the sponsor, he was talking about. In response to that, he narrated a short story, I am briefing that here.

He told – ” Saheb, it occasioned in a manner that a gentle man in our Muhalla, ( in vernacular, Muhalla is an old timed thickly habitated colony) a gentleman blessed to win the first prize of a fortnightly lottery. He won a big amount of two million Indian Rupees in that draw. ( At that period of time two million Rupees was a huge amount.) Well Sir, the gentle man took it as the blessings of the God and to thank the God, he sought the advice of elderly people of locality to do some charity. In fact, he intended to arrange some religious function. Elderly people along with him pondered about the various proposals.

Then in that conclave, it was decided, better he should arrange  a religious trip for neighbors in a bus for this goddess temple. It was also a devout cause. Now a list was  prepared for people willing to visit this place. But it happened that names of people in the list outnumbered the seats of the single bus. It necessitated for arrangement of a second bus. In between the news of this religious trip too spread in the adjacent left flank of Muhalla (colony.) They people implored, ” In the second bus some seats are left unoccupied, why don’t you take us along with?” Gentle man winner was already in an elevated mood, he consented for that. Now numbers of aspirant people increased again and outnumbered the seats of the second bus. The gentle man arranged for third bus.

Now people from the right flank of adjacent Muhalla too flocked in and requested to give them the opportunity to visit the Temple. They had an argument, when people of left side muhalla been provided the opportunity then why should they be avoided for the trip. It further increase the number of the buses. Now gentleman winner decided an extra thing. He was of the opinion, when I am taking all these some known and unk nown neighbors, then why shouldn’t I invite my other distant family relatives. So Sir, this kept on increasing the number of buses and finally it stopped to seven of buses in total.

Now it was decided, to feed all pilgrims we should have our own arrangement for victuals. Hence a separate truck and services of a caterer were hired  and such we were blessed to visit this   place. The man stopped short and concluded, ” I am sure Sir. you wouldn’t have heard of this kind of religious trip, I suppose.” I assented and said, ” when we were on our way to this temple, your convoy had overtook us. I didn’t know, this kind of intersecting narration  I was to encounter, After all, this too is the blessing of goddess to know about all this.” At the end, as such my religious pilgrimage too gave me a soothing and pleasant experience in this form. Penned by — Vinahy Pharasi —–