American Idol - of a different kind

So I was shortlisting my US holiday photos to upload on my travelogue when I came across a picture of Mom and me taken at the HAT.

As stylo as it sounds, the HAT is actually the 'Hindu American Temple' tucked away in a very green corner of New Jersey. We'd gone there to do a puja for my niece. Now I'm not very keen on going to temples, but I was curious about the HAT, and wanted to see how a temple in America was like. Besides, Mom had bought for me the most gorgeous pastel purple Lucknow churidaar kameez, and I was dying for an occasion to wear it. (She got a similar one for my sis in pink... it felt like we'd been sent back 20 years in time! :P)

So my bro-in-law drove my Mom and me to this tiny temple in the middle of nowhere. Baby Aish was still on house arrest following the doc's orders, and so my sis stayed at home, while the three of us went to the temple.

The HAT was not very impressive from the outside. In fact, it was not even temple-shaped, it looked like just any other building. There was even a payment counter in front of the actual worship area. It looked like a run-down office building. But what I saw inside was really amazing.

The idols were clearly labelled. As my eyes darted from label to label, I realised it was a temple of all gods, unlike most temples I have seen that are for only one god. The priests, although in traditional priest's attire, spoke perfect English. (I wondered if they just changed into jeans and T-shirts after the puja, sat in their cars and drove off homewards.)

There was a refrigerator in a corner, from which the priest took out bottles of milk (about five of which were poured over the idol of Ganesha) to do the puja. I wondered how baffled the person tasked with the duty of buying milk for the temple must be, given the limitless choices of every commodity in US supermarkets. UHT milk, pasterurised milk, full cream milk, homogenised milk, low-fat milk. How does he choose which one to buy?

There was even a music system on top of the refrigerator! The section with the idols was separated from the devotee-seating area with a large red curtain, which were occasionally drawn and pulled following the puja proceedings.

We gave the fruits and flowers (bought from the supermarket, unlike temples in India where you buy them from little shops outside the temples) to the priest and told him we wanted a puja for the baby. When the priest asked, "What is the baby's gotra?" I looked at him, puzzled. Thankfully, before I could blurt out, "Errr... What is a gotra?" my bro-in-law had answered. (My bro-in-law explained to me during the drive back that 'gotra' is a sanskrit word that indicates lineage in the Hindu community, and that many people choose to use their gotra as their surname. Each of the gotras is named after a great ancient rishi, and belonging to a particular gotra generally implies patrilineal descension from that rishi.)

The puja started, and we were asked to sit on the carpet. Now I'm not used to sitting on the floor cross-legged. (I broke my knee a few years ago, and still can't bend it fully for prolonged periods of time.) When I finally got up, I could not feel one of my legs! That freaked me out for a while. :O

As I sat there and looked at the devotees around me, I wondered what each one was praying for. Were they thanking God for something they achieved? Were they asking Him for stuff they had got after praying? Were they praying for someone else? Were they wishing well for the whole world?

And as I thought of all these, I could not help but analyse my own relationship with God. I am not religious. In fact, I think I am confused about my views on religion. I don't want to be religious because I fear that I'd be praying to God just for the sake of praying. I fear that I'd be asking Him for things all the time. I fear that I'd remember Him only when I was in trouble. And that would really piss Him off, wouldn't it?

Recently, a school friend from 8 years ago sent me an sms out of nowhere - "Can you lend me 30000 rupees?" I was quite appalled. I sent a mental reply - "Dude, you haven't bothered to keep in touch with me for 8 years. You have no idea what the hell I am doing. I have no idea where the hell you are. And you sms me when you want a freakin thirty-thousand-rupee loan? What audacity!"

I strongly fear that maybe that's how God would think of me if I were religious.

Mom prays every morning after bathing and every night before she goes to sleep. I asked her once, "Mom, what is it that you pray for? You have everything. What do you ask God for, every single day? Do you have a wish that we're not aware of?" And she said, "You don't always have to pray for something. You could just pray. Prayers are not always to ask Him for things for yourself. I pray to Him to thank Him for giving me what I have, and to ask him to take care of my loved ones, and to wish well for everyone."

I looked at her in awe - pray every day to wish well for everyone? I think only mothers can be as unselfish as to do something like that. I doubt if I'm capable of praying to wish well for everyone every single day. I'm probably too selfish for that. Even though the existence of God is such a wonderful thought - that of someone with super powers up there looking down at us - His children. But maybe I'm the black sheep of His family. And maybe that's why I do not acknowledge Him in the way everyone around me does.

When Baby Aish was hospitalised at the age of 3 days, my hysterical sister called me up and said, "Pray for her, will you? Your wishes always work." I said, "I will wish for her." I couldn't say I'd pray for her, because I was sure that God would've probably given me the thirty-thousand-rupee reply. But I do believe in the human power of truly making a wish for someone. And so maybe my wishes also contributed a tiny bit into the factors that helped little Aish recover.

My bro-in-law is pretty religious, and my sister has become reasonably so too, after marriage. I sat there in the HAT and wondered if Aish would grow up to become religious. What we grow up and eventually do depends a lot on how our parents brought us up. My parents never forced my sister or me to be religious, but in America, where parents of American-born Indian kids are forever worried about their kids losing their traditions, there are many parents who force religion upon their unwilling kids. I guess it gives the parents a sense of security, a safety net against accusations that they did not ensure their kids were brought up 'Indian' enough. Rather than leaving their kids open to the influence of the so called 'lack of values in the evil foreign culture', they attempt to imbibe some values, some religion, some culture in their kids. Of course, whether the kids will ultimately turn out religious is something only time will tell, but the parents can assure themselves that at least they tried.

I saw many of such parents in the HAT too, with kids in tow. As I watched the restless American Indian kids, I wondered how their parents bribed them into coming to the temple. It was then that I noticed something amazing. While the parents sat on the carpet and chanted the shlokas along with the priests, the kids were asked to report directly to the priest. The priest gave one of the kids the prasad to offer to the devotees, while another - a rather tiny one - went around with the teeka, accompanying the priest who had the aarti. One of the kids even went around with a stack of serviettes to offer to the devotees who were having the prasad. Yet another kid was tasked to ring the huge bell, a task that he seemed to take very seriously.

The kids were really involved and obviously enjoying the 'responsibilities' they had been entrusted with. I was quite taken in by this amazing phenomenon.

And suddenly a thought struck me. Perhaps temples in America have become like medical or engineering institutions. Parents pay money and send their kids there to learn things that the parents can't teach them, things that the parents hope will be of much help to the kids in their lives. These parents at the HAT were doing the same. Instead of forcing their restless kids to be religious, they were just paying the temple, and taking the kids there. The rest was handled by the temple. Just as they trusted schoolteachers to be able to engage their children and teach them something, they had placed their trust in the priests. It became the priests' duty to arouse interest about religion in the kids. Of course there is no guarantee but the attempt must be applauded. Many of these kids would probably grow up not only pretty religious themselves, but will probably use the same strategy on their kids.

Catch 'em when they're young. Get them in, give them something fun to do, and get 'em hooked on for life. Pretty cool strategy methinks.

Now that's what I call a HAT-trick.