STUPID BEYOND BELIEF

29th January, 2005.

I was sure that nothing Jayalalithaa said or did would surprise me anymore. I was wrong it would seem. “Kanchi mutt is not a place of worship”, she has stated to the Madras High Court. Jayalalithaa’s preposterous statement in the Madras High Court is her defence for ordering policemen to barge into the mutt in their boot-clad feet and for arresting Pujya Bala Periava when he was in the midst of Trikala pooja. To defend her boot-clad policemen forcing their way into the mutt, the woman has declared that the Kanchi mutt is not a place of worship because it has toilets, cable TV and because the Mahaperiava is in Samadhi there. That she was deranged, and even evil, we all know. But stupid? That is a new low even for Jayalalithaa.

I am tempted to go into what is a place of worship. For Hindus any place where anyone offers worship to someone or something is a place of worship. A roadside stone at a dangerous bend is a place of worship if the stone is worshipped as the guardian spirit to ward off accidents. As is the small shelf in my little apartment where all my Gods reside and which is my temple in my home; it is a place of worship for my family. There is also a bathroom, in fact two bathrooms in my little apartment and also cable TV and a computer. None of which detracts from the fact that several Gods reside in my house. Therefore I still insist that people remove their footwear when they come in. Conversely, if I were to apply Jayalalithaa’s logic about the Kanchi mutt to her palatial Poes Garden residence which I am certain has more than four or five bathrooms and toilets, she will not be amused if I called her house a public toilet. Even the samadhis of Periyar, Anna and MGR are places of worship for the Godless. And all those cemeteries and samadhis adorning prime real estate in New Delhi are the ultimate places of worship for Congressmen and women.

If Jayalalithaa is still making those ritual visits to the three samadhis of these primordial Dravidians on birthdays and death days then she is doing so to offer flowers and fold her hands in worship. Lady, that makes these graveyards places of worship for you. So you don’t go trampling and stomping into these places with your shoes and boots on. Does Jayalalithaa know that visitors to the Taj Mahal are expected to remove their footwear when they descend to view the samadhis of Mumtaj Mahal and Shah Jehan? I can forgive neither ignorance nor crass stupidity in people who have arrogated to themselves the right to rule us. So what is Jayalalithaa’s point? That the mortal remains of Pujya Paramacharya ought to lie in state next to Anna and MGR on Santhome Beach road?

But for arguments sake, can Hindus expect Jayalalithaa to talk in the same vein about the Santhome Cathedral where curious visitors are shown what are supposedly the mortal remains of Saint Thomas or is it Ignatius Loyola? So the Santhome Cathedral is not a place of worship? Does Jayalalithaa’s argument hold good only for whole bodies or are they good enough for parts of human bodies too? Like the tooth at Kandy or the hair at Hazratbal? I also wonder if Jayalalithaa’s stupidity is reserved for Hindus alone.

And talking about Mahaperiava being interned inside the mutt, such a place is called an ‘Adishthanam’ or a Brindavanam and this is the normal practice with regard to Mathathipathis in Hindu tradition. Kalavai, the small village where Pujya Kanchi Acharya is currently residing is also a mutt and inside the mutt are the Adishthanams of two previous Mathathipathis. For Pujya Kanchi Acharya the Kalavai mutt is therefore sacred territory; for his devotees and for the bhaktas of the Kanchi mutt, Kalavai is Gurusthanam. But how can anyone so debased as Jayalalithaa be expected to have a sense of sacredness or sanctity? Someone must really pin the dunce cap on Jayalalithaa’s head and seat her in a corner until she has learnt her lessons well. Her stupidity on matters religious may be attributed to her terrible upbringing but Hindus need not suffer her stupidity. The Srirangam temple and the Tirupathi temple are huge temples sprawling over hundreds of acres. These temple cities and temple premises house toilets, post-offices, shops and offices. So now can we expect Jayalalithaa to declare that Srirangam and Tirupathi are not abodes of God and therefore not places of worship?

I had the most profound responsibility of cremating my younger brother and my father. I can tell Jayalalithaa that for Hindus, the cremation ground or Rudra Bhumi is not just sacred, it is the most sacred of places. We walk barefoot on this sacred territory and we do not raise our voices let alone speak profanities. Jayalalithaa cannot be expected to know that for Hindus the body is the temple because it houses the atma. And so when the atma departs from the body, the body is respectfully and worshipfully buried or cremated. A graveyard, for Hindus is also the abode of the divine. Jayalalithaa also cannot be expected to know that for Hindus pitru worship and worship of the dead is a sacred Hindu tradition and responsibility. So for Hindus a graveyard too is a place of worship. If Jayalalithaa thinks she is humiliating the Hindus, let her think again. From evil incarnate, she is now gradually descending to depths which is making her the laughing stock of all Hindus. For all religious Hindus the Kanchi mutt and all such places, whether Jayalalithaa calls them a graveyard or a residential colony, are places of worship, are sacred places. I pray to all the Gods in the Hindu pantheon to inspire Jayalalithaa to speak more and more nonsense. This is the shortest route that she can take to self-destruction.