The village temple stands as a
sacred abode of HOPES, DREAMS, PROGRAMMES and IDEALS.
A woman comes with a basket full
of flowers, agarbati and coconuts and carries back a heart full of divine solace
and verdant hopes. She is contented and is assured of the lord’s blessings. The
happiness beaming on her face is born of a sense of great security provided by
the all-powerful village deity. The village temple is all hopes for her.
A student comes. He bows his head
before the idol and dreams of a good result in the recent examination; he dreams
of a good job and imagines his Sanskrit teacher’s daughter in bridal dress. The
village temple is the abode of his tender sweet dreams.
The local politician comes and
declares a programme of 3 day long Sankirtan for world peace. The temple
becomes a ground for mass gathering and the venue for chanting of sacred names
through Public Address system. An unknown passerby devotedly bows his head
while the programme goes on and the politician smilingly introduces himself as
the organizer.
That day the temple was silent.
The idol was standing in grave silence. And a woman who was mistreated
yesterday by a group of local dadas fell before the idol. Her body bore many
bruises. But her soul was more brutally bruised when she was told to keep
silent. She fell before the idol helplessly but when she rose up she had
garnered enough strength to put the anti-socials behind the bars and she was
determined to set a new IDEAL.
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