Today when I went to Infant Jesus church I remembered an incident that happened approximately four years ago. We had gone to this famous Infant Jesus Shrine in the south and a guy selling various religious objects approached us. Among the prayer books, medallions and plastic figurines of Infant Jesus were plastic boxes with a small piece of bone kept on cotton. I have seen such a relic in another shrine too, where a piece of some saints bone is kept for public viewing.
According to this guy, the bone was Infant Jesus’ bone and he would sell it for Rs 1000/-. My brother M as usual picked up a box with exaggerated interest and then turned to us with mock amazement and said “Just imagine...Jesus was boneless from childhood! Wow!!"
The man slunk away while we were laughing...we felt a little sheepish that had he our attention for a while. Dunno how many gullible people are venerating the ‘bone’ of Infant Jesus in their homes today? :P
Happy Diwali everyone!!!
11 comments:
I wish I knew you 4 years ago. There is this little bridge I would have liked to sell you. It's called the Howrah and connects both banks of the Hooghly :P
As an unrelated topic - To define how a Bengali speaks :- There is a good bridge on the Howdah breeze Most bongs I know love that line and while they pretend to offended, they laugh the loudest!
its sad that people let faith and belief, something that should be so close to ones heart, be a matter for manipulation and vested interests. if one truly believed in God there wouldnt be any fight in his name, and all this business of sales and trade.
i think to a large extent our religious leaders are the biggest manipulators of religion, and they behave worse than politicians at times.
Haha!Your brother M did right!.
In the name of religion, the extent people go to pull wool over others' eyes.
I recently went to Infant Jesus too and it was a very nice and amazing experience.
something like that never occured to me... but your post has given me a wonderful idea....
i will take any word lets say "silver" type it on a document and print out like 100 copies of it and sell it as a word from silverine's blog
i'm sure i'll make enough money to payback some of my loans... thankew vairy much and happy diwali to you
G: :p
Ah, the bengali touch to English is so incredibly fascinating and throws up so many possibilities :))
mind curry: I am actually quite impressed with that vendor...he read the market well and created a demand backed by supply.
quills: It's business at the end of the day, just because it was a religious artefect doesn't make him less of a businessman or more of a conman :))
iyer education: Sirji, this is why I have decided to petition the govt to give Iyerospace a deemed university status !!
:p
Luckily we don't have any such relics placed in our temples. I think I find the amulets and other stuff currently sold more than I can stand. If somebody dangled a bone in front of me...
But then, as many people have said before us, religion is where logic fails...
Really funny post. But this kind of exploitation happens everywhere. When people are blinded by religion or faith, they can be easily manipulated. Hitler and Mussolini did this. Our politicians and religious readers are doing this—only difference is that they are doing it at a very large scale and getting away with it…
I wish you a very happy and silent Diwali…
height of devotion!!! i am laughing here thinking about the people who took it home. But then for every M in India there will be atleast hundred others who would blindly love to take a religious relic home.
lol..... ;)
yeah that vendor seems less crooked than most religious leaders..
Fleiger: Very true.
alexis: Thank you and wish you the same :)
Jiby: Yes, and sadly such religious relics become reasons for communal violence too.
Alex: Thanks :)
mind curry: Guess it is just another way to make a living for some :)
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