The Gods Must be Lazy !!

or perhaps Hazy !?? The shining statues made out of pure gold, studded with diamonds and emeralds. Piles of cash, which keeps pouring in and sometimes keep disappearing as well.

Sabarimalai temple generated revenue of Rs.128 Crore (apprx. $25million) in a recently concluded pilgrimage season! The official notification can be read here According to some estimates the temple might be owing assets (in cash, kind, jewellery etc) anywhere to the tune of Rs.1 to 5 lakh Crore ( whopping $25 -$100 billion). But Unfortunately the fact remains a stampede in the temple killed 100 people earlier this year, which goes on to prove how much of time and resources are invested by the temple committee/trust to improve infrastructure and ensure safety of the visitors/pilgrims etc.

As can be read here earlier this year 100s of kg of Gold and Silver and crore of cash was found in the room of Satya Sai Baba ! What all this money and gold was doing in his room? A possible case of gold lust ?

It took me quiet some time to comprehend this figures, yes ladies and gentlemen, hold your breath tight...the Sri Sai Baba trust in Shirdi manages a corpus of Rs 47,82,31,835.64-crore (over $10 Trillion) as can be read here The total income during the year 2009-10 was Rs 1,64,88,01,030 by way of rent, interest on savings bank accounts, investments and donations.

Similar is the fate of Balaji temple, Siddhivinayak temple, Srinathji temple, Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Puri temple etc. These are some of the prominent temples of national and international fame. The sum total of LIQUID assets of these top 10 temples in India will definitely run into TRILLIONS of Dollars, i.e Crore of Crores of Rs/INR.

As per my estimate within every 5 Kms diameter in India, there's a temple/shrine/mazar/place of worship and within every 100 Kms diameter (per district apprx.) there exists a similar place which is popular in the region and is visited by 1000s of people everyday and perhaps more than a million per year! So assuming an average of Rs.100 ($2) per person, these temples must be receiving donations worth Rs.9-10 crore ($2 million) per year. Almost all of these temples et.al celebrate an annual event/mela gathering at some point in time, which is associated with a mythological or should we say hypothetical story. Again based on my estimate, during this period, these temples receive donations worth equal to or greater than what they might be receiving during the rest of the year. So to summarize, these comparatively small temples of regional significance must be making money in excess of Rs.10,000 crore ( 640 districts x 1 temple per district x $4 million per temple == $2.5 billion).

Fortunately the Indian gods are lazy enough and are not able to spend all this money, which has been safely deposited/donated by the god fearing, religious people of India !! Interestingly the amount of money/assets swindled/dwindled/donated/deposited with the temples et.al might compete (can exceed as well) with the amount of money off shored to Swiss/Caymans etc in past 60 year post independence. I strongly feel that a huge % of this money would have been deposited because it can be parked in the banks( Income tax fears), all of it cant be kept in the house(theft fears) and perhaps it would not have been possible due to logistics constraints to park this money in Swiss/Cayman/Bahrain etc type of places, so temples do offer a safe place, which is out purview of even the government. Considering the fact that everything is possible in India, it is also possible that the trust, the pundits whoever is safeguarding these donations must have been charging fee/commission for safeguarding and even returning the money/funds/donations as and when required, right under the nose of the ultimate savour.

So the lazy gods accepts bribes in almost all forms, but what do they do with it ? It is safe to assume that almost all the money in off-shored is black/illegal. On similar lines, I think it is safe to assume that almost all (i.e more than 90%) of businessman, entrepreneurs in India ( be the one running grocery shops, showrooms, to small manufacturing units to multi-business, multi-billion dollar business empire) evade taxes and these are the people who bribe our lazy gods beyond reason against some demand/wish/request/ plea/ threat etc.

So what kind of favours do our gods return, what kind of services do they provide? We Indians the way we are, its safe to assume that the gods must be performing well, because the donations, the money, the gifts et.al is keeps on increasing YoY basis ! So are gods really lazy ? What about the genuine intentions, the belief, faith, trust in religion, of we the people of India ? Can we simply write-off all that is genuine and true and innocent ! What happens to the middle class and the poor people? Does god listen to them ? I dont think so........we frequently keep hearing rags to riches stories every now and then...most of these inspiring stories are about the self made men (or rarely women, sorry but true factually), so which means that god wants you/us to achieve certain level by ourself (or is that part of the divine plan too ?) in order to be eligible to speak/interact with him (or her) more frequently and produce results. It is like corporate style or perhaps corporates have adapted the god's style !

So, a fraction of we, somewhat genuine a bit selfish though religious, people of India have amassed trillions and trillions of dollars (in India and abroad) of wealth, by the grace of gods in past 60 years and the lazy gods dont seems to be caring about the rest of us any time soon, so its time to wake up, get up from that desk and kick some ass, so as to be eligible to speak with the gods...