banglore memories

Days covered
16th may night to 27th may morning 2005

I visited banglore during this period with my family. The trip was unique from the beginning itself as the well known BJP leader Ms. Uma Bharti was in the same train, so her security people were going up and down the train frequently and disturbing most of the passengers with their talks etc.

The trip in itself was amazing and a large part of it goes to my cousin brother Mr. Abhishek and his wife Mrs Neha . We had a ball as we stayed at their flat there. As for the the places we visited, well, they were numerous , but the few worth mentioning were the nature parks called Bandipur and Banerghatta . We went for a safari in both of them and both were unique experiences . In Bandipur , we went in an open jeep, and right in the middle of the forest , it started raining , that was some feeling, getting drenched in the forest in the evening on a jeep which could breakdown at any time .

Banergahtta was fun due to the animals that were there, we saw bears fighting with each other, tigers ( yes there were a lots of them ) fighting and playing with each other and the "regular animals" like elephants, deers, sambar, wild bisons and wild boars etc. Here you could only go in their special buses as some years ago a tiger had bitten off a hand of a child when taking private cars in the parks was allowed, but since then it is banned.

We also went to places like Mysore, Ooty and Tirupati.

In all the trip was great but for the incidents of pure corruption that I saw there in the places where I had least expected it , i e in the temples. We saw some of the famous temples of South India but were aghast to see the level of corruption that existed there. Corruption, the very insect that has eaten into out government offices, schools, colleges has crept into the temples there too.

They have a ticket for entering into the the temple, like you are going for a movie, the touts will be there targeting and harassing the tourist offering them " special darshan" and they have contacts everywhere, who will take you through the queues and even the priest are corrupt as they shamelessly ask for money and then keep it in their pockets. And all this happens in front of the God whom we consider as someone who will end our pain and will bring order to the society.
The darshans in the end did give some "value for the money" you gave to those touts , but is "value for money" something we look forward to have in a temple .. it isn't a cinema's show for heaven's sake. It was something I felt was wrong for people who were standing in the normal queues and who were handled by these touts like animals , they were being pushed and pulled . And in many places these normal people were being asked to come another day for the darshan.
So much for our religious faith.
Give it a thought and let me know your reactions.