God Inc.
Orissa may be the land of temples and The Holy city of Puri may as well be its “Temple capital”, but my stay there was a terrible story in itself.
According to the Hindu mythology, we are living in the Kalyuga — The material age and the one in which mankind will be the farthest away from God. Ironically, the house of God has not been spared and that is what you get to see in this land of temples.
A kind of place where any conversation with a stranger often leads to some kind of “payment” from your side. Priests eye your wallets and object if you do not “donate” enough in the temples. I had a row with a couple of them, for a few moments I wanted to leave the place there and then. But I asked God, what had gone wrong there, why was this holy land transformed into a “wholesale market” of Gods. Religion, a big and probably, the only, enterprise here.
The only saving grace being the wonderful architecture of the temples. The remenants of a wonderful age, a truly holy past — now in ruins.
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