Favorite God

A couple of weeks back I had been for a holy function at a friend’s place. A relative of my friend was complaining about her son’s below average performance in academics. An elderly woman was also a part of the conversation who after hearing all the sobs asked a creepy question to us “Who is your favorite God?” That was suicidal actually. I wish it was a KBC question where you have just four options and here I was struggling to choose from the entire population. However, the background of the question was still unknown so I just popped the name that came first to my mind. The idea was to worship your favorite God to get things moving in your life. Wow! That was some instant solution to all problems.
I have always been the ugly duckling of any such illogical discussions, and habitually I blurted “What if someone has more than one favorite?” The old buck was a resilient player. She chuckled and said you can have more than one. And ensure each one provides something specific. Ok. Here was the deal. It was like every God had been appointed by humans (obviously) so that their need and greed is taken care of. For instance, say Ganapathi is for intelligence, Lakshmi is for good wealth, Gowri for good health and Saraswathi for education. Similarly Lord Shiva has been dedicatedly assigned to get every girl married to the best groom.
The conversation moved ahead with another remark that the boy does not indulge in doing the Morning Prayer to goddess Saraswathi, therefore the low score. The old woman wrote some shlokas and some mantra for the boy’s mother and assured guaranteed results in the next couple of weeks, provided it’s been followed. It was time for my Uber ride which I had booked a couple of minutes ago, hence I moved out bidding good bye to people and conversation, although my mind could not stop recollecting my own God saga.

I grew up looking at a baby Krishna lying on Banyan leaf, eventually becoming my favorite God, the pic I possess till date. I completed my 10th and 12th board praying to Krishna for a score more than eighty, however Krishna was too little to have heard my prayers and I just missed the desired target. After the basic education I moved with my grandparents for my graduation. One fine day a priest walked in our house with a friend of my Grandpa. He was been called to see our horoscopes; mine and my sister’s. This was a gateway to know our potential future. The horoscopes took no time to convert into horrorscope. There was this stupid Rahu, who was sitting like the MacDonald’s puppet doing nothing but blocking my future. Please don’t ask me how, this was told by the learned priest. The solution to get rid of Rahu was to worship Lord Subbu (Subramnian/Kartik). I never had an affinity to this poor God as he is the snake God. I fear and hate snakes, but now I had to face this by being good to lord Subbu by giving up on my favorite noodles.
After a couple of months another learned priest declared that it was not the fault of poor Rahu. He had been glued to the place with fevi-quick during my birth. The solution was to start following the Guru. It could have been anyone, but the most powerful was Guru Raghavendra. So my Thursdays became Guruvaar, not by the literal meaning of it but worshiping the Guru. The only benefit I had with Guru was I could resume eating noodles except Thursdays. I started calling this day as “Chinese fast”.

During all those years when I was shuffling like a tennis ball between different Gods came the mighty Sai Baba. Indeed he was a boon as whatever I prayed for was granted. So I became a fan of God Sai Baba. But unfortunately, Krishna was still my favorite. Now I was in a dilemma whom to pray first? It’s like the difficult question people ask children; which side of granny do they like in front of both the grannies. Naming any one will cost you your favorite dish.
One fine day when I was having a cup of coffee I heard church bells that reminded me of Lord Jesus Christ. Then it struck my mind like lighting. Aren’t the Christians, Muslims and Sikhs lucky to have just one God. At least no God is getting angry that they didn’t choose them as their favorites and punishing the deity. It took quite some time to comprehend that it’s all human made. Yes it’s not the God who created humans rather I started feeling vice versa. Indeed there is a supernatural power that is the form of God the absolute. He is there for our good and bad but it is we who make our future not our favorite God. I would rather ask my child to study well and utilize the time for practice rather than visit temples and do fasting. Any effort done sincerely pays off in one or the other way. This does not mean that I belittle any of the learned men or ask to stop worshipping. The only focus should be doing our part of struggle to gain the desired result.

Disclaimer- This post does not intend to hurt or belittle anyone’s way of thinking or does not point any religious beliefs. This is solely what the author thinks and only for entertainment purpose. Also this post is not inspired by PK.