By BISWARAJ PATNAIK :

The State authorities had at least a full five-year period to prepare for the big Hindu event Nabakalebar comfortably. They begged for money, and money came pouring in. The temple town of Puri was declared a heritage destination to attract millions of tourists and pilgrims to rake in immeasurable revenue.

Every Minister, top bureaucrat and local politician of recognisable stature headed by the Chief Minister and the Gajapati Maharaja at their own levels conferred more than a hundred times to devise strategies for the smoothest management of the second biggest Hindu festival of India (Kumbh Mela being the bigger one). The media grabbed the opportunities to spread part news and most rumour brazenly knowing full well that the gullible masses would lap up all crap without expressing doubt. Puri as a destination became a national focus and political power centres machinated beyond limits to cash in on the Nabakalebar affairs in Puri.

The ruling party went on making boastful claims and the opponents kept questioning all claims routinely. The people rained in perpetual confusion. The media benefitted the most. They cooked conflicting meanings of both the sides so that more controversies cropped up and news became juicier. The electronic visual media made the biggest kill by even covering the strictest confidential rituals including the ‘quest for Daru in uninhabited forests’, the felling of the sacred neem trees and the transport of the heavenly logs to Puri.

The temple administration officials too kept revelling over the public frenzy for the exposed secret acts were being revealed to the ordinary souls not expected to witness anything. The Daru neem trees were all located quite in the midst of crowded habitations and the requisite symptoms were marked with the ‘super eyes’ of the Daitapatis who not only saw the ‘conch’, ‘the ‘demolition wheel’ and the ‘mace’ et cetera – and yes the heavenly ‘Cobra’ that should slither around. There is big talk about a cobra having been brought on hire from some poor snake lover and let free for the media to see and report. The Daitapatis who were just ‘nobody’ entities since the beginning have become frontline servitors which is just media-managed and wickedly orchestrated to deceive the simple devotees. The TV channels are to blame, and the temple administration to blame the most.

The incumbent chief administrator has been identified as a cunning guy who poses to be an above-board official. He allegedly confers with the most-hated Daitapatis and calls shots that hurt the masses. He first said the Shankaracharya has no role in temple rituals; then he slyly kept succumbing to the unlawful Daita pressure to cough out money. Not once did he say there is no ‘profit-loss perception’ with regard to temple rituals when climbing up to the chariots was first banned by the temple committee to the breakdown of Daita hearts.

Incidentally, it is this incumbent who had introduced the horrifically dangerous ‘ladder arrangement’ for devotees to climb up to the chariot platform to touch the deities against all traditions. His own colleague successors have openly condemned this practice as a terrible sin. He permitted the media to intrude and trespass into all forbidden territories of the temple affairs. The least desired Daru transport was so ceremonial in nature with such vulgar pomp and show that old timers who had preserved numerous rituals tightly guarded against public display have simply become sick with shock and fury.

The media coverage of everything live has already proven the Daru procession a bigger event than the Car Festival. The Daitapatis were seen enjoying 11-star treatment with devotees and vassals serving them like age-old slaves. At every stopover, they were served grand food and royal body massage as if kings were on a ‘game or hunting trip’.

The much-awaited NABAKALEBAR is just over and most disastrously so! The Daitapatis have broken all records of sacrilege and blasphemy. They fought among themselves as to how many should participate in the Brahma Parivartan job inside the sanctorum in absolute darkness. Bluffing as always, some talkative Daitas had fleeced the gullible masses with what they had experienced during the previous Nabakalebar event.

Like they kept bluffing about the ‘dream’ thing to locate Darus, they kept saying that weeping was heard, woman spirit in white saree was seen, jackals played around the premises, and one of the brave-heart Daitapati went to urinate and saw something that made him feel faint and turned his hulk 105 degrees Fahrenheit hot with fever. Headless fellows forgot that the deities would be gaining fantastic new bodies by discarding old, sick and deformed ones to become fresh and fit as a young kid. So, there is no scope for bereavement at all. It’s all joy and delight. The Daitapatis kept playing emotional blackmail games to gain sympathetic respect most undeservingly.

Now what has happened on the D Day shall never absolve the Daitapatis of the gravest religious crime. They fought like wild and insane animals and delayed every ‘darkness only’ ritual by eighteen long hours, thereby hurting the entire Hindu community across the globe. The total darkness job was done in broad daylight with anybody being able to peer from a height and see everything, which is a sin and against the will of God. What even crows and birds are not for to see, most despicable human creatures could easily have a glimpse and guess. Now, no one narrates weeping lady in a white saree, jackals playing and no urination urge and no 105 degree fever. The Hindi movie-inspired lies and bluffs shall not be told ever again.

The whole Odisha is keen to have everybody involved heavily and exemplarily punished for playing with the sentiments of the Hindu masses across the planet. Enormous money, energy and time have gone waste only due to arrogant, greedy servitors and officials. Not surprisingly, the mindless media have been flashing a stupid a ‘countdown’ to the most eagerly-awaited mega event even today when it is already over two days ago in the most horribly messed up manner.

NABAKALEBAR is over. The countdown may begin afresh for the Rath Yatra. Some of the non-thinking media people had mistaken the Nabakalebar event for the Car Festival day. May Lord Jagannath forgive them! So, the representative deities of Odisha have been grossly offended by a few insane fellows including servitors and public officials. Their pride and arrogance would be crushed in good time. People are waiting for the opportune moment. Nabakalebar has begun on a hurting mode. Sinners beware!