Making God Laugh
Mom decided we ought to pay a visit to the temple town Nathdwara during our Christmas holidays. Dad made a fuss about the expense but Mom was firm: we hadn’t gone to pay our respects to the family deity, Shreenathji, for quite a while and we couldn’t put this off forever. Finally dad gave in and sent somebody from the factory to queue up at the railway station to buy the tickets for the family – which meant my parents and we three boys, the youngest of them being me and I was nine at that time. Cut to Nathdwara. The Nathdwara temple has eight darshans – which means, the temple gates are opened eight times a day to allow devotees to have a glimpse of the deity. The deity is adorned differently for each darshan hence each darshan is unique. Now, if you are devout, and in love with the deity, even with its form, you would like to have as many darshans as you can. So I announced to my mother, “Tomorrow I will have all eight darshans of Shreenathji.” “Hush!” said my mother. “You ca