The ‘what if’ haunt

On the evening of December 31, I was in the temple town of Puri in Odisha. The temple complex is a rather large one, with four imposing gates named after four animals: Lion, Elephant, Tiger and Horse. What was fascinating was the arrangements outside the temple precincts for the “New Year season”. A large posse of police personnel was posted in the temple complex, with barricades and bamboo structures for people to queue up. A temple source said there is no concept of a special darshan ticket. Of course, like any system, if one has contacts of anyone inside the temple, it may be a tad easier for “the Lord to see you” (as they say). But during this year-end season, no one could slip past the rising tide of policemen to navigate the sea of devotees inside.

We stood in the queue, which was deceptively disciplined till the barricaded corridors led us to a spot just outside the main temple. “We are seven steps away from the Lord,” said a fellow-devotee, even as the war-cry of “Jai Jagannath” rent the air.

However, the barricaded corridors ended, and suddenly it was a “free for all” moment, where one had to jostle and push past one another to reach the next set of corridors to queue up. Once the queue reached the steps, the corridor barricades abruptly ended, and there was a sudden rush. It was the survival of the fittest. Those who could jostle well, and fight their way could climb the steps and reach the zone for darshan. The crowd was suffocating; there were children, and even infants in this turbulent sea of devotees. Parents suddenly lifted their children onto their shoulders to prevent them from being asphyxiated. I noticed a man with
his mother, a small, frail lady with a stoop. “How is she going to manage this?” I thought.

As we were pushed and jostled along the seven steps and into the area from where one could see the deities, people had begun pushing and yelling with more force for that nano second of darshan. I really do not know how many actually managed to see the deities because what happened in the area was sheer madness.

I kept looking back for that frail woman, only to see her a few waves later, descending from the steps, looking frazzled. Just then, a thought crossed my mind: ‘What if there is a sudden rush? How will all of us cope, especially the old, infirm, and children?’

A week later, a stampede in Tirupati claimed lives. It took me back to that evening at the overcrowded Puri temple; the push, the shove, stamping of the feet, and people gasping for breath along the darshan point. The frail woman, the infants and children, pregnant women...all of them queuing up with hope to see the Lord and not really thinking about “what if” that day. But the “what if” does send a shiver down my spine today.