Venkateshwara, whodunnit?

Sans the Sacred

As the Tirupati prasada controversy gets more and more convoluted, here is a little story from our trusty king Vikrama and the wily Vetala, who is spared of all the moral quandaries of the living.

Once, a brahmin called Somasharma was sleeping happily on his terrace next to his beautiful wife Vilasavati. Some divine Vidyadhara flying above spotted Vilasavati and decided to make off with her. And so, he carried her away while the couple was asleep. Then Somasharma woke up and saw that his beloved wife was nowhere to be seen. He looked for her everywhere and became inconsolable when he could not find her.

As he went searching, he reached another town. Tired from all his roaming, he went to the house of the minister, Padmanabha. Padmanabha told his wife, “Darling, you must extend hospitality to this brahmin who is approaching our house.” And then, as some men are wont to do, he went away to the palace on some work, leaving his wife to cater to the guest. Padmanabha’s wife, as her husband instructed her, invited Somasharma to come inside and have lunch.

Poor Somasharma was in a bit of a fix. He was starving, but it did not feel right for him to stay in the house, with only the minister’s wife there. And so, he requested, “I would rather not eat here alone. Could you please give me something to eat, and I will eat it by the pond nearby?”

Despite the minister’s wife’s insistence that it was unnecessary for him to eat outside, he took his food and went to the pond. There, he placed it below a tree and went to fetch some water to drink with it. At that time, a hawk had just caught a snake and was about to eat it. The hawk happened to perch upon a branch of the tree below which Somasharma had kept his food.

You can imagine what happened next. The poor terrified snake spilled its poison as it died. And the poison fell right into Somasharma’s meal. Blissfully unaware of all this, Somasharma brought himself some water and ate the meal. And he died.

When Padmanabha saw what had happened, he gave his wife a scolding and blamed her for killing a brahmin. The wife protested, “It is not really my fault. I told him he was welcome to have his meal here, but he was too embarrassed to, and so he went outside to eat. What could I possibly have done?”

At this point, Vetala broke off the story to ask King Vikrama: “Who was responsible for Somasharma’s death? Was it the hawk, for killing the snake where it did? Was it the snake for dropping its poison into his food? The minister? Or his wife?”

Well, King Vikrama answered that it was not the poor animals, who only did as their nature dictated. It was also not the fault of the minister’s poor wife, who did all she could to extend hospitality to Somasharma. It was partially the minister, because he left his guest unattended and went away to the palace. And surprisingly, it was also the Vidyadhara, who abducted Vilasavati and caused this entire chain of events!

What do we glean from this story, apart from that we never know what goes into the food or prasada that we eat, you might ask! Well, who is to blame for the Tirupati prasadadebacle? Is it someone in the supply chain who might have adulterated the ghee? Is it someone involved in the laddoo-making, who did not do their due diligence? Is it politicians who drummed up controversy where there was none, by making unsubstantiated claims about what the lab reports really mean? I’ll leave it to you to guess!