Mama Worship and MAMMON Worship

  Kathri heat of this Chithirai month makes everybody go crazy.  Particularly for us scorpions, every wall crack of old buildings, crevices of stone platforms and breaks and breaches of tree barks have become unbearable to stay.  Yesterday when it became too hot, I came out of my Flint House abode to crawl on the wet patches of ground to cool my belly for a while, and also meet with the students taking classes under the tree.

            A small group of students walking towards me saw me and stopped at a stamping distance from me.  A few kind ones bent down to greet me.  Greeting them back I said, ‘Hi guys, thank your stars … now you can write the exams at last … eh?’  Hearing this they became very angry and one of them said, ‘Mr. Scorpius, for this torture we undergo in Chithirai, I will first stamp you with my new sneakers and kill you… you pretend as if you do not know anything that has been happening to us?

            Another one picked up, ‘Do you know the latest?  The scion of Madurai Royal Family the son-in-law fellow says that he is now worth 700 crore rupees in wealth and if the students do not mend their ways soon, he knew what to do with the pauper-teachers taking classes under the tree.  Even he said that he has plans to cut off your tail-pouch where you store your venom’.

            ‘Well, 700 crore rupees?’  I responded with a start, ‘belong to whom?... which F’…Family?  Son-in-law fellow…who?... any descendant of Thirumalai Naikar?’

            ‘No, no’ they said, ‘He is no Naiker nor king, that royal family of Madurai was doomed ages ago… it is our prince charming Vattakappu (round cup), son-in-law of …’

            ‘Dear students’. I began in all seriousness, ‘Vattakappu to have talked boastfully about the horrid 700 crore rupees was certainly an act of vulgarity.  Though I was initially angry, I quickly calmed down.  What can be done with a madman who strips in public and shows everyone his nudity in thickness and then goes around telling everybody that he must be called the king of the place?  We can only pray to God for his mental health and early cure, can’t we?  This vulgar flaunting of riches is a psychopathic manifestation, originating from a serious sense of lack in his personality.  All because Kappu  chose the wrong profession, teaching.  It is a rare combination of low IQ, poor self-esteem and greed acted upon by easy money.  Perhaps his charity boys like Ramanujanstephen and Mushroomkingdoss might be carried away by the money and muscle of this joker.  For them maybe, he is Dawood Ibrahim of Madurai.  Not for you and I.  Let Kappu first go home and find his chick left in the basket before he tries to set the world in order. 

            ‘What a shame!’ I continued, ‘here is a bandicoot who goes on a fire dance with the share of a loot from his father-in-law and mother-in-law, not even from father or mother’.

            ‘I loath’, I said, ‘Looters and thieves demanding respect and esteem from honourable people like you, is like a sh’..t eating pig demanding to eat apple-pie from your plate’.

            A student stopped me at this point and said, ‘Mr. Scorp, you stop your gas and first tell me whether this 700 crore is a loot’.

            ‘Yes, yes! certainly yes’, I said, no teacher who has a right living can make 700 crore in six or seven years.  To claim that as a legacy, it does not seem that his family ever owned TI cycles or sold Air Deccan to Vijay Malliah.  Only legacy Kappu inherited which  the whole world knows, is Mama’s loot after he was anointed as the ‘Holy One’ in 2004.

            A shrewd one quipped, ‘Now I understand why Vattakappu worships Mama, more than God?.  Another boy sitting next to him without pretentions introduced himself as a Christian and said, ‘Jesus in the Bible was very angry with Maman Worship’.

            ‘Oh boy!’ I said and laughed loudly. I wanted to correct him, with whatever little I had learnt from the Bible by overhearing Chapel sermons living in a small fissure in the chapel balcony last summer.

            ‘My dearest one, what Jesus talked about is MAMMON and not Maman.  MAMMON according to Christ is personification of money and riches which in itself is evil.  MAMMON Worship is money worship.  Not only Christ, even a hardcore atheist philosopher  Karl Marx, condemned MAMMON Worship as an evil that came to characterize capitalist and consumerist societies’.

            ‘Why then they worship Mama in the church?’ he asked.

            ‘Oh dear one, even before our Bishop Mama arrived on the scene MAMMON Worship was there in the churches – I said even during the time of Christ.  CSI church leaders and Bishops accepted MAMMON Worship as the highest creed only 25 years ago.  Without MAMMON Worship, our Mama would not have become a bishop.  As MAMMON kept blessing Mama, he also became Mammon like or his earthly avatar.  Today more people have developed greed for money and thirst for power in the church. They have discovered in Mama, MAMMON’S only begotten son on earth.’

            ‘Now you understand what Vattakappu fellow is trying to do?  Introduce both Mama Worship and MAMMON Worship in the College.  So I caution you.  Don’t be afraid of this mentally deranged strip-teaser of money, Vattakappu.  Go to your teachers whom Vattakappu calls  pauper-teachers.   Yes, Budha, Jaina, Jesus, Socrates and Gandhi … why, civilization’s all noble teachers were only pauper-teachers, and not MAMMON Worshipers or Mama Worshipers.

            Oh, Mr. Scorp, now everything falls in place … but one last question … why can’t you with this clarity tell the people in the government and save the college for our sake without much loss of time?

            ‘My dearest ones, this question really saddens me and makes me feel helpless.  There you know, you have, not one Mama, but several Big Mamas.  (You must be familiar with Raja Mama, Kalmodi Mama, Behur Mama, Chandolia Mama, Balwa Mama, Hasan Ali Mama and numerous other Periya Mamas and Chinna Mamas who leveraged the government and now are cooling their heels in jail).  And the Government today is one of the Biggest Church that organizes MAMMON Worship.

            ‘To whom to complain about Bishop Mama?  Tell me,’ I asked.

            Before I completed I saw Vattakappu jostling and laughing and shaking hands with a few police men at a distance.  The boys quietly started moving away.  I quickly climbed the trunk of the huge old iron tree for my safety.

                                                                                                            Scorpius                                                                                                           07.05.2011