Raju Ganapathy

Drama Others

4  

Raju Ganapathy

Drama Others

Rise of RGSS

Rise of RGSS

7 mins
262


At the stroke of dawn when the cuckoos began their singing, when the cows began their mooing, when one could see a golden tinge on the horizon, three brahmin men in their middle age woke up in their respective houses and picked up a neem twig for brushing their teeth and started their march together towards the Ganges. Enroute they would defecate in the shrub jungle and take a holy bath in the river. The village is yet to become open defecation free in-spite of claims as tall as the coconut trees that grew in the village.


The village was considered as ancient as the holy land itself and was called as Purana gram. Purana aptly meant both old and classic in the local language. It was situated about 200 km from the birth place of Lord Ram, Ayodhya. The holy land was also the birth place of Sri Krishna another avatar of Vishnu following Lord Ram. Lord Ram was a monogamist where as Sri Krishan was a polygamist and had numerous wives. Whether he knew all his wives’ names was never asked in the scriptures. Lord Ram was a maryada purush where as Sri Krishna was as cunning as a wily fox could get. Yet both these avatars were worshipped with the same intensity of devotion. In the present times Ram has gained the upper hand. Jai Shri Ram has become even an electioneering slogan, a sign of pseudo nationalism among the masses. Ayodhaya itself has witnessed a lot of drama in the 21st century. In the near future a magnificent temple has been proposed to be constructed befitting the Ram Rajya that the leader has promised to usher in the coming years. Whether it would go the way of other promises that has been made only time would tell. 


Sorry that I got distracted, which has become a national habit. Getting back to the story of the three brahmins, the men would follow the same ritual day after day, season after seasons chanting some mantras in Sanskrit. If you were to ask the meaning of the slokas they would not know. They never asked. Their father had taught them, who in turn was taught by his father and so on. These mantras were as ancient as the village itself. The tradition of not asking questions was passed on also. So much so, for example, when the Brahmins after finishing their prayer at the local temple would amble to the tea shop and order for teas and a pack of Rs 10 biscuits, the tea vendor would give a different brand each day depending on his stock. But the brahmins would never question him on that count. They would say a prayer before consuming the tea and biscuits to thank the god for this benediction. 


But these brahmins were very famous in these parts. Not only they hailed from an ancient village, their devotion and their daily ritual were well known. They never wavered even in the biting winter and took a dip in the icy water of river Ganges. Recently the villagers were shocked to find dead bodies floating in the river. But that didn’t deter the Brahmins from dipping into the river. The river always remained pure not withstanding dead bodies floating. 


On one such morning after finishing their chai-biscote routine the eldest among them picked up the news paper and read one of the head lines about a sadhvi extolling the virtues of gomutra and how it had kept COVID at bay. The brahmins had total admiration for her. First of all, sadhvi came into news blasting her way literally speaking in the infamous Malegaon incident where many infidels were killed. The case has been going on since then and will go on for a minimum of 20 years as is the norm in the holy land and finally the learned judge would produce a 100- page verdict and declare sadhvi as innocent as the holy cow. Every one knew that would be the verdict but the drama has to go on. In the second instance Sadhvi has praised Godse for gunning down the Mahatma Gandhi. Why did Godse shoot down Mahatma asked the youngest Brahmin. The shop keeper answered it was because Gandhi was very partial to Muslims. He treated them equally with Hindus. The brahmins thanked the shop keeper for this piece of knowledge and discussed that served Mahatma right. Didn’t he know that a devout Hindu hated Muslims and vice versa in this holy land?


Anyways, the eldest Brahmin said may-be we should try drinking gomutra. One does not know when the vaccines would be available in our PHC, not withstanding tall claims on vaccine supply. They decided to drink gomutra after brushing their teeth and then set out for their Ganga snan. Of course, first few days they almost threw up. But chanting prayers numbed their emotion and taste buds. After a month they found themselves very energetic. Their skin started shining and there was a swagger in their walk. The village community wondered what was happening to the Brahmins. Have they discovered amruth somewhere they asked each other?


Pleased with the results the brahmins decided they must do something for the cause of cows and met with the pracharak of the local chapter of RSS. He suggested they could set up a trust to protect cows and raise funds for the same. So, the Brahmins set up a trust called the Rashtriya Go Suraksha Samiti (RGSS). They quite like the name as it sounded similar to the famous RSS. People would willingly donate money for RGSS, they thought. 

They had a discussion among themselves and decided that the object of the RGSS would be to promote welfare of cows. In their charter they set forth the following principles

• To promote gomutra drinking among the citizens.

• To deter beef eating

• To promote cow milk and allied products for consumption.

• To promote use of dung cakes in the kitchen as the burning of dung purifies the atmospheric air.

• To promote for export only products made of cow hide.


In so far as the last charter the Brahmins debated among themselves. We need revenues that export can provide and chamars (leather working caste) can support us from outside as they would get livelihood from the working of leather. They were happy as they considered the last charter as a master stroke. 

The middle brahmin had a crush for the Bollywood actress Angana Nought who was the self- appointed spokesperson for the majoritarian party. He messaged her stating that such a trust has been formed. Angana had heard of this village and the three devout brahmins and put up a post in Instagram as she had been suspended from Twitter. She also privately messaged Akshaya Patro who was also a champion of gomutra consumers. He had become very famous for his non-political interview of the leader and the citizens got to know how the leader liked his mango and ate it too. 


Soon the buzz caught on in the social media and membership in RGSS grew along with crowd funding. Sure enough there was a million members when the time had come for the first anniversary. The I-Tax authorities gave tax exemption for the donations received as the trust was functioning for a national purpose. 

Rashtriya Cow Aayog, a national nodal agency for promotion of cow welfare declared the RGSS meritorious of an award in their annual meeting and invited the leader himself to hand over the award to RGSS. In his speech the leader said RGSS trio represented the model citizens of New India. 


At the stroke of the dawn in Purana village, the cuckoo called and the cows mooed. But the three Brahmins were not to be seen. They had shifted base to Ayodhya itself as their punya karma had brought them closer to the Lord Ram himself. RGSS now has a multi-storeyed office cum residence for the three Brahmins. The brahmins used Patanjali brand ayurvedic tooth paste, defecated in the modern toilet, bathed under the warm water shower and used neem soap to cleanse themselves. They had tea and biscuits ready for them at the dining table. The secretaries walked in and announced their engagement for the day for each of them. First on the agenda was the meeting with the minister of animal husbandry. 



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