The 330,000,001th god of Hinduism

I believe in God To be exact I believe in one particular God Here in India we have many to choose from so you can have a god focussed on your every specific need You can even believe in a small gang of godsmdashfor example one for business one for some money one for knowledge and one for say flat tiresThe Hindu pantheon has believe it or not 330 million gods enumerated no doubt by some assiduous Vedic intern back when India ruled the world Wersquove got a god for everything Wersquore top of the heap when it comes to gods But as my luck would have it I could not find a suitable god for my purposesOne of the great things about Hinduism is that you can make up gods precisely tailored to your needs You can declare someone to be a god and thatrsquos all it takes Aap doctor nahin aap bhagwan hain Some people like Asaram Babu or some Yogi can even declare themselves to be gods and thatrsquos okay too Hinduism is very tolerant of diversityTherersquos a god for every occasion Pushan is the god for marriages journeys roads and the feeding of cattle The goddess Vac names things and makes it possible for friends to recognise each otherManasa looks after snakes and snakebites and Sarama is all about dogs My favourite is the littleknown younger brother of Ganesha known as Skanda He is the god of thieves though he has several other portfoliosItrsquos not very different from Christians having patron saints for everything For example Jesus Malverde is the patron saint of hard drugs and revered by drug cartelsI once went to Mehndipur a temple town near Jaipur to pay my respects to the god Balaji Hersquos in charge of exorcisms Lots of possessed people in MehndipurA Pew survey found that among Hindus the most popular god by far is Shiva the destroyer 44 per cent About a third of Hindus are devotees of Hanuman 35 per centmdashsymbol of strength and loyalty and Ganesha remover of obstacles South India has its own preferences Murugan 14 per cent of South Hindus Ayyappa 13 per cent and Meenakshi 7 per centMy own personal god who would be the 330millionandoneth listed Hindu deity goes by Pangajhooteshwar Maharaj I understand he is already worshipped by tens of thousands of Indians though many are yet to realise it Pangaji temples will soon be a common sightOf course the question on everyonersquos minds is do some gods andor goddesses like to drink Since there is a god for pretty much everything yoursquod expect one to be dedicated to hooch Well Varuni daughter of the god Varuna is the sommelier of the Hindu pantheon in charge of the bar Some Indian gods didnrsquot mind a peg or two on occasionWhich makes it all the more perplexing why everyone has their knickers in a twist because Bengali MP Mahua Mitra spoke of Kali Bengalrsquos revered goddess of destruction as being ldquomeateating and alcoholacceptingrdquo Apparently this was heresy The party which lost the elections in Bengal immediately filed police complaints that the MP had ldquohurt religious sentimentsrdquoDoes Kali actually like the stuff or notAccording to Indologist Manab Chatterjee the ritual use of booze in Kaliworship has been mentioned in the Niruttara Tantra a religious sect Another scholar Purba Sengupta says liquor signifying strong emotions is essential to the worship of a goddess who symbolises shakti power and destruction and is consumed as prasad after being offered to the deityYou donrsquot have to go as far as Bengal Right there at the doorstep of the BJP government in Delhi is the Bhairavnath Temple near Pragati Maidanrsquos Gate number 1 Said to be nearly 2000 years old its main deity is Bhairo Baba a demon killed by the goddess Durga another name of Kali Bhairo Baba only accepts liquor as an offering His bhakts then get high on the prasadWhat you might wonder does my god Pangajhooteshwar protect In India he protects the right to take pangas or take and give offence He also guarantees every Indianrsquos right to make up halftruths and even outright lies and post them on WhatsApp or FacebookPangajhooteshwar is a new god for a new and shining India He is easily offended so you have to watch what you say to him He loves nothing more than taking pangas over some imagined slight and boy does he imagine slights He preaches sobriety and vegetarianism but once the sun sets all bets are offPangaji protects your constitutional right to make a big fuss about nothing He is particularly fond of righteous moral indignation and much ado over trivial issues For those who do this successfully Pangaji promises eternal government outrage wherever you look and a nation of people who really donrsquot like anyone whorsquos not like themHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper