Friends, I have important news for you. God has revealed itself to me, and surprise, surprise, it is a virus.
Keep those knives sheathed, folks. I’m not talking about your gods. I’m talking about my quest for a personal god. Like most people, I also started off with the regular, run-of-the-mill gods that a family or a school usually tries to forcefully implant in your brain. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was dumb, and my brain kept rejecting those implants. It was all very confusing for me.
Still, my spiritual pursuit continued through my childhood,
which most of the time didn’t go down well with my mom and many other people.
Then, I reached the age of reason around 12. This is the time when most guys reach
the age of reason and start spending more time in the toilet, sometimes with
magazines with colourful photographs and stuff. There, they let their
imaginations run wild. A toilet is like a cave where you can sit and ponder. Many
of mankind’s greatest ideas were born either in a cave or in a toilet. A cave/toilet
allows a person to focus. All our ancient gurus used to go into caves (which
also probably served as toilets in those days) for ideas, except of course, Mr.
Buddha. In his case, it was because he wanted to do number “two” with
everything, or was it that he wanted to be one with everything? I don’t know. As
I mentioned earlier, it’s all quite confusing.
In the course of my spiritual journey, I also went through a whole
gamut of god men, trying to make sense of this confusion; but that too turned
out to be a dead end, as I crashed into words like corporeal manifestation and
cosmic consciousness. From the afro hair dude to the sad kuru, whatever they
said went over my head. Their teachings fell under the field of studies
generally known in educational circles as Bovem Stercore-ology, which
was beyond my brain's reach.
I remember a guru who said that the sound from a damru (drum)
was the first corporeal manifestation. That is, the first physical thingy ever in this universe was the sound from a drum made of wood
and animal skin, which, of course, are not physical thingies. Wait, isn’t wood
a physical thingy? Where did the animal skin come from? I was stumped. I
realized that I’m probably not the sharpest tool in the shed. I needed clear,
simple explanations, and that’s when Nityananda kuru appeared on the scene with
his unvarnished bovem stercore in a language that the common folks understood, unlike those sad kurus and sri-to-the-power-of-n
kurus and their pretentious stuff. I almost made up my mind to fully accept
this new kuru as my spiritual guide, and thought of doing some deep thinking in
a cave prior to taking the plunge.
Well, not everyone has access to photogenic caves like Modiji. He
has the wherewithal to marshal the entire political science government
machinery to arrange for caves in Kedarnath. I don’t have that kind of connections,
so I make do with the toilet. Modiji has cameramen and strategically placed
mood lighting to showcase his berobed, bearded profile, while his x-ray eyes
peer straight at the camera through closed eyelids. I, on the other hand, sit on
the throne sans robes, my lungi on the floor, my newspaper, book, or smartphone
in hand. I thought of asking my wife to take a picture of me in profound
thought, but then good sense prevailed, as I knew her threshold for toilet
humour was pretty low. I also thought of taking in a bird, a small one, not a
peacock. Maybe, a bird of paradise. But Japanese toilets, though famous for
being high-tech, are notoriously small. If my toilet were any smaller, I would
be making squishing sounds going in and out. So, out went the bird of paradise
photo shoot idea.
Anyway, I was sitting there in my make-believe cave, deep in
thought, one day recently, when God spake to me, “I’m the virus”. I was
sceptical at first, thinking I misheard a fart, but then it asked me again, clearly, to think of the primary criterion for
being a god. The primary criterion for a god, we all know, is to “Kill
indiscriminately”. A few women menstruated somewhere - send a flood; couple of
guys kissed elsewhere - time for an earthquake; boys spending too much time in
toilet – smite a town somewhere with a tornado. Evidently, this god is also
killing indiscriminately, and that too on a global scale. Ukrainian holiness
blames gay people for the coronavirus. The Viral God punishes the holiness. So,
that makes you wonder what the holiness has up his robe. Anyhoo, I was getting pretty
convinced about this god. It also said that it created the coronavirus in its
image. Makes sense. Most humans, conceited as they are, imagine god resembles them
in appearance. Well people, now is the time for you to accept the new fact,
repent, and follow the true god, the Virus.
Further, it has told me that I’m the chosen prophet and I have to spread the word. I asked for some instructions, y’know, rules.
Any religion worth its salt needs rules. As I said earlier, I like them simple.
Too many commandments might put people off. George Carlin once simplified and
summarized the ten commandments into two.
So, I was hoping for something on that line, and I was not disappointed. There
are essentially only three commandments in my religion now (which I regularly break).
1. Thou shalt not go into Closed spaces
2. Thou shalt not go into Crowded places
3. Thou shalt not be in Close-contact settings
Spread the good word. Make this viral.
All this may sound a bit too facetious for
a religion, and I conveyed as much to the Lord. The Lord Virus has reassured me
that the rest of the rules regarding sacrificing virgins (both boys and girls,)
beheading apostates and infidels, lynching, etc., which are essential for a religion
to gain acceptance in this modern world, will be delivered to me in due course
and it has asked me to be prepared, preferably in a cave/toilet. So, till I get
those remaining rules, follow the above three.
P.S. The greatest thing about this god is that you can actually see it. Unlike certain religions that prevent you from taking and showing pictures of gods (imagine the trillions lost in merchandising,) this god can be seen and photographed with gadgets in certain temples called labs. Certainly adds to the credibility.
