- I Paid A Bribe
- 13 years ago
- 2704 views
Omkareshwar and Mahakaleshwar Temples
- Religious Trusts
- Temple
- Paid INR 500
There was anarchy at the temple gates of Omkareshwar, where there were no queues, no personnels to check anything, police men were just sitting with their guns. All of the priests were in the business of asking bribes. I was with my family, with two infants too. We were ready to be in the queue for entering the temple, but the gates were closed (after asking the one priest, he said "bhog lag raha hai" ) but I could see people were going in and out, so I asked another one and he said, yes if you want to go like that you will have to pay to get **********, and that is 400 per person, then we thought its too much as we were many, then he said OK, 500 for bringing all of us ahead of this queue. That was most outrageous demand I ever heard, that you pay to get sneak peak of Lord Shiva at Omkareshwar temple. I paid for other family members, but I stood in the queues and waited for 4 hours, in the mean time there were VIP lines for who paid 400 per person, extra lines who paid to priest, and who did not pay, were only entering intermittently in the time windows of 15 min, because the gates were being closed by them for normal people. There were people fainting on the premises even in December, because of exhaustion, frustration, waiting in line for 4-5 hours. And the worst was, when I entered the temple, I could not even stand to get a good look of the Shiva Linga of Omkareshwar Lord and was pushed out automatically but the priests. This is one of most corrupt so far I have seen in the series of temples.
The second comes is Mahakaleshwar, where only few persons were allowed to enter into the main dome of the temple, and rest of the junta was standing out at good 25-30 feet away from the main area, after asking one of the police personnel who was very rude, he said they are VIPs family, I asked what VIP, he said go to head quarter to know that, but apparently they were from the district administration or relatives of police men employed in this temple or the relatives or acquaintances of the priest working over there.
In both cases I found it very sad that people of all ages (even carried by family members on shoulders, wheel chairs and what not) who came from remotest parts of India, who are poor and can not pay were denied entry or were waiting in lines for hours to get **********. This is very sad.