Harsimran kaur ON  Feb 08, 2024, IN BOOK REVIEW, Idols By Amish & Bhavna Roy – Fiction

Rating: 3/5

Why human conscious requires validation to release the religious paradoxes in scrutiny? Often, our need to align with the divine becomes sauerkraut of presumptions and judgments; look at its portrait on the wall, the creator carapaced by its illuminating generosity. Whats in the pendulating bell in the temple ringing a tune espousing the self-deprecating obeisance; look at the soloist behind in queue finding no reason to release the strain of sound harder, if prayer works that way?

Idolatry? It does sometimes strike a chord of equivocal phenomenon. Isn’t it an overstated rout, recherché by the recusants or a ruminative privilege for many who leave no stone behind to erect fundamental belief in their ‘divine deus ex machina ?

What are these idols? Why are they profoundly ubiquitous finding pleasure in the abstractness of devotes thronging rictus? Does the prevalence of ‘faith’ in idol worship finds inherent disposition to be a Paleolithic piper or as much we deter to find relevance, the ‘faith’ has a pride attached to it? Amish goes back to an incident which compelled him to explain the relevance of ‘idols’ in Hinduism, and a terrific impact I must say, we now have a book that conspicuously travels the era of ‘Brahma’, ‘Vishnu’ and ‘Shiva’ to analyze the incessant need to worship idols.

The theology is interesting and illuminating! Not being an idol worshipper myself, I still strongly believe ‘to each, its own’. But the question again arises why there comes a time when self-analysis of self-indulgence becomes important? Probably because ignorance can be an overwhelming spy to impugn you with impenitent incursions, and in the process the self needs affirmations to keep it going.

‘Idols’ by Amish and Bhavna Roy feels like a revered scripture expatiating the relevance of ‘idols’; anthropomorphic in its essence, and thereby conjuring a story-telling to add to its efficaciousness. The book is a continuation to the previous compilation ‘Dharma’ where the family sits together to unfurl the epic tales of ‘righteousness’. Taking all this further, the authors now delve into ‘idol worship’; the myths surrounding it and the importance of ‘Ishta Devata’.

Let’s just understand the process a bit better! We all know for a fact that ‘Gods & Goddesses’ in Hinduism have an impressionable history impressionistic enough to have an inclination to pray to more than one. The ‘indiscriminatory Lord’ Shiva arriving with a band of Gods and Demons on his marriage to Parvati is true to the idea of ‘all in the same tribe of equality’. The protuberant ‘elephant nose’ carries a mysterious credibility making ‘Ganesha’ the God of prosperity & wisdom. Don’t we relate to these attributes while worshipping our choicest of Gods? So how this works? We generally find this peculiar immutable reflection in the ‘idol’ in front of us which makes the prayer in probity, finding solace that each God or Goddess carries the charm to ripen what is rotted.

But, again why an idol? We can still find the deep meaning of life by invading our inner soul, meditating on the primal being. But, what idol worship truly rest on is the invasive need to connect to the deity, its attributes entrenched in the earthen carving, thus elucidating the connection of soul in every being on this planet. This harmonious devotion feels like creating a whole new universe of mystic connects.  

Lord Krishna propounds on the empty vastness of the body and its attachments, unapologetically desirous gradually coming off age as desultory. How can we ever elude ‘Lord Hanuman’ who expeditiously tours the wind to find a panacea for ‘Laxman’? Enthralled in his devotion to Lord Ram, he is hailed for his discipline and obedience. The Goddesses, ‘Durga’ and ‘Kali’ are synonymous with ‘Shakti’ & ‘feminine power’. 

We all travel through these tales; learn the explicable, and the unexplained becomes a theory to be exercised with our experiences. ‘Idols’ carry these stories and we in turn, the devotees, carry these learning; we bow our head in humility to the ‘gyan’ and ‘generosity’. A pile of exuberances in between, the devotee thus is now ready to destroy the fallacies to reach his ‘Ishta Devata’. 

TAKE AWAY

Absorbing and enlightening…