Monday, January 7, 2013


This is dedicated to all those of you whose beautiful dreams were mercilessly ripped apart by the appearance of random characters chanting the lords name just when things were beginning to get exciting...

Long long time ago, there was this young fellow who went to the forest in search of wisdom. He Sat under a shady tree & pondered on the shady mysteries of life. Days became months, months became years and over time, his grew bored of his beard. He longed for a razor. He was trapped, he was bored & he realized that the village folk would expect him to know something more than them if he went back now.But one fine day, he was shook from his reverie (sleep) by a Bombay circus clown. The clown wanted enlightenment & He promptly traded his shady spot under the tree for some magic tricks.
The villagers were awed by his magic, he was God, He was the god’s messenger, He was a swami. As his recent passport sized photographs didn't support his bearded appearance, he gained in mystery what he had lost in identity. They started calling him ‘swamiji’. Swamiji had fun with his new found popularity. Being a pioneer, the rules of swamihood were not really rigid. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. This was no different.
The swami business was proving to be lucrative and swamijis started cropping up everywhere. Recession had affected the job market and the swami business was getting crowded. Some of them realized they needed to diversify. Just when faith seemed to be bottoming out, one guy came up with this brilliant plan of naming himself baba.
“baba, what is this baba??”, a man asked.
 “ arrey baba ‘am dev” ; roughly translated as “my man, I’m god”.
This was simple, and effective.. no messenger, no confusion, just god.

But,in due time , people lost their faith anyway. The baba’s and the swamis were not enough.They were old, boring and had no class. The masses craved for variety. This led to the ‘sri’ movement . These ‘sri <name> jis’ were metrosexual, classy, stylish people who rode around on bikes. The youth were bowled over. They took over the media by storm appearing on shows morning, noon and night. The rage caught on. These people were cool.

But, there was an inherent problem to this movement. Some were born with names such as sri ram, sri Krishna, srinath , srikanth etc., This meant that they were born as good as these swamis and when they joined the cult they became sri sri ram, sri sri Krishna, etc. this was one sri more and it was totally unacceptable to the others who had names like Ponnambalam, Pannerselvam etc. This spurred on the sri sri revolution.

Some of the ambitious members off this clan thought “why stop with two?”. Think beyond the two they said. “ Don’t I deserve it? obviously, I’m holier than thou.. “ there were others who felt “look! I’m cool & I’ve a cooler French beard, so ya, why not??.”  One of them took a bold step; “ look I’m not murali anymore, You all can call me sri sri sri muralidhara swami from now..” Till date ‘sri sri sri’ remains to be ‘the coolest’, ‘the latest’, ‘the fad’, ‘the vogue’, etc..

As the decade marches into its next year, Experts eagerly await the next generation, the sri sri sri sri or mathematically sri^4 swamis. “With ponytails, bandanas and braided goatees, they are just around the corner, Let’s wait and see…”

oh ya you might wanna see this... he's a sri sri swamiji(grade 2 or rather S2).... 
check out his stills.....
http://madhuramurali.org/index.php?option=com_pagecontent&key=vision

Based on this passage, answer the questions that follow…

Q2. What does the author try to convey through this passage?

Q1. Suggest a suitable title for this passage.


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