CHASTE ASTE:Rakesh at the temple

K.S. Rakesh can never forget the day he became a priest at the Neerikodu Siva Temple in Ernakulam. A mob of "devotees" at the temple tried to prevent him from stepping into the sanctum sanctorum and the temple administrator refused to hand him the keys. All because Rakesh was an Ezhava, a backward caste.

That was 10 years ago. Rakesh has finally won the legal battle; the Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition (SLP) filed by the state-constituted Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) claiming that Rakesh's appointment was against the traditions and that in Kerala priesthood was the prerogative of Malayalee Brahmins. The court ruled that eligibility for priesthood should be the knowledge of rites and traditions, not caste.

The decision opens the door for the backward castes staking claim to the lucrative priesthood in large temples like Guruvayur. In 1970, the TDB decided to break tradition and recruit as priests members of any Hindu caste. About 10 candidates belonging to lower castes were recruited. But unable to withstand the hostility of upper caste devotees most of them were forced to give up their positions. Rakesh opted to fight. And win.

-M.G. Radhakrishnan

LIGHTER SIDE
Ghost Callers

Move over Delhi's monkey man and Uttar Pradesh's Muhnochwa, Goa's phone ghost is now the paranormal talk of town. A rumour reported by a Marathi daily that a munificent ghost was granting wishes over the phone snowballed into a telephonic typhoon. That Goa has the country's second highest tele-density after Delhi made matters worse. Overnight the telephone became both a hate object and a channel to the supernatural.

Phones flew off their hooks as hundreds began calling a number at Saligao village, 8 km from capital Panaji. It was in a woman's telephone there, the rumour mills insinuated, the poltergeist resided. When the harried housewife disconnected her phone, the calls were redirected to similar phone numbers. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited counted close to a thousand calls made to one particular number. Rumours that the ghost was clairvoyant only added fuel to the raging fire. For a handful of Goa's residents at least, the phones are haunted by spam calls.

-Sandeep Unnithan

Ram's Bridge to Eternity

Heavenly eyes have given a new perspective to the tale of Ram. Recent satellite images published by NASA throw new light on Adam's Bridge, till now believed to be a chain of shoals across the Palk Strait linking Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka. Experts who studied the NASA images feel the bridge's unique curvature indicates it is manmade. They also date the structure back to 17,50,000 years, about the same time that human habitation began in Sri Lanka.

These facts corroborate the Ramayana events, which were supposed to have taken place in the Treta Yug (more than 17,00,000 years ago). The epic tells of how Ram ordered a bridge built across the seas so his army could march to Lanka and rescue his wife Sita from Ravana. The mythical engineer Nal's marvel seems to lie deep below the waters. And with it the veracity of the Ramayana.

SIGNPOSTS

DIED: Dina Pathak, 82, Gujarati actor and grand old lady of Hindi films, in Mumbai.

JOINED: Romesh Bhandari, former Uttar Pradesh governor, the Janata
Dal (S).

AWARDED: To Tamil Nadi IPS officer K. Radhakrishnan, the International Community Police Award, by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

SENTENCED: Writer Taslima Nasreen, to a year in jail, by a Bangladesh court, for casting aspersions on Islam.

CHOSEN: S. Ramadorai of TCS, as Asia Business Leader, and Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers, as Corporate Citizen, by CNBC.

DIED: Vasant Sabnis, 79, Marathi litterateur and playwright, in Mumbai.