Hindus irked by hymns with offensive lyrics

Lucknow: Worshippers of Shiva were in for a rude shock on Sunday when they lined up at Shiva temples in Kanpur on the occasion of 'Shivaratri'.

The loudspeaker at a temple in Panki locality blared a bhajan that went O Ganesh ke Papa re, O Ganesh ki Mummy re?, set to the tune of super hit item song Aisa jadoo dala re?.

The worshippers were aghast at the lyrics and finally some of them decided to pull up the priest for allowing the song to be played over the public address system.

The priest said the cassette which came in a plastic cover had been given to him by two boys, both in their early twenties, on Saturday night.

"The boys came to the temple to offer prayers and gave me the cassette saying it was their first recorded bhajan album and they wanted it to be played at the temple on Shivaratri. I did not know the contents of the cassette but since the boys seemed rather sincere I gave the cassette to a shopkeeper near the temple and asked them to play it," the priest confessed.

V.K. Sharma, a bank employee, who was one among those who protested at the temple, later said, "It took me a few minutes to realise what was happening. My 13-year-old son unwittingly started humming the item song as the bhajan played on. I heard the lyrics and was rather shocked. How can anyone address Shiva as 'Ganesh ke Papa' and Parvati as 'Ganesh ki mummy'? We cannot allow anyone to ridicule our deities in this manner. As it is, setting a bhajan to the tune of a popular disco song is bad enough and the lyrics, in this case, are simply unacceptable," he said.

However, the devotees did not make an issue out of the song and no report was formally lodged against the priest. "We ensured that the cassette was destroyed before us and we warned the shopkeepers in the locality to beware of such miscreants.

"Interestingly, the same cassette was delivered to two other temples in Govind Nagar and Colonelganj localities in Kanpur but could not be played over the public address system due to disruptions in power supply.

"It was only when the news of this incident was flashed by a local cable network that the other temple priests informed us that they had the cassettes too. It is now obvious that the boys wanted to create communal tension by handing out such cassettes," said Aadesh Rastogi, a businessman who was present the temple at the time of the incident on Sunday.

The district authorities, however, claimed they were not aware of any such incident having taken place.

"No one has filed a complaint and neither has there been any law and order problem. If any such incident has taken place, it is obviously too trivial," said the Kanpur senior superintendent of police.