Moses said to Yahweh, "O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

When it comes to discussing religion, I can relate to Moses.  I was born in a religious Hindu family but I consider myself not very religious.  Growing up as a child, my only incentive to go to the Hindu temple on Tuesdays was a visit to the next door "Chaat" vendor afterwards.  I think my dad had the same reason but he never openly admitted it.  My mom on the other hand has been a very religious lady.  These days I visit the temple(s) primarily whenever I drive her there.

I had a rather amusing experience at the Bridgewater Temple in New Jersey.  I took my mom to the temple this morning.  Since she takes her time there, I was waiting by the door for her to finish with the services.  Being Sunday and a week after Diwali, the biggest Hindu festival, the temple was crowded.  All of a sudden a group of about twenty white folks showed up.  I was actually impressed because none of them seemed like the pot smoking Hare Rama Hare Krishna types, and they were of various age groups.  I do see non-Indians on occasion in the temple, but usually they are accompanied by their Indian friend(s).  The group seemed a bit lost in the crowd.  Strangely, I volunteered to be their guide to the temple.  I was like, why not!  Mom was going to take another fifteen minutes.  I may not know a whole lot about the religion and philosophy, but I do know good stories.  These are the stories I grew up hearing from my mother and others.  So, I described to the group why Lord Ganesh has an elephant's head.  Apparently, his father, Lord Shiv cut his son Ganesh's head off because he won't let him enter his house while his mother Parvati (Shiv's wife) was taking a bath.  When Parvati realized what had transpired, she urged Lord Shiv to revive their son.  So Lord Shiv cut a passing by elephant's head and attached it on their son's body.  I also told the group that Ganesh is worshiped whenever Hindus start a new business or venture.  The story was an ice breaker.  I was the favorite guide of the group immediately.  They had so many questions like whether the temple was controlled by some organizational unit like the Roman Catholic Church.  I told them, this particular temple was.  The priests are sent here on some kind of deputation and they require U.S. H1B (work visa) like everyone else.  Note that this is a big temple.  We went through all the deities.  I explained the role of each of them like Lakshmi and Sarswati, and skipping the ones who I did not know about.  I explained the nine planets statues and why people were circling them, emphasizing the wreath of Shani (The Saturn,) who can ruin your happiness for seven years.  Finally we landed up at Lord Hanuman's statue.  One lady remarked, "What did he do to anger his father?"  I told her Hanuman was actually born as a monkey, so it is his real head.

I think over all the group enjoyed my presentation and thanked me.  I told the group about the nice cafeteria downstairs where they serve really good South Indian delicacies.

Little I realized that it had taken good half an hour.  I started looking for my mom, who had finished her thing long time back and was frantically looking for me.  I finally found her and we headed home.  I actually was surprised at myself that I knew a lot more than I though I knew.  So, next time you want to discuss theology, keep in mind, I am a certified Hindu guide!