How to catch a Bhakt

 I have nothing against BHAKTs (a very prolific, popular slang for the blind Right leaning devotees of Modi and BJP. The tag sticks to them as iron sticks to magnet). Like everyone else they have every rights to their unflinching BHAKTI (Diehard Devotion) for their MAHAPRABHU (Ultimate God). I have no issues with that. Their BHAKTI (devotion) is non of my business, until they get personal and start trolling me. 

Every Fall (Autumn) and Spring I get into the mode of cleansing of such BHAKTs from my Facebook friendlist and still continue this practice. I follow a very simple method of scouring and smoking them out of their holes. So far it has worked well for me and I have been quite successful in my mission of trapping & eliminating them. 

How to catch a Bhakt ? During my childhood days in our village near Puri, I have seen an occasion called "MAJENA" - An offering of Fish to our village Goddess, followed by a massive feasting on varieties of mouth watering dishes made out of fish - MACHHA BHAJA (Fried fish), BESARA (scrambled fish cooked in mustard paste), MACHHA KAALIA (fish Chunk curry), MACHHA MANJI (fish roe or egg) fries and so on. 

The fish is procured from our village pond. The fishermen would enter into this pond called GAAI GADIA (named after cows taking bath inside the pond), wade through it several times, toing and froing from one and to the other, deliberately muddying the water. The fishes who get agitated and start jumping around are caught first. The process is repeated until the target for the evening MAJENA session is met. 

I do the same on Facebook by deliberately posting something critical of Modi, BJP, RSS, sarcastic memes and cartoons poking fun at them, especially the superstitions peddled as phoney scientific theories simply to score cheap political goals. It riles some Bhakts to no end. A la fish they start jumping around with their asses on fire. They bite the bait, start bad mouthing me. I lose no time in giving them the option of unfriending me - to go ahead and make my day. If they prefer, I oblige them by reciprocating the same at my end. 

Last week I had to unfriend couple of guys from my Facebook friend list. The reason - although they wrote nothing against me but irritated me by their nonsense, parochial and outright moronic statements directed to my post and comments on my posts from some of my erudite friends. 

They later said sorry, but my prudence prompted me to get rid of them. If you keep snakes in your backyard expecting to bite only your neighbors, then you are living in a fool's paradise. One day they will turn their fangs on you. It is wiser to wipe them off from my friendliest rather than leave any such scope for future. 

I am also reminded of this story great folklore PANCHATANTRA (The Five Treatise), a series of meaningful short stories compiled by our ancient story teller Vishnu Sharma. A king kept a monkey as his pet. His favorite simian became too close to him as the King treated the animal as a friend. 

One fine afternoon the King was enjoying his siesta. A fly came from nowhere and sat on his nose. The monkey saw it. Not wanting to disturb the king and get rid of the nuisance fly, the monkey grabbed the unsheathed sword of the King and took a hard blow at the King's face. The fly managed to fly away, but the King was dead. The moral of the story - "MURKHA BANDHU THARU BUDDHIMAN SHATRU SHREYASKARA", an intelligent enemy is preferred to an idiot friend. This moral from hundred years ago still holds good. Lesson learnt, good riddance. 

So far this strategy has worked out well for me. I have already have my quota of fish and feel satiated for this year. Now I got to wait until the next MAJENA before I go on my next fishing expedition. Fall is just getting started, so also my cleansing. Elon Musk once said -“You don't lose friends. You lose undercover haters. Real friends can never be lost". He wasn't far from the truth.