Worship: The National Hobby We Never Retire From

We Indians don’t just worship occasionally. We worship like it’s a national sport. In fact, if worship were an Olympic event, we’d bring home every gold medal and then build a temple for the gold medal.  

It all started like it does for homosapeince everywhere — with fear. Fire? Scary. Storm? Terrifying. Flood? Better pray it stops. Earthquake? Impossible to control. 

So what did we do? We invented Gods out of these forces, just to feel less powerless. “If you can’t fight it… garland it.” That became our motto.  

The rest of the world eventually decided, “Hey, maybe we can study these things scientifically and find ways to deal with them.” They still pray now and then, but they also invest in weather satellites and earthquake-resistant buildings. 

We, on the other hand, upgraded our worship — not by replacing it, but by expanding it. We built this fascinating ecosystem where you can work in IT, own the latest smartphone, travel in the metro… and still believe your fate depends entirely on offering coconuts to a stone idol carved three centuries ago.  

We didn’t stop at nature either. Along came humans. Not just any humans — special ones. Those with superiority stamped in our heads. British rulers back in the day, then “brown sahibs” who aped their mannerisms; next came Godmen who claimed to have a hotline to heaven; later, politicians who mastered the art of saying what everyone wanted to hear; and more recently, film stars, cricket players, and Instagram influencers.  

This is where we truly excel: finding “superheroes” and worshipping them in ways that make fandom look like amateur hour. We treat them as infallible, flawless beings. Criticism? Sacrilege. Debate? Heresy. Logic? Irrelevant. Our superheroes live beyond the mortal plane in our imagination, enjoying a godlike immunity from any scrutiny.  

And here’s the cruel joke — most of the time, we pick the wrong superhero. Why? Because we’re fooled by charisma, blinded by religion, trapped by tradition, pressured by family, or too lazy to think critically. The end result is not just impractical but often hilarious in a tragic way.  

Even in sports, our skill for misplaced worship shines. Someone wins repeatedly against mediocre competition, and we carve statues for them. If two people race for decades without ever facing serious rivals, the same one will keep winning — this is simple math, not a divine miracle. Yet over time, their face ends up on posters, in advertisements, and in our collective hearts as a legendary god of the game. Never mind that they never had real challengers — our worship doesn’t require facts.  

If you strip away politics and religion, this blind devotion becomes even more absurd. It's like awarding “Student of the Year” to the only student in class, every year, for twenty years. You clap, they smile, and nobody notices the joke because we’ve already built a shrine in their name.  

Worship, in its purest form, is supposed to be about reverence for ideals — compassion, wisdom, courage. But somewhere along the way, we swapped ideals for individuals. And individuals, unlike ideals, tend to have tax frauds, hidden skeletons, bad movie roles, mediocre batting scores, or questionable speeches on their resumé.  

Maybe it’s time we learned to admire without worshipping, to respect without surrendering, and to cheer without losing our ability to think. Because honestly, blind worship isn’t just foolish — it’s dangerous. It keeps us trapped in comfort-zone hero fantasies, while real progress waits outside the temple door, wondering when we’ll finally step out