{"id":9212,"date":"2010-07-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2010\/07\/02\/a-modern-chariot-for-god\/"},"modified":"2010-07-02T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T12:00:00","slug":"a-modern-chariot-for-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2010\/07\/02\/a-modern-chariot-for-god\/","title":{"rendered":"A Modern Chariot for God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/india\/news\/geetanjali-krishna-godsdelhi-roads\/394170\/\">www.business-standard.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 8, 2010 (by Geetanjali Krishna): Delhi&#8217;s roads are capable of springing all sorts of surprises, I know. Even so, what we saw the other day was definitely in the realm of the unexpected. Sailing down Africa Avenue was a large rodent on wheels. On top, riding the rat, was a life-size statue of the elephant-headed God of good beginnings, garlanded with fresh flowers holding a crazily spinning chakra (wheel) in the left.<\/p>\n<p>The driver, Kallu, loves all the attention he and his rat-shaped auto-rickshaw received. &#8220;Let me show you how ingenious this is,&#8221; said he, switching on the spotlights that fell on the Godly statue like a halo. A battery in the boot powered the music system and mikes, as well as the rotating chakra and the little motor that threw out flower petals from the statue&#8217;s palms. A large salver that was strategically screwed on at arm&#8217;s distance was obviously meant for offerings. &#8220;We are just returning from a big puja in west Delhi,&#8221; said he, adding, &#8220;All I&#8217;d to do was drive around the venue for an hour playing bhajans and entertaining the crowds!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There was, he assured me, a great demand for his movable shrine. &#8220;Whether it is an all-night jaagaran, a prayer meeting or a Navratra celebration, we add an extra bit of interest to it!&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: www.business-standard.com NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 8, 2010 (by Geetanjali Krishna): Delhi&#8217;s roads are capable of springing all sorts of,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}