FaithWorld

(An employee counts Indian rupee notes inside a bank in Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura December 31, 2010/Jayanta Dey)

In a bank with no security gates, guards or locks, deposits from thousands of customers from across India are stacked on shelves, protected from theft by the grace of God. In a cramped room in a small house in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Ram Ram Bank offers no interest or loans, but has around 5,000 customers who flock to deposit documents bearing God’s name.

“There is no need for security as there is no fear of any theft,” said Lovelesh Tewari, who founded the bank 25 years ago. “People feel better by writing God’s name as it becomes a medium to release their pent up frustrations and eventually the faith makes them work toward their goals.”

The bank’s customers scribble “Ram,” the protagonist in the Indian mythological epic Ramayana, on pieces of paper as many as 100,000 times and deposit them in the bank. Ram is also known as Rama. Ram Ram used to accept scribbles on cigarette packs or on pieces of old newspaper. But now Tewari provides proper notebooks for the purpose, courtesy of one of his customers.

Religion is no barrier. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims write the name of Ram in their native languages. Every six months the stacks of “deposits” are sent to be displayed in a temple in Ayodhya, the birth place of Ram.

The haj is supposed to be a time when Muslim pilgrims from all walks of life forget the material aspects of life on earth to wipe the slate clean of their sins and declare their acceptance of Islam as God’s ultimate religion for mankind. The simple white robe and sandals the male pilgrims wear are meant to symbolise the equality of all the faithful in the eyes of God. While these spiritual aspects are certainly present at the annual event, pilgrims are also confronted daily with scenes reminding them today’s haj is far from the way it started out 1,400 years ago. But most of them seem to come to terms with that. (Photo: Huge luxury hotel complex towers over Mecca’s Grand Mosque, 9 Dec 2008/Ahmed Jadallah — click on pictures to enlarge them)

The vast majority of the 2.3 million Muslims here come from some of the world’s least democratic, poorest and most corrupt nations where wide social disparities prevail mainly to unequal opportunities and poor education. The scenes at the holy shrines during haj do not contrast much from what the majority of pilgrims endure back home, but they all strive to achieve the spiritual purpose of their journey to Mecca.  At the end of the day, it boils down to what sort of treatment a Muslim can afford to get at the haj. The disparities can be as wide here as anywhere else in the Muslim world.

It’s hard to imagine how some pilgrims clear their minds of earthly life’s material comforts when they are booked into one of the luxury hotels that surround the Grand Mosque and overlook its cube-shaped Kaaba.  The $600 a night fee for a room at one of these hotels is far beyond the means of most pilgrims.