On the Maha Shivaratri day, I visited the Chintpurni Tample, Brampton. Most devotees were thronging the temple with four-litre milk bag to pour on Shiva Lingam, and even that task they were leaving for the temple priest. As the priest was too busy with distributing the parsad, he deputed his eight or nine years old son to empty the milk bags on the lingam. The boy used a milk jug to continiously pour the milk on the lingam, which was going straight to the drain. Looking at the amount of milk, I am sure, the boy must have been quite busy that evening. Does puring (wasting) milk like this makes any sense?
Milk bath or waste? The boy will reamin occupied for hours!
I remember a similar incidence from my childhood. I was in grade six and it was annual examinations time. Someone in my class suggested that the we should all go to the Shiva temple before exams, and Shiv baba will help us with good marks. Well, next day, I borrowed a little milk from my mother which she had just got from the DMS booth after lot of effort and diluted it with lots of water. (For those of you who have not seen the difficult period of early seventies, milk was rationed to about a litre per family and even to get that, one had to line-up for more than an hour!) I went to the local Siva temple and poured it on Shiva lingam. This ritual continued for two-three days. Somehow, I started feeling that this is cheating and I should not bribe God to get good marks. I stopped going to the temple on the exam days though my schoolmates did scare me. Well, in the end I obtained equally good marks in all exams!
May be, we should thank God for what He gives us without asking, rather than asking for more.
Here is a picture of jugaad (jugard) musical band used in the Chintpurni temple.