Reading yet another article on what dire straits the Indian economy is falling into wasn't helping my mood – already 'blue' because of a Monday morning. So I decided to find out what the woman sitting next to me was so busy doing. For the past 5-10 minutes she had been busily scribbling something in a notebook. On closer inspection, the notebook page had a religious mantra typed at the top followed by a table with about 5 rows and 5 columns. The woman was writing the mantra in each table cell (wow! This has a nice 'techie' ring to it). The page opposite had a different mantra typed at the top. I just wondered if they have different editions for different deities – Hindu religion has about 33 crores of them, the last I heard.

Though I am not very religious, I believe in God and in remembering Him in both good times and bad. I also concede that we all have our own ways of doing this. But this notebook smacked of crass commercialization of religion. A plain ruled notebook would have served the same purpose with the added freedom that the same mantra or God's name could have been written more number of times, as per the devotee's wish.

I guess it is a reflection of how increasingly we are embracing anything and everything that will save us a few precious moments of our exceedingly busy lives :-(