Shankaracharyaji is right, Hindus must have 10 children

I’ve always hated team sports. I find nothing more mind-numbing than watching a bunch of millionaires run after a ball. However, the businessman in me has often been intrigued by the numbers at play. Every sports team is worth millions of dollars and hence I’ve always been excited, purely in the financial sense, by the idea of owning a cricket or football team.

The only problem (apart from me not knowing exactly what constitutes ball-tampering or an offside) is that since I’m not connected like Lalit Modi or amazeballs rich like Shah Rukh Khan, where do I find the money to procure players for my team?

The number one requirement for a sports team is players and since I cannot even fulfil this criterion, it has been hard to get started on my dream to someday become Nita Ambani.

That is until I came across the great suggestion recently made by a Hindu spiritual leader.

Speaking at the three-day "Dharma Sanstrukti Mahakumbh" (your guess is as good as mine) at Nagpur, the Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati urged Hindu couples to have 10 children each. The event was attended by some of humanity’s best representatives such as the RSS, VHP and Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadvnavis. 

Since it was an assembly of Hindu seers, the communal paranoia that has become de rigueur at any event hosted by Hindu outfits was bound to be present. Ayodhya, beef ban, gaurakshaks and teaching of Quran at Muslims schools were all discussed.

The Shankaracharya of Kashi even brought up the issue of religious conversions in the Northeast and said that “Hindus should realise their power. There was a time when we used to only worship. Ab ek haath mein mala, ek mein bhala lene ka samay aya hai (it’s time to take up arms)”.

Hindu groups have been making a case for increasing Hindu population for quite some time. In August this year, at a convention for newly married couples, RSS worker Darpan said that “to keep our culture and civilisation alive we must seriously and responsibly think about our fertility rates”. A video (easily available on YouTube) about the supposed explosion of Muslim population in Europe and in India was shown to the gathering. Last year, the Agra unit of Shiv Sena announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh for every Hindu family which has five children.

While some may say that such drives by Hindu groups are ill-advised in a country that is overflowing with people and where the government is having population control concerns, I completely agree with the RSS. While it may seem weird to take family planning tips from a religious person whose central tenets ask him to forsake family life, I think having 10 children is going to make me a very rich man. In fact, I’m going to have 11.

Allow me to explain.

I recently saw Dangal, despite many BJP supporters asking me not to, because I heard it was a decent film. In it, Aamir Khan’s character projects his dream of winning a gold medal in wrestling for India onto his daughters who win it for him instead (I didn’t give a *spoiler alert* because it’s a sports drama. What the hell did you think was going to happen?). As I stood up for the national anthem, a second time, as the end credits rolled in, I had an epiphany.

A year and a half back, I became a father. My son is now running into walls and feeding bananas to the DVD player. When I previously looked at this bundle of energy running around the flat, I thought that I should start training him so that he can harness this energy into something useful. But after watching Dangal, I’m convinced that children are the way for parents to realise their own dreams. Add to this the RSS suggestion of having 10 children and I think you know where I’m going.

I’m going to have 11 more sons so that I can start my own cricket/football team. I’m going to harness their energy and love, respect, emotions etc. etc. for me to make them help realise my dream of owning a Maserati GranTurismo.  

Now I know what you’re thinking. “How can you guarantee that you will have 10 more sons?” I hear you foolishly ask. Well, unlike Aamir’s character, who wanted a son but kept getting daughters, I’m going to keep asking for daughters so that Murphy’s Law gives me sons instead. Simple! I could become one of those fathers who constantly sets his children against each another to maintain “healthy competition”.

When I told my wife that I wish to have 10 more Hindu children she was understandably upset (“my vagina is not a clown car” were her exact words). The last year hasn’t been a walk in the park for either one of us; especially for her because children are completely dependent on their mother for the first year. She wasn’t able to drink to her heart’s content and her work suffered too. So, I understand her problems with writing off another decade (or two) of her life.

When I told my wife that this was for a greater good because Maserati’s leather seats are upholstered in the finest Poltrona Frau leather and it features a 405 HP 4.2 litre V8 engine, she didn’t speak to me for two days. When I reminded her that Shankaracharya Vasudevanand said that we should “discard the two-children norm. Have 10 instead and don’t worry about who will fend for them, God will take care of your kids”, she packed her bags and went to her parents.

I even consulted a gynaecologist friend and enquired about the side-effects of having 10 children. He suggested that I think of a child as a burrito. “Having one or two is fine, to a degree, but having 10 is going to send one to the hospital. No one should have 10 burritos.”

While I disagree with my wife and the gynaecologist, I do have some concerns of my own. For one, God has completely disappeared from our lives. Every time I buy my son an overpriced T-shirt with inane drawing of elephants and dogs, clothes that he will grow out of in a week, I take a moment to request God to please take care of him.

I request God to please take better care of the expensive Chicco toys that he shatters in two days like some sort of psychopath. I ask God to please let me win a lottery so that I can pay for my son’s vaccinations and diapers and formula milk that have made me bankrupt.

This is usually when the cashier jolts me out of my prayer to tell me that the card machine is not working and calls me a dirty money hoarder when I ask him if they accept cash.

We haven’t slept in a year and haven’t been on holiday for two. Sure, sometimes I cry in the shower when I realise that two years back I was partying in Vietnam like there was no tomorrow. Sure, sometimes when I’m reading yet another nonsensical children’s book to my son I get the sudden urge to experiment with heroin. But this is just a passing phase, I keep telling myself. But will it be as passing when the phase is repeated 10 more times?

There is also the problem of sex. When your child has learnt how to open doors, you are constantly on your toes like a beef eater in Haryana. When you have 10 children who have all learnt how to open doors, you might as well throw in the towel and start watching The Kapil Sharma Show. And how is one supposed to accommodate 10 children? While bachelors are frowned upon across India, landlords may be even less-welcoming of the extraordinarily married.

While these problems have to be navigated through, I’m still convinced that having 10 more children is going to solve all my problems as a good Hindu. When you have that kind of man-power at your disposal, you can make them do anything.

If 11 of my children have 11 children of their own then we’ll become the Kauravas in no time. Even if the sports team doesn’t work out, I could start my own call centre in Noida or an iPhone manufacturing unit in Neemrana or a Nike sweatshop in Asansol. I’m sure my wife will see some sense in my ideas when she calms down.

The RSS have helped me realise that there is always room for one more burrito.

Also read: Relax. Muslims are not outnumbering Hindus

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