Doesn't this fight over how to eat make you want to throw up when half the population spends so much time pondering a more basic issue: what to eat? On the screen or in print, the images that linger are those of filthy urchins scouring garbage dumps for scraps, of a skinny child clinging to the breast of a malnourished mother, of thousands gorging on fly-infested roadside offerings. Poverty, for us, is an outdated subject and since the in thing nowadays is to yak about free markets, themalnourished get dumped in the jholas of social workers. So what better way to attract attention than to quarrel about how to eat?

``To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely,'' wrote Jorge Luis Borges. Sikhism stands for tolerance and compassion but when the priests themselves are increasingly intolerant of each other, ordinary mortals must also succumb. Which explains the gunning down of three in a South Florida gurudwara. And the killer too committed suicide. What for? Ye, fallen soul, heed the Bible: ``Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.'' Did any god ever provide recipes for our cuisine, a methodology for its partaking, and ask you to chop off the other person's head if he or she did not chew the way you wanted? You have forgotten that God always emphasised love, brotherhood and sharing.

Religious fervour should not infringe upon fundamental rights. Einstein was eloquent: ``Science withoutreligion is lame; religion without science is blind.'' In olden times we used to sit on the floor to eat for there were no chairs and tables. It is as simple as that. We should not take scripture literally but adhere to its spirit. One cannot expect an arthritic to have a relaxed meal on the floor. Show some compassion, gentlemen.

Why does the clergy stress only the manner in which food is partaken at gurudwaras? It would be wiser to examine the way food is served there. I had the privilege of eating at one of the five sacred places of Sikhism, Gurudwara Keshgarh Sahib in Anandpur Sahib. The dining hall was being renovated. Besides plates, glasses and vessels, it contained the gurudwara's buses and tractors. I was in an elated mood after seeing Guru Gobind Singh's weapons. But the state of the dining hall took away half my spirits.

We sat down on soiled and crumbling coir mats and waited for the dal-roti. The smell of cheap flour wafting from the rotis and the flies circlingthe dal repelled me. Then the rice came, and my faith ran out. The man who was serving took a fistful of rice and put it on my plate. I told my companion, our chief photographer, that enough was enough. ``If it is considered sacrilege, let me be a sinner, but I just cannot eat this. God knows what disease that person might have. Can't he use a serving spoon?''

The incident had me ruminating on hygiene and faith. It is not only in Anandpur Sahib that I have refused holy meals. In Lord Jagannath's Puri, I ran from the food stalls where you could see brigades of flies and ants. Devotees blinded by faith were queuing up for morsels coated with fly-specks. Faith does not ask you to abandon your basic cleanliness. The Sikh clergy should devote more time to maintaining it in the langar than it does to disputing the proper use of furniture.