Hyderabad: An ice structure resembling a Shivling created naturally within a household freezer has become a tourist attraction for a home in Agra, with family members and neighbours flocking in to witness the phenomenon and offer prayers.
According to the family, the ice structure is a self-made one without being carved into a Shivling shape, bearing a striking resemblance to the structure that usually appears naturally at the Amarnath cave shrine located in Jammu and Kashmir. The news soon became viral, and the family has started receiving many visitors ever since.
This comes amidst the Sawan month, which is known as the most holy time for Shiva devotees, during which lakhs make a pilgrimage to see the natural ice Shivling formation at the Amarnath cave during this month.
While these kinds of formations are not new, ice formations in similar shapes have been observed in household freezers and refrigerators over the past few years, especially during monsoon and Sawan month, and are believed to be formed due to divine intervention and not through physical reasons such as temperature and humidity within the household refrigerators.
It is typical of such events in India that what starts as a curiosity ends up as a sign, as word passes by word of mouth and social media, and soon after an anomaly inside the refrigerator has turned into something sacred, at least for a while.
Commentators who view India’s evolving culture of religiosity with disapproval use examples of this kind to show how easily faith takes the place of analysis in day-to-day situations, adding that this trend has been paralleled and enhanced by politics in the country, which uses religion symbolically in election campaigns.
