A novel way of highlighting his grievances among the public was used by a priest from Karnataka, who, offered puja to ‘dead servers’ because every time he visited a bank or other government offices, seeking their services, he was turned away, owing to ‘dead servers’. As per the priest, Prasanna Kumar, belonging in Kolar Gold Fields, he does not know as to how a server looks, but each time he visited a government office for any work, the officials said no to the work, putting the blame on ‘dead and down server’. As a result, he thought of offering ‘tarpan’, which is a ritual of offering prayers to ancestors to the server in order to help him attain moksha or salvation.
Kumar has chosen to perform pitra paksha, which is a ritual involving offering food and prayers to the souls of ancestors, believing that it will help the ancestors with their transition to heaven. His intention behind performing the puja is to highlight the problem of ‘server down’ in the rural areas of Karnataka. He offered the tarpan to the server to spread awareness among the authorities on the need to provide good connectivity in rural areas.
As per the priest, the authorities harass people in many cases by citing the reason of the server being down, and added that he was upset over the repeated failure of the servers in various government departments and banks. Kumar was visiting revenue authorities to get ‘pahani’ for the land he owns, but each time, the response he received was that the ‘server is down’. The similar excuse was used when he went to get ration from the public distribution system, and also at the bank when he went to withdraw money.
