Devotee's iPhone slips into hundi, temple staff say it's deity's

Devotee's iPhone slips into hundi, temple staff say it's deity's 

Sindhu Kannan TNN 21.12.2024 

Chennai : In Tamil movie Palayathamman, a woman accidentally drops her baby into a shrine's hundi (donation box) and the child becomes “temple property”. At Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple near Chennai's Thiruporur, a devotee accidentally dropped an iPhone into the hundi. The result is the same: this temple, too, has claimed the phone as its property. Dinesh, a devotee from Vinayagapuram, had to return home empty-handed on Friday as the temple authorities said anything dropped into the hundi belongs to the deity. They, however, offered to give him the SIM card and to let him download data from the phone. 

Dinesh had visited the temple with his family a month ago when he went to drop some money in the hundi. Dinesh says that while he was pulling out currency notes from his shirt pocket, his iPhone accidentally fell into the bag. Since the hundi was placed at a height, he could not retrieve the phone. Panic-stricken, Dinesh approached the temple authorities. They reiterated their stance and cited tradition that the hundi is opened only once in two months. Dinesh filed a complaint with the HR and CE (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments) officials, requesting to be informed when the hundi would be opened. When the temple authorities eventually opened the hundi on Friday, Dinesh rushed to retrieve his phone, only to be told the device would remain in the temple's custody and the return of the SIM card. Dinesh, though, had already obtained a new SIM and left it to the authorities to decide on his plea to return the phone. Temple executive officer Kumaravel said the tradition of treating anything dropped in the hundi as belonging to the deity would be followed and that the phone would be retained