What falls in a Hundi stays in a Hundi

Like the misconception that communists shouldn't participate in religious festivals just because they don't believe in god, there seems to be a fallacy that just because a believer holds the almighty to be, well, all mighty, he or she must believe that everything that god created - that is, every thing - belongs to god. As a gentleman devotee of Murugan visiting Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple in Thiruporur near Chennai found to his chagrin, the mandir mandarins had a strict view of divine property rights. As is wont with the practice of keeping your smartphone inside your shirt pocket, it has a tendency to slip out when you bend. Which is exactly what happened, with the devotee's iPhone falling into the temple collection box. Using the finder's keeper's principle, temple officials politely refused to return the phone to its mortal owner - even as they equally politely allowed the man to retrieve data from it.

Like Vegas, it seems that what goes in a hundi, stays in a hundi. India's IT Act 2000 certainly provides no avenue to explore any retrieval procedure of an Apple product from Lord Kartikeya's property. Unless Tim Cook nudges higher authorities in India and declares an IPR war. Luckily, the hundi belongs to a Hindu place of worship. In a country where most iPhone-owners belong to the majority community: believers in divine feudalism.