Two very different instances of religious/caste patriarchs intervening in civil society have come to the fore in the last couple of days. Both are Anti Constitutional. And, its about time the Government and the System said religious oppression in the name of Religious freedom be damned – the Constitution comes first.

The first instance was the Khap Panchayats that has been flexing its muscles for quite some time – excommunicating and killing without consequences. They have got Navin Jindal to tow the line now.

Mr. Jindal has said

“I and my whole family respect the years old traditions and rituals of khap panchayats. My house is their own home and they can come there any time. I am just like their own child and I can never go against them; rather I always need their blessings.”

Navin Jindal, if you remember, is the man who went all the way to the Supreme Court for the right of Indian Citizens to fly the Indian Flag, and won .

Mr.Jindal has forgotten that the Indian flag represents the Indian Republic. And, the Indian Republic is enshrined by the Indian Constitution . The Indian Constitution states:

14. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
15. (1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.

If the Khap Panchayat had its way – it is not just same gotra marriages that will be nullified, but there will be penalties to anyone who breaks caste rules . And, as all of us know, these rules – if applied to their logical conclusion – will lead to the Hindus getting their equivalent of the Taliban.

I wonder if a Member of Parliament who is so ready to violate the Constitution has the right to be in Parliament !

The second instance of the Constitution being violated, is the Deobandi’s – who have declared that it is haram for women to work

“It is unlawful (under the Sharia law) for Muslim women to work in the government or private sector where men and women work together and women have to talk with men frankly and without a veil,”

If the fatwa is followed through to its logical conclusion, it would mean that Indian citizens who are Muslim women cannot be the President, Prime Minister, Member of Parliament. They can’t work in a Hospital, a Call Centre, a Hotel. They can’t teach in a co-educational school, they cannot work for a NGO, they can’t work as engineers…. This essentially means that women are barred from most professions except sweat shops where they can sit with other women and sew stuff at cut price rate.

In both cases a bunch of patriarchs want the world to bend to their interpretation of religion, and honour …. I hope that in both cases this is the straw that breaks the back of an communities that have kept quiet — and rise up to delegitimise both the Khap Panchayats and the Deobandi’s. The best way to destroy them is to stop listening to them !!

And finally – i hope everyone remembers that the reason Krishna wasn’t invited to Rukmini’s swayamwar was because he was a Yadav and she was a Kshyatriya princess.

Let us also remember that the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife was Khadijah bint Khuwaylid – a merchant who employed him.

Those who have proclaimed themselves as guardians of religion and tradition seem to have forgotten their own religion and tradition :(

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Being in love with God. Filled with passion for God. Having a mystical connect with God. Having communication with God that bypasses organsied relgioun. Where you stop referring to God in the terrifying patriarchal formality – and refer to him in the second person. where you fight with God, personify him – dance for him, sing for him, want to marry him … these are just some of the aspects of the bhakti movement. Bhakti goes beyond mere devotion.

Some of the best poerty – be it bhakti or sufi - is a living testament to this obsession. If you listen to saqia aur pila, for example, you will realise that the poet is not talking about alcohol, but the high from loving god.

For, Meera - Krishna was her true husband – the man she married as a young child. Chaitanya saw himself as Radha and the gopis who performed the Raas Leela with Krishna; Aandal was so in love with Ranganatha that, it is said, that the Lord absorbs her as his bride; Jayadeva, it is said, has Krishna come by to finish his poetry.

In a way, Jayadeva began the bhaktification - if one can call it that – of Hinduis, a good two centuries before the rest of them, north of the Vindhyas. His work took away faith from the hands of the priests and put the individual at the centre of the relation with God.

I grew up listening to Jayadeva’s works in bits and pieces – primarily as Carnatic Music . The ashtapadis – or 8 line verses – are fairly popular in Carnatic music ; but i have never heard the Geeta Govinda in the Hindustani Classical style.

Here is M.S.Subhalakshmi in ragamalika singing the dashavatara that forms the prelude the Geetagovinda

And, here is a different take. the music is better than teh video. Geeta Dutt and Hemant Kumar in Ananda Math – a fabulous rendition of the Dashavatar .

if you know of others drop me a line.

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…. i realised when i was looking through my Flickr Stream, that i have more than a fair share of photographs of places of worship, of emblems of faith. Here are some of my favorites :

Praying

The Brahma temple at Pushkar is a rarity – legend claims that it is the only Brahma temple in Hindudom – though i have been to one in the South as well. It is said that Brahma – the creator of the universe, committed a great sin. And, he prayed to the greatest of all Gods – the God that Gods worship – Mahadeva to expunge his sins. And there by the lord’s grace sprung a lake – that washes off all sins. People come here from everywhere to pray for the soul of loved ones, who are no more.

The Worshipper
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Mendicant outside the Kizhaperumpallam temple

Orange, the colour of sacrifice. For many of us, a person wearing orange is a charlatan who uses religious symbols to get us to part with our money. but, in many temple towns – the sanyasis and sanyasins – those who have renounced the world – are just that. You wish to give, you do. You don’t – you don’t. they just sit there and see the world go by.

the smiling sadhvi
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Lighting the Lamp

What i find fascinating about relgiion is not the great edifices or the theology or the arguments for and against, but faith. Pure and simple faith. The fact that people believe that there exists a set of supreme beings who watch out for them. And, in many of my travels what refreshes me is not the fact that devotees reach out with fear to their God, but love and adoration. And, it is this faith that sustains ….

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Today is Basant Panchami – the day traditionally marked as the first day of spring. It is that period of time when the world is so very beautiful, that love blooms…..

Good Morning, Sunshine....

The Siva Mahapuran describes the first day of spring as the time when the God of Love Kamdev shoots his passion filled darts at Shankara – the Great God of the Universe – to get him to break his meditation and notice Parvati, for legend had it – even the Gods had legends – that if the Lord of the Universe does not meet Devi – the mother of the Universe … there can be no life at all……Never mind that the God of the Universe opened his third eye and burnt Kamdev to embers….the process began. Shiva and Parvati are soon united, and Kamdev himself is revived, so that the universe can thrive..

In the North of India this is also the time when Saraswati is venerated and children are taught to read and write for the first time. NS tells me that in Assam – everyone is clad in yellow – including little girls wearing the yellow mekla…. celebrating the spring festival. In Mumbai too, the local temple was adorned with yellow and orange flowers … making one’s heart bloom
Spring is Here.....
This morning I have been listening to Raga Basant… sung by Veena Sahasrabudhe and it is a trip… I hope that spring means that the cold wave that we have been facing goes away… soon.

Update : Check out Pandit Jasraj singing raga Basant … Aur Raag Bane Baarati… Dulha Raag Basant…

For all the readers of this blog, a happy spring festival… and may there be peace and love in your lives….

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This from CNN IBN

Britain’s first state-funded Hindu school has come up with a unique definition of ‘practising Hindus’ as part of its admissions policy รขโ‚ฌโ€ those who pray daily, do voluntary work at temples, follow a vegetarian diet and abstain from intoxication.

My brothers and I would manage 25%. My mother , would get 75% , my dad would have been disqualified a long time ago.

I really wonder why the British taxpayer is paying for such a narrow definition of a religious school. In fact, why are they paying for religious education ?

Most Hindus, btw are non vegetarians. The vegetarian stricture primarily applies to the upper caste Hindu (read Brahmin) – and even those traditionally ate meat. I can pull out enough examples from Agastya to Vishwamitra … who were Brahmins & meat eaters….The school doesn’t seem ‘Hindu’ as much as some Gujarati Vaishnavite ISKON version of Hindu….. Trust an organisation like ISKON to take an exciting ‘God’ with an interesting personality and a colourful life — and convert him into something boring and judgmental.

Poor Kids…. they are never going to make good Hindus, and that is such a terrible thing to teach children … that you are failed ‘Hindus’

btw. The Bhagvad Purana is fairly clear that Krishna not only ate meat, but also drank Soma, Hunted, Loved, Married multiple times and was not averse to appreciating the female form…. I guess if he was born today he wouldn’t get admission in the school….:)

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Mumbai gets geared to welcome its favorite deity. Over the decades it has moved from being a Maharashtrian festival to something lots of others follow. This Ganpati is made almost in the style of Srinivasa of Tirupati – check out the tilak on the forehead, and the adornment at the back. This time last year, I took possession of the Lonavala house. This time two years ago, I was in hospital being operated for a gallstone. And the year before that SR, SK and I were running helter skelter trying to put on air our first show as a production house.

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….asked SR yesterday …… theoretically, he added rapidly. And given that he keeps accusing me of being theoretical (and I suppose that i am) – i was surprised.

Lots’ of things, i said. Theoretically of course.

  • At the core there is my family culture – whatever is my family’s padati (traditions) and customs.
  • Then comes that defined by my caste. I may not ascribe to the caste system, but does it stop defining me? I dislike lthe idea of being defined by caste … especially given that the caste i was born into has traditionally had appalling behavior towards women. But there are so many cultural practices that are different for different castes — that many of us don’t even think about it while practicing it. Food, for one. Festivals that are celebrated, Gods that are worshiped, traditions followed at birth and death…. We don’t think about these… we practise them as matter of course… but just because we don’t think about them doesn’t mean that they don’t exist as a part of our cultural make up.
  • Then there is language. My mother tongue is Tamil (or as we joke- my mother’s tongue is Tamil). And language is a key component of culture. I was born and brought up in Mumbai and am more comfortable with English than any other language … That too defines my culture.
  • Then there is Geography. And, in an Indian context it is more than the part of the country that you come from. Geography itself has history, ethnicity, cuisine,legends, myths, Gods, clothing…. i am someone who has been brought up in Mumbai – with parents from AP & TN. Or to be more precise -from this district called North Arcot that straddles the border of TN & AP. Just like people from Palgat are unique and neither Tamil nor Malyalee, or people from Belgaum are unique – neither Maharashtrian nor Kannada, so too people from North Arcot…… neither from one nor the other ….
  • Then there is this my broad religious identity – hinduismwhich makes me different in terms of my cultural make up from some one who is not a Hindu. If you want further precision – my family’s religious tradition is Shaivite - which is distinctly different from being a Vaishnavite or a Smartha or a Nastika tradition. It many not be apparent – like caste – to most of us, but it is stuff that we have grown up with, and again it defines us.
  • And, then there is nationality – my being an Indian. Which makes me different from someone with my exact background but whose nationality is American.

So which of these is the most important in defining cultural identity in an Indian context? My own guess is geography. Not religion, not caste, not even nationality. But geography. With Geography is linked history, ethnicity, language, heroes, traditions, clothing, cuisine … the works..and it is probably a far more valid parameter of ‘culture’ than more organized social institutions like religion or caste, or even modern political definitions like the nation.
Now, is this how I define myself. No. I define myself as an individual, female, liberal, contrarian ….. But, all those things listed above … all the stuff that that i spent a fair bit of my life running away from … have they helped define me.. I would be deluded to say no…
No wonder SR says i am theoretical :)

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January Second, at about 5 a.m. on a cold desert’s winter morning, we drove down from Jaipur to Pushkar. It was my unlce’s 7th death anniversary, and my aunt wanted to offer prayers for his soul. The predominant colours along the journey were earths, a smattering of green and blues. Very few other colours in sight. bleak-earth-and-blue-skies1.jpg The colours were stark, yet hypnotizingly beautiful. Everything in Pushkar – from the ‘holy’ cow to the sadhu (mendicant), the pujari’s (priests) to the camels, from the street singers to the lanurs – everyone and everything seems to be geared towards the pilgrim tourist. one-man-and-his-calf.jpg one man and his calf – a sadhu begging for alms on the streets of Pushkar – oops , trading blessings for cash. pushkar-the-holy-cow.jpg The holy cow on the steps of the temple – looking beatifically at the pilgrims who side step her to walk in. food-seller1.jpg some great street food in Pushkar. Hot fried stuff on a cold winter’s morning- just what the doctor didn’t order ! Our guide told us that since this was a holy town, there could be no petrol pump here and people had to drive down to Ajmer to fill petrol. And Ajmer is not too far away. the-car-park.jpg The car park where cycles, sumos, buses and camels jostle together for space. Pushkar is a visual treat – and if you are spiritual it is a great place to go to find solace. Even those who get after you in other temple towns, tend to leave you alone to your thoughts. I think that i would like to go back one day to Pushkar the-ghats.jpg Pushkar Lake -where the bereaved, the penitent and the faithful ask for mukti (or liberation) from the cycle of birth and death.

The pious Pushkar Lake, believed to have been created by the falling of lotus from the hand of Lord Brahma. It is considered to be as old as the creation. The lake is considered as one of the most sacred spots, and believed that one dip in the waters of lake on Kartika Poornima is equivalent to performing yagnas for several hundred years.

The Worshipper A person meditating by the banks of the Pushkar Lake. devotees.jpg Devotees at the Brahma temple, Pushkar While Rajasthan tourism claims that this is the only Brahma temple in the world, I have been to another in the southern temple town of Kumbakonnam. But the fact does remain that Brahma – the creator – is not really worshipped in the country. Pushkar Ghats With a final look at the ghats, we drove off back to Jaipur to catch the Heritage on Wheels train journey. Luxury at its best.

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With defenders like this, Islam does not need any enemies!

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organisation of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a web forum saying the pontiff and the west were “doomed”. The message, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified, said: “We shall continue our holy war and never stop until God enables us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism when God’s rule is established governing all people and nations.”

As a polytheist who especially believes in the mother goddess – would i be a target, i wonder?

How about an athiest – would they be included in all this neck chopping.
How about agnostics or animists (and i must admit that there are times that i am one)

I am not really sure that i like the idea of some idiot somewhere threatening to impose his world /religious / theocratic view on me ….

i really would like to see the same level of protest against this statement as there was against Pope Benedict‘s speech. I really respect the way that the Indonesians and the Malaysians have reacted to this entire fracas – I wish that the middle east and indeed India can learn from them. There is a way of protesting with dignity without calling for heads, necks and other body parts – and in that the countries of South East Asia are leading the way. It is sad that the? Muslim leadership in India (if it can be called that) is busy looking at kowtowing to the Arabs in general and the Saudi’s in particular when they should be actually building bridges with Indonesia and Malaysia and form a common front against those who wish to hijack Islam for their own petty gains.

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I have been following utterances on Islam in various media. His seeming endorsement of the view that Islam spread through the sword, had some of us across the world choking with anger, many of us choking with the sheer embarassment of a Head of State being an utter idiot, and some others of us choking with chortles of guffaws. Mine was actually a combination of all theree.

Anger – because in an already polarised world – a head of state and a head of religion has no business behaving like an absolute idiot. While people are dying of hunger, women getting raped for getting educated, people dying of AIDS while organised religion demands prevention of sex education rather than prevention of AIDS, where women still believe that burning themselevs to death with their husband is required, quoting some bigot from the 14th century to stir the pot of bigotry seems to be a good way to divert attention from the issues. After all, we must accept that all fundamentalists have a common agenda. And this current Pope is probably as fundamentalist as any of them. And I define a fundamentalist view as one that believes his/her way is superior to all others and consequently all other views are inferior to his/her’s.

Embarassment - because this kind of stupidity is horrifyingly embarassing. It is like watching a Ben Stiller film or Kareena Kapoor trying to ape a Helen in Don. A kind of horrified fascination as to how much lower can it sink – and they show you :) . I have been following the Pope‘s condoms cause aids’ logic and his abortionists are sinners thread – but this is by far the most embarassing in its stupidity. It is a bit like quoting the Nazis to describe the allies in the second world war – after all the 14th century was a period of war between the ‘civilizations’.
Amusement because I love it when the pot calls the kettle black. The sheer gall and hypocrisy of his statement made me chuckle. How does the Pope think that Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, spread. What did he think that the armies of Spain and Portugal did in South and Central America and in whose name; what did he think that happened in Europe between the time Charlamagne converted and the begninig of the Crusades, what did he think happened in Africa – enslaving a people because they are heathen and then coverting them, and what about the rights of Jews in Christian Europe – even before the 1930′s! And what was his own Church’s position when it came to the Holocaust or even women’s rights, or in the fight against AIDS. Or indeed to knowledge, science and human rights. If left to the Church – Europe would still be in the dark ages, women would still be barefoot, perpetually pregnant and in the kitchen and there would still be the Divine Right of Kings.

If it comes to a choice of organised religions – there is not much to choose from. They all have their moments of glory, compassion, wisdom and caring and long centuries of just the opposite. The Pope’s attempt to score brownie points – in this context – is simply stupid.

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