On why celebrating Jauhar is EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC

 

Recently, I wrote a critical review of a book (about the unmitigated awfulness of the Mughals) and one of my issues with it among others was the glorification of Jauhar. Naturally the entire manosphere showed up on my Twitter/X feed to ‘school’ me. My credentials as an author, human being, critic and female of the species were questioned, I was asked to join a harem in Pakistan as a slave, informed that I endorse sex slavery, have a boyfriend named Abdul, am a Hinduphobe, and other things every bit as puke - inducing. Naturally I see no reason to engage with trolls who grow fat on outrage and can’t be bothered with measured responses, but I did wish to address some of the more problematic points raised, especially the passionate defence of Jauhar, by men mostly.

Those seeking to enlighten me and dispel my profound ignorance, stated that for women (young or old) and girls Jauhar was the last line of defence against the barbaric invaders and their armies and they chose death over rape and the defilement of their dead bodies. That they were not running toward death but away from degradation and theirs was an act of defiance against conquerors who sought to force them into concubinage. That they are proud of women who choose death over dishonour.  

Rousing as such pithy words are, needless to say, forcing women of any age or little girls to choose between rape and death is hardly a choice and clamouring that women made the decision (what choice did the little girls have?) to assert their agency this way is just plain depressing. It is a painful reminder that since the beginning of time and to this present day a woman’s body is treated as a battlefield for men to play their games of war and worse. It is a line of problematic, toxic reasoning that sees women as the property of men with no rights other than what men feel inclined to grant them and insists that female honour resides between the legs. This is the reason why a majority of victims of violent crimes like rape, murder, acid attacks, dowry harassment are women.

Despite the impassioned outbursts of men on either side of the ideological divide who are constantly harping about their scholarly credentials and insisting that every word in their books is backed up by irrefutable evidence and is the unvarnished truth, the fact remains that it is just plain silly not to mention presumptuous to claim exact knowledge of what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago or swear that every single woman in the glorious past freely chose self – immolation. Common sense dictates that not every woman would have made the choice to perform Jauhar or its equally ugly sibling, Sati because we come in different shapes, colours, and personality types. There is evidence that too many were forced into committing Jauhar or Sati for reasons of political expediency, the male ego, pressure from relatives, etc.

For those who would insist that I present a shred of ‘real’ evidence to back my ‘fanciful’ claims it has been suggested (I wasn’t there so I cannot swear it went down this way and despite what my husband says I don’t think I am always right) that Alauddin Khalji, one of history’s tyrants for well – documented reasons actually offered reasonable terms to those he sought to subjugate – oaths of fealty, tribute and marriage to him or his sons to seal the alliance. Many Indian Kings including the Rajputs found the terms acceptable. In Jalore and Siwana, which came under his sway, there is no indication that Jauhar took place. In Ranthambore and Chittoor, Jauhar supposedly took place, though in the former instance the Hammiramahakavya (an epic version of the Hammira Chauhan legend so I cannot attest that it went down this way) as well as other sources from the time record that Devala Devi, the Princess of Ranthambore rued her father’s obstinacy for not letting her marry the Shah, ensure peace and spare their subjects from being slaughtered. As for Chittoor, there is still no historical consensus about whether Padmavati, who supposedly sacrificed herself via Jauhar is a real or fictional character (like many things in life, it comes down to a question of faith). And in Gujarat, which also came under the Shah’s rule, Kamala Devi did become Alauddin’s wife, though I am sure hardliners on the right will swear that her hand was forced though a case can be made for her having chosen the Shah as the lesser of two evils. Who can say for certain? My point is just like #NotAllMenAre Jerks, good sense suggests that not all women were pro Jauhar or Sati even back in the day when it was perfectly par for the course to appease the male ego and the patriarchy’s diktats regarding female virtue, chastity and dignity.

In conclusion for those who continue to glorify Jauhar or Sati or any kind of Agni pariksha, I would like to point out the obvious. There is a reason these practises have been banned and believe me, it is a good one. It never was and never will be okay to celebrate a woman going up in flames. Whether she made the choice under duress. Or not.

An Embarrassing Exercise in Intolerance

 

Reading Babur: The Quest for Hindustan by Aabhas Maldahiyar is an excruciating experience that will test tolerance levels to the utmost. It begins with some florid verses on Rajputi bangles that burned like blades which is every bit as awful as it reads since it glorifies Jauhar where women burned on the altar of male egos with lines like ‘To the Rajputi womb, so fierce, so wide, That bore no child for comfort or pride…To the wrists, the wombs, the war-torn soil – To the hands that chose fire over spoil.’ You wouldn’t think it possible, but it gets progressively worse since his prose is even more execrable.

The author makes it clear he wishes to expose Timurid rule for what it was without the colonial era – bias that has fed lies to clueless Indians in the guise of history – ‘The romanticized sauce of Ganga Jamuni Tehzib often overflows its historical vessel, drowning reason under tales of imagined harmony and fabricated tales of Hindu – Muslim marital alliances. Yet, when the varnish of poetic exaggeration is stripped away, the hard stone of historical reality remains cold and unyielding.’ The reader is assured that the evil Mughals were invaders and conquerors who did not have a single redeeming trait between the lot of them and whose sole aim was to rape and loot ‘Hindustan’ while decimating Hindus with jihadist fervour. Lest this reeks of alarming levels of bias and Islamophobia, Maldahiyar takes pains to establish his own credentials as a historian stating ‘…with scholarly clarity that the entire narrative presented in this work is rooted primarily in my own direct translation of the Baburnama (Persian version), allowing the emperor’s own words – untampered by later translations – to serve as the primary witness to his life and deeds.’

This statement notwithstanding, the entire narrative is soaked with prejudice and littered with repetitious reams of rabble – rousing rhetoric that is every bit as contradictory as it is incoherent. Babur is harshly criticized for being too much of a religious fanatic committed to rooting out the kafirs and infidels but in every other page amidst the tediously trotted out information dump which makes for laborious reading the reader is informed that Babur in direct violation of Islamic tenets partook of inebriants and intoxicants at interminable wine/arak parties and was a drunken sot and a sickly one at that who also indulged his homosexual tendencies. Cue gasps of horror!  

Likewise, ignoring the many facts that led to Akbar, being hailed as a great ruler who was tolerant and progressive, he tells us with salacious glee ‘…under Akbar’s rule, if a young woman was found unveiled in a public place – a mere act of showing her face to the open air – she would be condemned to the degrading profession of prostitution. The same brutal sentence awaited those women who dared lie to their husbands, or, worse still, raised their voices in quarrel. Such was the lofty pedestal of female dignity under the so – called enlightened rule of the Timurids’. Busy as he is bewailing the brutality and chains that bound women during Mughal rule, he remains blithely unaware of his own sexism and penchant for policing women’s bodies with outdated male notions of honour that has led to women being brutalized and victimized to this day long after the mighty Mughals have been relegated to the pages of the distant past.

Accusing all historians and scholars save himself of romanticizing the Mughals who according to him were Jihadists, destroyers of idols, killers of kafirs, guilty of genocide, Maldahiyar then proceeds to rewrite the history of Rajputs with sickly levels of schmaltz. His account of Rana Sangha exonerates the Rajput ruler of sending an invitation to Babur to bring about the fall of Lodi, insisting that it was Babur who sent an envoy seeking his aid which Sangha agreed to. He admits that Sangha later reneged on this deal and glosses over the man’s tendency to repeatedly break promises and make bad decisions, choosing instead to lionize his valour and honour, which he swears is typical of Rajputs entirely ignoring that warlike race’s track record for treachery amidst their own ranks which predates Prithviraj Chauhan’s ignominious betrayal at the hands of Jaichand which led to Ghori’s triumph in the second battle of Tarain.

It may be said that this book’s blurb is deceptive. This is not quite a historical account and a narrative that brings to life the triumphs and tribulations of a legendary figure. Rather it is a poison pen missive that seeks to spew hatred and intolerance by the cowardly act of duelling with greats from the past with the view to distract from the present where politicians belonging to all parties are conniving to outdo the Mughals and the Brits when it comes to despoiling this nation.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

To Hell with It

 

Everybody has their own version of hell. For those currently being brutalized and victimized in Gaza or any other active warzone, being starved, tortured, driven from their homes and watching their children get executed is the final circle of hell’s many torments. The drunk biker who caused the accident that turned a double – decker luxury bus into a raging inferno, the travel company who bypassed guidelines while renovating the vehicle, and the bus driver who got his heavy vehicle driving license with false certificates all of which cost the lives of 20 lives in Andhra’s Kurnool tragedy are no doubt deserving of places in hell’s vaunted torture chambers but the truth is only their victims got a taste of hell’s agonizing pain and their loved ones are living it. A young doctor in Maharashtra took her own life blaming sexual assault and the constant pressure to falsify certificates by a cop and political underlings for her decision, choosing death over hell.

A casual scan of the headlines on any given day confirms that life anywhere in the planet has acquired hellish dimensions. Yet, for the privileged populace who have mercifully been spared such horrors, the many versions of hell on earth is just another scary movie that has the ability to make even the most desensitized feel something akin to terror or sorrow but mostly serves to entertain and rescue from ennui. For the only thing most truly cannot abide and will do anything to avert is boredom. The rest neither matters nor merits getting out of bed, rolling up the sleeves and doing something, anything, to facilitate change in an increasingly cruel and corrupt world that simply doesn’t care about countless lives routinely getting ground up in the tragedy mill via entirely preventable ways.

Yet, make no mistake, everybody is in some form of hell. Even if for umpteen folks a hellish ordeal is formulating a suitable email response to an employer’s performance evaluation questionnaire or Tinder rejection. Or staring unblinkingly at a phone screen which is pinging with manic glee bringing to compromised attention, reports about Virat and Rohit’s performance or non – performance and Instagram reels featuring side boobs while missing the wife’s delivery of the firstborn. The notifications are endless and silencing them or changing the settings is only within the purview of non – existent gods. In the meantime, the infernal alerts must be checked every minute with compulsive frenzy just in case something life – changing or life – affirming crops up demanding an immediate reply. Or lest one misses out on something inane because it is trending. This is the daily, eternal grind humanity is trapped in.

After all, oblivion is preferable to not knowing what is right or whom to root for anymore since everyone is a hellion or hellraiser. Moral ambiguity is the norm as is self – serving ambition and personal vanity. Even without the aid of AI, everyone is most articulate in speaking the language of justice, but none can live it. In this virtual panopticon we inhabit irrespective of left or right based ideology, all are capable of performative outrage, faux sensitivity, and affected affinity over lost causes but none can scrounge up the virtue, guts and moral grit to take affirmative action and rescue anyone at all including the self from hell.

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

A BRILLIANT BUT BLUNDERING BEHEMOTH

 

Narayani Basu’s biography of K.M. Panikkar – A Man for all Seasons turns the spotlight on a key player in the story of Indian Independence, who despite having been in the thick of things at a crucial period of history remains an obscure figure. It was not for want of trying, as Panikkar was a towering intellectual and a colourful figure in his day who had been a strident editor, served as Gandhi’s emissary, been a noted academic and diplomat, a journalist, constitutional lawyer, consummate politician and a man of letters. The founder of The Hindustan Times, he had made waves during his tenure as Nehru’s ambassador to both Nationalist China as well as the People’s Republic of China and been a member of the States Reorganisation Commission. Having been active during the British Raj, the framing of the Constituent Assembly, two world wars and the cold war, Panikkar’s life did not lack for excitement as he was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Chairman Mao, and Benito Mussolini (whom he admired!)

Basu skilfully reconstructs Panikkar’s life and times with respect, reverence and intricate detailing. It makes for enjoyable reading and brings to life, action – packed chapters from Indian as well as world history. His was a life of privilege and one can’t help but note that despite his initial lack of scholarly aptitude which resulted in his repeatedly failing the matriculation exams and led to a suicide attempt, Panikkar’s generational wealth and family connections ensured that he got many chances and rare opportunities to hone his potential and launch him into the high – flying, globe – trotting lifestyle he would go on to enjoy. But his own keen intellect, raw ambition, networking skills, penchant for hard work stood him in good stead as well.

The biographer’s great admiration for her subject notwithstanding, she emphasizes his capacity for aggravating even the most ardent of his admirers with his arrogant ways and provocative manner while managing to earn the grudging respect of some among his worst detractors. Likewise, this reader was impressed in parts while also inclined to be less sympathetic to his stint working with the Princely States and the cartoonish, often villainous royals he served in various high – ranking capacities. While Nehru and Gandhi languished in prisons and Bhagat Singh was headed to his doom, Panikkar was sitting pretty and acting in the interest of petty Princes whose investment in the freedom struggle was mostly absent and about whom he writes scornfully, ‘They were under the impression that this technique of toadying would induce the British to perpetuate their autocratic rule.’

His appalling stint as India’s ambassador to China seems to be an endless litany of blunders and one finds it hard to comprehend that Nehru, though inclined to complain about Panikkar’s glaring errors in private, stood by him in public for the most part. The upshot of all the incompetence at the highest levels of governance saw India betray Tibetan interests, China’s rejection of the McMahon Line and devious manoeuvring which resulted in large swathes of Indian territory in the North – Eastern Province and Ladakh swallowed up as Chinese territory, leading to a border dispute and irreparably fractured bonds, the ramifications of which are felt to this day. Patel quite rightly was scathing in his condemnation, ‘Our Ambassador has been at great pains to find an explanation or justification for Chinese policy and actions…there was a lack of firmness and unnecessary apology in one or two representations that he made to the Chinese Government on our behalf.’

As part of the SRC, on the one hand Panikkar batted for regional identity and demarcation along linguistic lines while also talking and writing extensively about not just a Hindu Rashtra but a Hindi Rashtra. Basu insists that his position was an intellectual and philosophical one and he was not in favour of militant Hindutva ideals. Leaving that aside, Panikkar still comes across as someone who was good at bandying words but not quite a man of action for all seasons.

In the end, what emerges is an authoritative portrait of not just a remarkable if flawed man but the country he served as well. Throughout his career, Panikkar saw firsthand the communal and sectarian fault lines that would prove to be the bane of India. We can feel the bitterness seeping into his words, ‘The lesson that I drew from it was that with the generality of people in times of peace, narrow parochial interests count for much more than broad national interests.’ A sad truth if there ever was one. Panikkar made it clear that regional identity and aspirations ought not to subsume the larger Indian identity and get in the way of national unity. For this sentiment alone, the man deserves admiration and respect.

This book review originally appeared in TNIE Magazine

Benign Ghosts in a Bloodless Drama

 

In Alice Sees Ghosts by Daisy Rockwell, ghosts flit across the pages and in a whimsical departure from the prevailing norm, these manifestations mean no harm. There is nothing of the gruesome or the grotesque here even when skeletons tumble out of the closet in somewhat cliched and entirely bloodless fashion. Their purpose is to largely help out in legal matters related to property disputes and annuities. As anyone who has had dealings with the law in any capacity or even those who haven’t are probably aware, the law is an ass (Dickens!) and takes forever to fumble along in clumsy, corrupt, inconvenient and incompetent manner to a mostly unsatisfactory conclusion. It is probably why the author decided that ghostly intervention is just about the only thing that can grease the wheels and smooth the process along somewhat.  

Few things in our troubled world have the ability to inflict trauma the way blood relatives can. Rockwell attempts to explore this premise vis-à-vis a protagonist who returns to an ancestral home that is coming apart at the seams to be with her grandmother who is on her deathbed and mother, a raging alcoholic. Of course, it is not the property alone that is crumbling, and death brings in its wake, pain and long – buried familial angst which refuse to resolve themselves even with the help of perfectly competent psychiatrists and friendly ghosts. In fact, there is a psychiatrist in the picture, and he is painfully aware of his inability to help with mental unravelling of a certain nature, realizing that there is little to be done except go with the flow and play along even if it means feeding the most delulu notions.

“He lacks facility with descriptive language” a character says of another but that is not an issue for the author. The narrative is imbued with a certain fluidity and otherworldly character that makes it easy enough for the reader to engage with this dreamlike landscape and its assortment of quirky characters who like the ghosts are bloodless. Alice herself is a waif who wafts across situations and handles most obstacles or difficulties by flat out refusing to handle or even acknowledge any type of unpleasantness. Heck, she won’t even read the newspapers because they carry reports about non – existent weapons of mass destruction to justify a war and other unpalatable evidence of harsh reality. Instead, she gets by like a fragment of a dream fortified by regular intakes of tea with cream, sugar and shortbread cookies.

The book touches on issues like aphasia, bigamy, being gay when it was not acceptable, and even “neocolonial accumulation of wealth from decolonized places” but like its heroine is a little too refined and therefore reluctant to dig into anything that is not without grace or charm which means it is content to coast, carefully avoiding complexity, sharp edges and dirt. At the conclusion, love and blood ties win out over festering resentment. Which makes sense. In a dream populated by ghosts.

This review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

Lapses in detail, but still a worthy story

 

Ashwin Sanghi’s uncanny ability to make modern day mountains out of mythological molehills is always entertaining and very instructive. The latest addition to his acclaimed Bharat series is The Ayodhya Alliance – which is ambitious and audacious in scale and scope. Sanghi’s trademark blend of spirituality, science and politics from the past and present go into the making of this fast and furiously paced thriller. The hyper-editing ensures the book has the feel of a Bollywood potboiler carefully crafted to capture the eyeballs of the ADHD – afflicted, near extinct, modern reader to dizzying effect.

There is a fantastic premise about a mysterious ancient technology that supposedly harnessed the equal and opposing yet complementary energies of Shiva and Vishnu together worshipped as Harihara in the physical realm, that could unleash unlimited power and alter the course of history, science and technology across the ages by creating weapons and tools of unimaginable power as well as time – defying monuments of extraordinary beauty. Ravana, the greatest devotee of Shiva gained access to this secret and revealed it to Lakshmana as he lay dying on the battlefield of Lanka. Henceforth, the legend and its power were safeguarded for thousands of years by guardians named Dvaitalingam Rakshaks bound by a sacred oath. In the present day, India’s borders come under threat and its defences have taken a beating from a certain powerful neighbour with superior technology and comparable population. Maverick steel maven – Aditya Pillai, and his counterpart from South Korea, Somi Kim, find themselves collaborating on a crucial, high-stakes defence project that could give India the upper hand. As they race against the clock and battle ruthless adversaries, they find themselves travelling back in time on a quest for an ancient scientific force that brought together allies from Ayodhya, Kailasa, Pandya Desam, Rome, Damascus, Korea, and Thailand who joined hands to avert war, share knowledge, and build a better world. In Somi’s words, “…sometimes, the solutions we seek in the present were first dreamed of in the past.”

Oscillating across centuries and continents while hopscotching from subjects as diverse as quantum physics, metallurgy, history, philosophy, and international affairs is no mean feat and Sanghi does a commendable job of juggling many balls with reasonable levels of dexterity. But he does drop the ball on occasion. Known for his meticulous research and fascinating factoids, he nevertheless falters in his attempt to bridge the North and South - Indian divide. Inaccuracies with regard to the authenticity of Tamil language, literature and cultural milieu crop up and key historical events from the South which witnessed violent clashes between the Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects in the late Vedic age and during the rule of certain Shaivite Chola Kings are skipped which is a pity given the concept of the novel. The occasional anachronism creeps in as well and the reader is informed that a character “unbuttoned his shirt” in the throes of passion, 2000 years ago.

While he deserves a rap on the knuckles for not paying closer attention to detail, a pat on the back is also due for the commendable effort made to remind his readers that while regional identity and pride is understandable it must not come at the cost of  Indianness and unity. Some characters make a worthy effort to overcome the barriers of race, religion and caste in the interest of the greater good.

There is action, danger and hidden menace at every turn but for Ashwin Sanghi afficionados it is the density of ideas which pay off in rich dividends. The beating heart of the book, bleeds with anguish for the loss of invaluable knowledge, art, wholesome customs and a way of life at the hands of ruthless invaders. It raises awareness about generational trauma and the ignorance, intolerance it engendered which leads to cultural erosion and the spawning of more hatred and violence - “…even the most sacred of sites, the most powerful of deities, could not withstand intolerance”. This has led to the victimised committing to victimising others, justifying their conduct by pointing to past injustices not realizing that it cannot be used as an excuse to condone present day atrocities. Sanghi makes a powerful case for kindness and compassion through his protagonists for whom it is the bonds of love and friendship that is the bulwark of strength and support during challenging moments in their lives, even more so than technological knowhow and ancient power.

It calls for the precision of a tightrope walker to endorse the merits of taking pride in being Indian and the attempt to assert our cultural, spiritual and scientific legacy across global platforms without being gau-rakshaks about it. Ashwin Sanghi just about pulls it off and The Ayodhya Alliance is a worthy addition to his Bharat collection and will no doubt have readers clamouring for more.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

The wickedness that spawned wicked women

 No thanks to Elon Musk, in all the time wasted on checking my Twitter (or whatever the tech bros are calling it now) feed, there is not a peep from the people I choose to follow even if I make it a belaboured point to click on ‘Following’ not ‘For You’. Instead, I am bombarded with state/corporate/pharma-sponsored trolls and bots who are out to scam me, sell me something I don’t need, or simply ruin my day. However, the most insidious posts and videos on my timeline are about badly behaved and dangerous women.

Overzealous keepers of our nation’s culture and traditions, usually guilty of groping women and children, when not trashing the streets, getting drunk and roughing up ‘beef eaters’ and lovers, have made it their life’s mission to chronicle the misdeeds of random viragos. These depict harridanism, harpyism and harlotry in harrowing detail. For those who have lent their dictionary and thesaurus to Shashi Tharoor and haven’t gotten it back, allow me to clarify…

The unchaste chronicles capture women doing awful things like bashing up their mother-in-law, accusing innocent Uber driver of attempted rape to deny him his fare, cheating on husband, marrying man for his money and murdering him after with illicit lover’s help. Added to these crimes are other ‘offenses’ deemed by poltroons to be of the same magnitude—women partying hard in glam outfits, going to work while baby cries, and worst of all, ordering on Zomato instead of slaving over a wooden stove and lovingly preparing a feast fit for an entire kingdom. In badly worded tweets, wokesters and feminists are blamed for this state of affairs.

Somebody wise said that explanations are pointless because they are not needed for those who get it and are wasted on those who don’t or won’t. Even so, every once in a while it is necessary to state the obvious. Feminism doesn’t condone unconscionable behaviour, irrespective of gender. It is not right to ignore basic decency and hurt others, rip them off, and engage in any kind of criminal or antisocial activity. Feminists fight for equal rights for all and draw attention to the fact that in a majority of crimes involving violence, women are the victims.

Feminist pleas fall on deaf ears. Which is why some women make the unfeminist choice to be the predator rather than the prey. Many women are forced to marry unsuitable men against their wishes, made to slave over stoves and buried under domestic chores to prevent them from chasing their dreams. Too many are silenced and killed outright for questioning injustice, or for no reason at all. They are shown repeatedly that they can be objectified, used and discarded for the perverse pleasure of men. That they are not allowed to grow old, get a tan or put on weight. That they are burdens who are too expensive or too cheap. That they are never enough. Evil like this begets evil. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that some will choose villainy over victimhood and wield the hammer to avoid the fate of the nail.

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

The messy truth of myths

 

Ours is an age where inordinate space has been forcibly carved for the upkeep of individuality at the expense of collective wellbeing. Political and regional sensitivities have never been more pronounced, and it seems we are forever in the midst of culture wars which paint an incongruent picture given that actual wars are also being fought with genocidal intent. Which makes it a risky but necessary endeavor to devote oneself to the study of comparative mythology with the focus on stories, traditions, rituals and myths from across the globe with a view towards discovering common hunting ground that just might strengthen the fragile bond of our shared humanity and lived experiences which can serve to unite rather than divide.

Drawing from a treasure trove of mythology lovingly gathered from Indian, Judaic, Christian and Greek sources with a smattering of pop culture tossed in, Wendy Doniger in The Cave of Echoes makes a noteworthy attempt to pave a path that would make the great stories across time and space accessible to all, allowing us to think deeply and live more fully. Clearly, Doniger has imbibed and internalized the world of mythology and is eager to share her insights on questions pertaining to the relevance of myth and the potential that myths from other lands have, to shed light on existential conundrums in one’s own world. This takes on especial significance in the prevalent climate where rationalists on a mission to modernize and demythologize are on the rampage and would seek to sever science from spirituality ignoring the possibility that coexistence is possible. As for those who would paint mythology as little more than falsehoods carefully preserved over the ages, she has the perfect rejoinder, “myths are not lies, or false statements to be contrasted with truth or reality. Picasso called art a lie that tells the truth, and the same might be said of myths.”

Doniger is keen to emphasize the fluid, ever – changing nature of mythology which nevertheless appears to be a fixed entity in the consciousness of those who call it their own. To the Westerners she cautions, “we think that our classics are in a sense eternal – forever fixed, frozen in the amber of carefully preserved written documents…our classics are not fixed and eternal.” As for the Easterners who seem convinced their mythology is set in stone, she states firmly, “As the culture retells the myth over time, it constantly interprets it, however much the culture may claim that the myth has been preserved intact.”

The book is expansive in its scope and suggests sensible measures to incorporate within a scholarly quest for a systematic study of diverse mythology that has a certain universality to it even while retaining regional quirks and distinctiveness which share an underlying pattern of truth and wisdom that might prove to be an invaluable tool in traversing the landscape of this complicated existence. However, well – intentioned though the book may be, the author occasionally gets stuck in the web she is adroitly weaving, and her tangled thought processes keep reiterating the same points about the efficacy of the other as a method to embrace one’s own with varying degrees of effectiveness. There is a lot of overly belabored points about hunters, sages, sages who hunt and hunters who are sages in their head and fishermen who fish souls and the like.

Some pages of the book are devoted solely to the prevalence of sacrifice – animal as well as human in the Vedic age, ancient Greece and Biblical times and how it sits uneasily with modern views on cannibalism as an act of unforgiveable barbarity and villainy even if the cannibal is a Hannibal Lecter who is entirely fictional and suave and charming as they come. She is particularly keen to enumerate the impropriety of this savage practice in a religion which supposedly champions vegetarianism. Skilled scholar though she is, it indicates holes in her research that she seems unaware about or knowingly skirts the fact that a majority of Hindus are meat eaters. In fact, it is well known that Brahmins partook of flesh in the Vedic as well as Puranic age, since they consumed the burnt offerings of the yagnas and were feasted with meat – based cuisine in many stories from the epics. A story in the Mahabharata talks about Ilvala and Vatapi – Asura brothers one of whom could transform at will into a goat to tempt the Brahmins with the promise of a succulent cooked - goat meal before resuming his true form within their entrails and tearing them apart. It was only after the Bhakti movement that some Brahmins no doubt inspired by the Buddhists and Jains gave up meat.

Despite such shortcomings, this is still a worthy book that offers a lot for the thoughtful reader to chew on.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

 

Religious and Regional Disputes must Quit India

 I am trying and failing to remember the last time anyone agreed on anything in this country. SRK wins the national award for Jawan and folks are willing to fight to the death over their strong support or vehement criticism over this admittedly dubious decision. Trump who has put the T in toxic and built an evil empire on the strength of his bullying and boorish ways has made India the target of his latest temper tantrum for daring to deny that he brokered a historic peace between India and Pakistan and is therefore owed a Nobel Peace Prize. While most Indians are outraged there are some who have seized the moment to express their contempt for the motherland and PM Modi. In Tamil Nadu, Kavin Selvaganesh became the victim of a dishonour killing and naturally the discourse was evenly divided between sensible people who pleaded for justice and scum who doubled down on caste pride and justified his killing.

If we cannot agree on basic rights for our fellow Indians where are we headed? Earlier, we stereotyped our country folks just for laughs with the South assuming that all North Indians are brash people who perform the bangra unreservedly at inopportune moments while the North insisted on pretending that all Madrasis eat idlis or noodles slathered with curd and worship Rajnikanth but it is no longer remotely funny. Especially since we have allowed assorted differences to tear us apart and set our collective progress as a nation back by a few centuries.  

It is bad enough that our ancestors lived through the evil that was partition when we carved up our country and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of precious lives over religious fundamentalism then and ever since but it is worse that we continue to allow individual/ regional differences, religious extremism, caste, class and linguistics based fault lines to get in the way of nationalism and unity. 

There is nothing wrong with being proud of your regional roots, language, culture etc. but this cannot be allowed to prevail over our Indian identity. Likewise politicians and their minions who insist on a Hindu - Hindi Rashtra are emulating the same divide and rule policy that the British used to exploit and plunder India. This is inexcusable and we cannot keep blaming the Mughals and the Brits for our failures post Independence, especially our tendency to squabble endlessly over everything which has led to us amounting to nothing. 

Petty parochial interests being chosen over national welfare reflect poorly on us especially when there is so much at stake for India. Surely it is possible for us to preserve our unique  regional as well as national identities without letting one subsume the other? If we can pull this off, perhaps we will stop the perennial bickering which has  served absolutely no useful purpose and finally realise the dreams of our freedom fighters who fought and died for the vision of a better India where all have freedom, dignity and none are fractious fools. 

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

Branding Bakasura for Corporate Gods

 

Devdutt Pattanaik's commendable body of work on the contemporary relevance of Indian mythology is a formidable one which has made the vast universe of Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, and Itihasas more accessible to those seeking to explore the fathomless depths without being overwhelmed. He has written over 50 books and is a prolific columnist and orator, in addition to being a corporate culture consultant. His latest book - Escape the Bakasura Trap: Let Contentment Fuel Your Growth purports to take a closer look at the consumerist culture we are currently entrapped in weighing it against contentment which is more conducive to enabling personal growth and liberation from the relentless hunger, fear and insecurity that drives most of us. Drawing on Bhima's slaying of the perpetually hungry demon, Bakasura, Pattanaik seeks to reveal to the reader the path first revealed by Hanuman to his half - brother in order to escape the coils of entanglement to illusory pleasure which accrues karmic debt ensuring that the soul is caught in the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, perpetually thwarted from achieving salvation. 

The aim of the book is a lofty one but one can't help but agree with Pattanaik's detractors who have accused him of oversimplifying complex philosophy embodied by the epics, stripping it of nuance and providing readers with a superficial narrative, lacking in depth, rich complexity and profound insights. He urges the reader to 'Approach this book with curiosity not combat' clearly anticipating criticism along these lines and making a perfunctory and ineffective effort to deflect it. Perusing the book makes for a disconcerting experience, as Pattanaik hastily sketches out his purpose and proceeds to string together a whole lot of corporate buzzwords with scant regard for anything close to coherence. His thoughts and ideas bordering on the idiosyncratic are haphazardly cobbled together, which begs the question as to whether his editorial team was asleep at the wheel or outsourced the job to AI, resulting in an output that is riddled with glitches and gaffes. 

Sample this: 'All humans need food, clothing, and shelter. But only Muslims need mosques and the Japanese need sushi. And all of us have that one hunger that is unique to us, and for which we seek no companion.'  One is forced to stop and ponder on the senselessness of such heedless statements carelessly designed to provoke. Does Pattanaik mean to assert that Hindus, Christians and followers of other religions don't need temples, churches, and places of worship? Outside the polarizing world of social media don't tourists feel the need to visit churches, Buddhist stupas, synagogues and temples for assorted purposes ranging from religious awe, interest in historical monuments to arresting Instagram backdrops? Doesn't sushi count as food which not only the Japanese but people from every part of the globe consume with varying levels of relish? Where exactly is he going with this and the numerous other non sequiturs that went into the making of this book? 

There is a sprinkling of stories and characters from Puranic lore but there is very little meat on the bare bones of this book. It appears to be mostly a tiresome exercise in generating content for the conveyor belt of corporate consumerism while claiming to be all about escaping it. The irony seems to be lost on the author who ought to have known better than to make this attempt to commodify myth and cater to crass commercialism. As he himself puts it, 'We use stories to increase the value of goods and services of the same measure. We call it branding.' The Corporate Gods will be pleased. 

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

 

Warcry of the Wronged Woman!

 

Every single day, without fail, there is a violent, gender - based crime that forces us to sit up and take notice, jaded though we’ve become. In Tamil Nadu, 27-year-old Rithanya took her own life after she was harassed for dowry, though her parents had already spent a fortune. Inured as we are to dowry deaths, this case generated outrage over a voice note the victim had left, in which, she confided to her father - "There is only one man for one woman. In this birth, I got married once, and my life is not good. That’s all. It is over." The bereaved father mentioned this in public and while condemning those who had driven her to death added that he was proud of her for sticking to the "oruvanuku oruthi" concept. Roughly translated it refers to monogamy but naturally only a woman is expected to adhere to this stricture and swear fidelity to the first man who has seen/touched her naked body and deigned to marry her. Men, of course are not bound by such inconvenient and impractical balderdash and even if they choose to be lecherous, cheating, dowry - demanding deadbeats, they feel entitled to the unswerving love and loyalty of their wives. 

Further North, Radhika Yadav was shot dead by her father while she was preparing breakfast for him. Allegedly, the Dad from hell simply could not bear the fact that he had been repeatedly taunted for living off his Tennis player daughter and further rebuked for "allowing" her to run around in shorts and athleisure wear as it was a moral affront and not at all in keeping with India's glorious culture and tradition as per which men get to drop their pants and pee in full view of the public while women who swim or play tennis in sports gear can fully expect to be shot for their indecent ways. Always happy contributors to overpowering ugliness, the trolls jumped in with slanderous accusations claiming that Radhika was seen in the company of unsuitable men. And some of them were love jihadists! What is a father to do? 

Vociferous indignation or caustic condemnation is not enough, and we must scrutinize the underlying cause of such crimes. A vast majority of people still believe that a woman's virtue depends solely on the diameter of her vagina. Too many still hold the view that family honour is tied to a woman's body and therefore, she must remain pure and unsullied which translates to sexually repressed for life. Even more are inclined to see women as little more than meat to be consumed and discarded at will, objects that can be bought and sold as per the need. Worst of all, too few women know better. 

Women have rights. We do! We are allowed to live and love and even laugh. Really! That means we can wear what we like, play sports, marry or not and fart as we please. If those afflicted with performance anxiety, erectile dysfunction and dud personalities feel like diminutive dudes who can't do diddly-squat they have no business taking it out on women who can and will. Deal with it or be damned! 

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine.

 

The Wisdom in Preparing for the Worst

 

I am always surprised at the surprise evinced by so many when godawful things go down with clockwork like regularity. Recently a stampede claimed 11 lives and injured many more following a cricketing triumph. Lack of crowd control, non – existent planning or organisation for the victory parade caused the tragedy. In a country where overcrowding is the norm across every overpopulated inch of it, how did we not see this coming? This year alone, many lives were claimed in similar stampedes at North Goa’s Shirgao village, a New Delhi railway station, at the Sangam area of the Maha Kumbh where lakhs of pilgrims had gathered for a dip, and the Venkateshwara temple in Tirumala Hills. And let us not forget the theatre in Hyderabad where fans were killed in the mad dash to catch a glimpse of a film star. Yet, we are bewildered when calamitous mishaps happen on account of deliberate blindness and a lackadaisical attitude towards ensuring the safety of our fellow citizens.

The populace gasped in collective horror like the audience of Terrifier 3, when video footage emerged capturing the last moments of a family trying to escape a vicious fire. A desperate man threw two children (his daughter and nephew) from the ninth floor before jumping himself. Relatives of the deceased blame the shoddy response from the emergency services and bystanders who were busy making videos without bothering to help. Unfortunately, sarkari incompetence and societal apathy is only too typical. How many times have we seen fire - trucks and ambulances with blaring sirens stuck in impossible traffic on narrow, damaged roads packed with mammoth – sized speed monsters designed for the Autobahn and condemned heavy vehicles held together by band-aids and everything else on wheels and four legs in - between? We avert our gaze or utter a quick prayer and hope for the best. As for what needs to be done to prevent the preventable, we can’t be bothered.

There was a lot of finger-wagging over a couple of cases featuring wives who cold-bloodedly plotted the murder of their spouses. Naturally, feminists were blamed for the deterioration of morality and the loss of traditional values which leads to such shocking crimes. Even more naturally, nobody wants to acknowledge that the system is broken, law and order is a joke, and we live in a cesspool where anarchy rules and everybody including women would rather kill than be killed.

Engaging with the problems that beset us, is our collective responsibility. We can’t keep blaming the morally compromised blowhards we elected to power in exchange for freebies and empty promises about protecting caste/religion-based rights. It is high time we shake off the torpor and actively work towards eliminating the systemic rot, with a smidgen of smarts. We deserve so much better than what we have settled for like the unpretty prostitutes with hearts of lead we have become having bartered our bodies and souls for petty trifles. But in a fractured land where laziness, stupidity, and bad behaviour alone is rewarded repeatedly, we need to anticipate the worst and prepare accordingly if we have no wish to become yet another sad statistic.

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

Rare, Regional, Remarkable

 

Short stories have been getting the short end of the stick, with publishers refusing to even consider carefully curated collections in this format favouring anthologies with big names instead. This has changed with Kannada writer, Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories getting longlisted for the Booker Prize. Countless short stories are now being unearthed from regional languages and this reviewer got to sample classic collections sourced from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and lovingly edited by Mini Krishnan.

The Second Marriage of Kunju Namboodiri and other Classic Malayalam Stories translated by Venugopal Menon is flavoursome as they come. Some of the fare sparkles with gentle wit or a touch of romance and others are filled to bursting with pathos or passionate outrage, with most caustically addressing the stupidity that characterizes much of the human race, especially the male of the species and the far from sensible strictures, customs, and traditions that were tyrannically enforced.

C. Chinnammu Ammal’s A Case of Homicide written in 1913, interestingly enough has a similar denouement to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Problem of Thor Bridge (1922). Both are about vengeful characters seeking to frame an innocent person for murder using an ingenious trick with a gun. M. Saraswatibhai’s Witless Women, T. Devaki Nethyaramma’s An Ideal Wife and V.T. Bhattathirippad’s Illusion or Delusion are moving accounts of the tortuous conditions women endured despite Kerala’s famed matrilineal tradition. In these tales, women are saddled with weak men who in addition to their many inadequacies have monstrous egos that are committed to actively harassing the women in their lives irrespective of whether they were relatively nice men or downright nasty. But it was an age when women were taught to shut up and put up with a smile even when they were being grossly abused and to stay loyal to their husbands unto death and beyond because widowhood was worse and the ill – treatment freely meted out to these ‘inauspicious’ women usually drove them to madness, penury and a slow death.

A Teashop in Kamalapura and other Classic Kannada Stories translated by Susheela Punitha is a humdinger of a collection with tales so potent and poignant you will find yourself unable to put the book down despite buzzing notifications. K. Vasudevacharya’s Malleshi’s Sweethearts about a bumbling search for a spouse is delightful. Many of the stories address social evils targeting women and the poverty stricken.

A.Sitaram’s The Girl I Killed features a temple slave who is a victim of a patriarchal tradition that exploits female bodies and shames them to death for it. K. Srinivasarao’s The Master’s Satyanarayana is a heartbreaking tale about rich people’s greed which deprives the poor of the little they have. Saraswathibai Rajawade’s The Battered Heart exposes sleazy Godmen who preach about the virtues of celibacy while grooming underage girls to be brainwashed into becoming willing bed mates. Belagoankar’s short sheds light on the Niyoga tradition sanctioned by epic lore where women desperate to become mothers after being berated for their ‘failure’ are pressured into setting aside rules of chastity to welcome a man of proven fertility to impregnate them. In Between Rules and Regulations, Sara Aboobacker excoriates the triple talaq.

Maguni’s Bullock Cart and other Classic Odia Stories translated by Leelawati Mohapatra, Paul St-Pierre and K.K. Mohapatra include tales from the pens of those who risked a lot to raise their voices against oppression. Fakir Mohan Senapati has two stories featured here with the first addressing how challenging it was back in the day to provide an education for a girl child in almost unbearably melodramatic fashion and the second, which is in a lighter vein recommending a form of treatment for husbands prone to heavy drinking, drug use and womanising. U. Kishore Das writes about a ghost whose husband and former suitor were unmitigated jerks who ended up being the end of her. Biswanath Rath’s tale has a widow who is a victim of a baseless canard that makes her already wretched existence immeasurably worse. Suprabha Kar’s The Long Wait shares the plight of a young wife whose husband subjects her to savage beatings after he blows up her dowry which sends her hurtling down the path of whoredom and worse. Routeray’s Flower of Evil about an abandoned wife who dies while trying to abort her illegitimate child is a sock to the solar plexus.

These stories written with touching simplicity sans the artifice and stylistic literary devices that are liberally employed today by the literati to espouse causes endorsed by the privileged are redolent with emotional honestly and far more effective in striking a blow against social injustice. They wrack the conscience and make one glad to be alive in a world where we are more aware of individual rights even if we couldn’t care less about the greater good.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

A Hymn for Silence

 

If nothing else, the Age of Information has belched out a buttload of entitled blockheads who demand the most current news incessantly. In a world where data is disseminated at rapid-fire speed, this is entirely possible. Countries may go to war at Vampiric hours cloaked under cover of darkness, speed and secrecy for all the good it does given that even children in the remotest corners of civilization can follow the age inappropriate content in real time with a smartphone and an internet connection via firsthand accounts and live videos that pop up within seconds on their Twitter or Instagram feeds from all possible angles and perspectives ranging from foot soldiers and victims to politicians and press personnel.

Opinions and counter – opinions are aired at breakneck pace in a voluminous outpouring guaranteed to blow up already besieged braincells filled to bursting with the information overload that needs to be processed and absorbed all the time, rendered at demented decibels. In fact, it is only a matter of time before AI appraises us of earthshattering events before they have actually occurred allowing humans to alter the course of history by worsening tragedies while clumsily attempting to avert them, making it even more newsworthy. Traditional media, struggling to stay relevant, doggedly emphasize expertise, accuracy and corroborated date from official sources while battling accusations that their integrity has been compromised and they are the drooling poodles of the rich and powerful on either side of the ideological divide. Even so, newspapers still show up on doorsteps, television news anchors rant on though rendered redundant by OTT streaming services and these as well as news websites are consumed by those relegated to dinosaur status. As for the rest, it is all about what has gone viral or is currently trending on social media.

Amidst the clamour and cacophony, there are calls for censorship since no child should have to witness another child’s execution style murder being live streamed from Gaza or the graphic details about the travails of an adult film star who needed to be hospitalized after a backdoor challenge that went horribly wrong. On occasion, there is a hue and cry against the proliferation of misinformation and fake news released by the well – intentioned armed with incorrect info or trolls/bots acting in bad faith to boost false narratives. In response, a few sane voices drowned out by declamatory dunces urge caution when it comes to indiscriminate consumption, suggest cross – checking by leveraging multiple platforms, and urge the prioritizing of nuance, complexity and authenticity. These are fighting a losing battle. There is no algorithm that can censor or verify facts over the sheer speed of content sharing on social media and no substitute for dwindling common sense.  

Ironically, reliable information is a scarce commodity now. Beset by fear and fatigue from too much alarming news, no one can stand the noise anymore. And yet, we have grown acclimatized to the clamour and are active collaborators in the chaos. Above all else, we need silence. For it is only in the stillness that we can reclaim our lost souls and invaluable power of introspection. If we can bear the calm and quiet after the pandemonium we have been partying to, we might just survive. If not, we don’t deserve to.

Of Smart Sisters and Misogynistic Misters

 

One of the most beautiful things about art is its ability to transcend human limitations and the grotesquerie of existence, even while exploring the same at uncomfortably close quarters all while on a quest for the raw truth in all its exquisite and repulsive glory, utterly shorn of artifice. A good storyteller is one who subsumes the self in service of the story being told/written. The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha is one such worthy story.

On the surface, it would appear to be a simple story about sibling rivalry ramped up when a family summit is called and a patriarch passes, with gender rules foisted by the patriarchy and centuries of institutionalized misogyny coming into play. But it goes beyond all that and does not limit itself to individual struggles played out against an unsettling setting where hyper -nationalism, toxic masculinity and the burgeoning climate crisis loom over the proceedings in the menacing manner of Marvel supervillains. In a nutshell, it is about Tara - a Daddy’s not so little girl who far from growing up to be a cliched junkie or purveyor of pornographic services always assumed to be inevitable in keeping with Freudian lore, learns to see the man her father really is and her responsibilities not just to him and her immediate family but the world at large. If Tara is the beating heart of the story, then her father is its soul.

A rare Delhiite who is not only good at her job and sensible to a fault, Tara is a lawyer who is not remotely aggressive and fully committed to defusing a potentially explosive situation. A childhood friend, Lila is a more typical inhabitant of the capital city and the two reconnect when they find themselves dealing with siblings over what could easily escalate into a gargantuan financial and property dispute. Both the women are fully capable of taking on far more formidable adversaries using the considerable intellect, skillsets or resources at their disposal and yet, they falter in the manosphere they occupy. With sensitivity and gentle wisdom, Guha draws us into their compelling inner lives and into the epicentre of the fears and insecurities that rule them.

For too many women, indulgence in illicit desire might be the kryptonite that can destroy everything they have worked to build, especially in a topography where male excess regarding their loins is condoned and encouraged while the penalty could be death or worse for untrammelled feminine lust. Others may come across as truly empowered women, who are self – sufficient, liberal in their outlook with a life carefully constructed in keeping with their personal likes and preferences. They may be confident in their choice of saying no to marriage, motherhood and a pesky boyfriend, but can they remain bulletproof when threatened with the loss of a mother’s affection? Will they sacrifice a rightful share in exchange for peace and grudgingly offered scraps of fraternal respect and affection? Is it the smarter choice for a woman to settle for less or fight for what she is entitled to? The Tiger’s Share doesn’t bother with simple answers the way a lesser book might have.

Delhi is very much a part of the narrative and Guha’s loving depiction of the city with its compelling allure, complicated politics and impossible living conditions is a delight to behold. Tara’s father – Brahm Saxena is a fascinating creation. A beautiful soul, he could have easily been viewed as a buffoon given the nature of his late life existential crisis which prompts him to do what he does aided and abetted by his beti and a nebulous cult figure. But through Brahm’s realization of his self, Guha urges us to accept reality as is and acknowledge that we are but infinitesimal specks in the grand scheme of things, created only to be consumed, deluded into thinking we control the future with the choices we make.  

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine.

Cripple the Conscience to beat Boredom!

 

Once upon a simpler time, it simply wasn’t done to wash one’s dirty laundry in public. But nowadays, when the only thing people cannot tolerate is boredom, it has become acceptable. Everybody wants to be the star of their own reality show, and we can all collectively tune in at will, as aspiring social media stars and influencers from all walks of life document the excruciating details of their lives from post – coital posts and bowel movement updates to livestreaming the agonizing death of a loved one. Even that stuff has gotten old as everybody is doing it and it is impossible to muster up anything resembling enthusiasm for yet another overshare curated to grab eyeballs with a close up view of a bellwether type’s butthole. Enough is enough! We want dirt, damn it!   

Not even porn is cutting it nowadays. It is not twisted or kinky enough. Which is why shows like The White Lotus which have managed the impossible feat of making the entire world pay attention have casually tossed incest into the mix, devilishly provoking outrage and maximum engagement. The makers may or may not have been influenced by one infamous dude who called himself the brewski bulge or something equally inane and cracked an Oedipal joke that landed him in hot water. Word is that the worst is behind him, and he is on the verge of signing a book and movie deal to monetize the notoriety, he clearly coveted. Even this obloquy is not floating our boat anymore. Here we are now! Entertain us… as Kurt Cobain famously growled in a halcyon age when only rockstars were allowed to go off their rockers to provide the starving populace their quota of the sordid and scandalous.

A tech billionaire was obliging enough to spill the squalid secrets about his ugly divorce. There were allegations of an affair, demands for excessive sex, tax evasion and the world watched goggle – eyed as the exes embarked on a mudslinging match of monstrous proportions even stooping low enough to play ping – pong with their child. It was a horror-tragi-comedy and folks couldn’t get enough of it. Though most are willing to be distracted if damnable iterations of Aurangzeb and the Godhra riots end up on the big screen for them to get frenzied about.

Meanwhile, the genocide in Gaza continues unabated, although irrefutable evidence of unspeakable war crimes have been exhaustively documented. Most look the other way because they are too squeamish to view the footage of babies and pregnant women being executed, the rape of male detainees with broomsticks, and Israel’s wanton destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches. Besides, it has been over a year now and it is too sad, thereby entirely lacking amusement value. Ditto the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis. This sort of thing pricks the conscience and urges us to get off our backsides and do something to make the world a less hideous place. Nobody wants that. Trump and Elon Musk for all their faults are never boring. They offer paisa vasool fare. So what if they are hastening us towards inevitable doom? We don’t mind as long as we get our endorphin rush every step of the bloody way!

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

In Purposeless Pursuit of the One

 

When you refer to The One, there are many who will think of the really cute and supposedly nice Keanu Reaves who played Neo in the Matrix films. There are more than a few who will describe The One who is fated to be their soulmate enumerating endless impossible to emulate qualities ranging from the physical to the emotional and psychological to the Oedipal. A few will talk of The One who is prophesized to show up in a blaze of glory in this sinful world and set it straight. But most will think of The One as someone who is invaluable in their daily lives merely for being competent.

 The One who will deliver food on time without hawking up phlegm into it or getting hopelessly lost in Karnataka because he does not speak a word of Kannada or English. The One who will take your complaint regarding the Reverse Osmosis purifier at home, show up on time and fix it with that priceless trait called efficiency instead of doing irreparable damage to your already iffy mental health by failing to do the needful though you went down on hands and knees and pleaded with some bot and paid the annual rent for the penthouse which houses somebody 's mistress because somebody told you if you don't, your RO purifier is doomed and so are you!

The One who holds a given job because of the right qualifications and aptitude as opposed to a byproduct of a broken quota system which perpetuates the evils of caste and class privilege while claiming to do the opposite.

 Irrespective of which of The Ones you yearn for with every fibre of your being, the smart money is on this impossible quest ending in failure, frustration and a padded cell with restraints. This is because wielders of magic wands and heroes bearing lances can only do diddly squat in a world where incompetence has been weaponized thanks to endless greed and ever present entitlement.

 Everybody feels free to make a mess while nobody is willing to clean up. After themselves or others.  That is because if you do anything at all in a conscientious manner, you will be severely punished for the same with all the lazy asses out there dumping their chores, bills, and life's responsibilities on you simply because you are incapable of walking past a stubborn stain without wiping it clean. Thanks to things like a deeply ingrained sense of duty, a kind heart, or a low sense of self - worth one ends up becoming a beast of burden and everyone's b**ch. Simply performing the tasks that need performing comes with unfathomable risks that have sent many worker bees to an early grave and an eternity of drudgery in the section of hell reserved for hopeless schmucks. Not surprisingly, not many risk it.

 Which is why we have butchers playing doctors, pedophiles ending up in charge of children, hardened gangsters in charge of law and order, and the violent and criminally insane tasked with running entire nations. Meanwhile, we dream of The One. The One who doesn't exist outside a make believe world, where in addition to winged unicorns and chocolate rivers, people just do their jobs. And do it well.

This column was originally published in TNIE Magazine

Preternaturally Talented Pillai Teeters

 

In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu Pillai takes on the monumental task of encapsulating the complex, ever – evolving mishmash of endless odds and ends that went into the making of the modern Hindu identity. Covering an unwieldy chunk of history from the time a few Jesuit monks were entertained by Akbar to the fledgling days of Hindutva under Savarkar, he casts a densely woven net that seeks to capture the past, present and likely future of Hinduism.

Exhaustively researched, with a notes section that is as lengthy as the book itself, Pillai highlights the role played by the Brahmin elites and the flexibility they evinced in remoulding religious tradition with a surpassing lack of scruples to serve the self or a Kshatriyan/Muslim/British overlord. Moving on, the reader gets a closer look at the myopic view of foreigners which veered between a romanticized version of Hinduism as a repository of spiritual treasures beyond measure or extreme notions of heathens who worshipped devilish deities, sacrificed babies and burnt women.

Hinduism, already reeling from persecution and proselytization struggled to survive the onslaught of foreign rule and rabid missionary zeal with its trademark reinvention and assimilation. But there was trouble within in the form of social evils like casteism or relatively harmless regional or individual approaches to the Hindu way of life, that defied the convenient idea of a monolithic religion that went strictly by the holy book. According to Pillai, Hindu scriptures like the Puranas acquired their fluid form not to meet present day scholarly strictures but to serve a higher purpose to ‘universalize what was provincial’. However, in attempting to carve out the Hindu identity from within the exacting framework of scholarship, he stumbles.   

Interestingly enough, despite stressing that ‘…while Puranic culture grew into a vast ocean, it is important to remember that the Brahmanical stream, no matter how big and forceful, still [represented] only one amongst numerous others flowing into it,’ he himself sticks largely to research material that is Brahmanical or Western or influenced by one or the other. Thus, authorial intent, notwithstanding, he is hamstrung by the same limitations.

This is made evident by Pillai’s omissions particularly in the chapter on Indian Luthers. He dwells at length on the lasting legacy of Hindu reformers like Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, Dayananda Saraswati as well as Jotirao Phule, Savitribai, B.G. Tilak and Savarkar. Among others, he fails to mention the Devadasis, that exploited and empowered class of danseuses and the work of activists like Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy to ban the practise. Or the counter efforts of Rukmini Devi, Bangalore Nagarathnammal to restore their art to respectability, the repercussions of which are still felt. Periyar and Ambedkar barely get a mention.

It is an author’s prerogative to decide what is included in his book, but these choices are revealing, especially since it was the likes of Tilak and Savarkar, who laid the foundation for a more aggressive and exclusionary brand of Hinduism that is at odds with a pluralistic faith which has a history of being mostly accommodating and inclusive with a tolerant viewpoint that many a path can be taken to achieve oneness with the divine. As Pillai points out, Savarkar did not curry favour with the Hindu majority in his day, who were more swayed by the moderate Congress party. Why suggest that Savarkar’s views reign supreme today when the ground reality indicates that not much has changed with caste still holding sway and individual/regional idiosyncrasies ensuring that Hinduism retains its perennial shape – shifting qualities?

Many a British scholar or Catholic missionary was flummoxed by the vast gulf between scriptural guidelines and lived reality for most Hindus. This was probably because the average Hindu had little time or inclination to wade through the formidable ocean of the Vedas, Upanishads and weighty religious tomes in indecipherable Sanskrit and were content to smear ash on the forehead, mutter a mantra force – fed them by their mothers and drop in at a temple once in a while armed with flowers or coconuts and carry on with the business of living. This defines the vast majority of Hindus, then and now and one wonders if they give two hoots about the extremist views of Hindutvas or even Ram/Rakshasa rajya as there is little to choose between the two.

Admittedly, Manu Pillai is a brilliant historian capable of navigating the unforgiving terrain of Hindu history and lore with an uncanny ability to lay bare its complexities, but he still ends up presenting a limited view of Hindu identity seen through a prism of Brahmanical and Western documentation which in addition to academic heft has the inherent biases of the former and white liberal agenda of the latter which displays a prejudiced view of brown people that is as problematic as Right Wing WhatsApp University nonsense.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine

The Incredibly Indian Way to Abide India

 

An exclusive quality of Indians living in India is the ability to look the other way when we ourselves are severely inconvenienced or presented with irrefutable evidence of social evils inflicted upon others. That is why we suck it up when freshly paved roads in residential areas are torn up to accommodate open drains on either side where stray pups drown, and people toss rubbish leading to clogging and the exacerbation of an already untenable situation. We grit our teeth and move on ignoring the potholed roads groaning under the weight of endless vehicles as we make perilous trips to our destinations, determinedly ignoring shouted insults, traffic jams, and inexcusable driving as people chat on their mobile phones and drive on the wrong side.

It is best to ignore these things. Like we do the stray dogs which pose a rabies risk and cows wandering around and inevitably ending up spattered across the windshields of truck drivers with rage issues brought on by haemorrhoids, they can’t afford to treat. Kids are getting abducted, and somebody is being raped and set alight in public and in broad daylight? Ignore. There may be crooked cops and politicians involved.

Pilgrims undertaking padayatras or thronging to immerse themselves in the confluence of sacred rivers feel free to behave as badly as they please, discarding trash over every inch of available space, causing stampedes, and blaming the government when devotees are crushed to death. Any criticism is not welcome because this is a religious matter, and we ought to be sensitive as opposed to sensible. So why bother? Besides, unlike in Gaza, we are not enabling genocide and the slaughter of children over religious claims and disputed holy lands, are we? India is better than that!

What about the poor? Those wretched folks who live in unsightly slums and practise open defecation when not begging, their umpteen babies with runny noses in tow or sleeping on pavements to be killed beneath imported wheels. They are everywhere, ruining the reputation of our country in front of those white tourists who click pics and make award – winning films about Slumdogs who are unlikely to become millionaires in this or subsequent lifetimes.

Some of us half - heartedly read reports about the fact that there are more billionaires than ever in India which still means there are countless people unable to make ends meet and live and die in grinding poverty despite the back breaking labour they are forced into. Focusing on issues like population explosion, unequal distribution of wealth and resources, corruption and governance, inadequate health care, social injustices etc is bound to give one a migraine. And what can we do?

We have our own problems. Most of us are neither Ambani nor Adani, and we need to find maids who will work for a pittance, send our kids to a school that does not charge an arm and a leg and both kidneys, make enough in this depressing economy to allow us to holiday at some exotic locale guaranteed to make the Insta fam jealous and buy more expensive trifles we don’t need. We carry on, uncaring that we can’t afford to go on this way. Ignoring pressing issues is a hard feat, but we manage it. Because that much at least, we can do.

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine

An Open Letter to Insufferable Indians

 

Dear Indians,

Forget the New Year resolutions you made with impractical, turbo-enthusiasm to excavate the best version of yourselves from beneath the layers and layers of blubber and bullshit. Of course, most of you had impressive goals. These included flying all the way to the Trou aux Cerfs to livestream your guided tour of volcano craters and lava fields, discovering your life's passion, running into the love of your life at Muniyandi Mess, eating only organically sourced vegan food while training for the triathlon and giving up gadgets entirely because it rots what's left of your rapidly deteriorating brain. The noble aspirations are truly impressive but since you have done little more than write these down and stick it on the fridge proceeding to ignore it thereafter to focus on Instagram reels while chowing down on a bucket of KFC fried chicken and staying put on your recliner, the smart money says that your high flown aims shan't be achieved in the immediate or even distant future.

 Never fear, though. Republic day is just around the corner and it is entirely possible to reaffirm your commitment to making India Incredible again or at the very least, less irredeemable. Rather than sell your admittedly annoying neighbour's kidney on the black market to fund your trip to the Côte d'Azur, perhaps you could stay home for a change and take up meditation or lazing around. That way you don't have to humiliate hamara Motherland by being the typical unruly Indian tourist who puked in the pool after demolishing the buffet and tried to escape with  purloined products from the resort.

 Rather than trying to live it up by walking on our far from pristine shorelines or mountain trails with your boozehound buddies who carelessly discard their liquor bottles and risk maiming others, you could concentrate on sparing your liver and pavement dwellers amongst others by not drinking yourself into a stupor and getting behind the wheel of the imported Bugatti Centodieci your Benami Daddy bought you.

 A lot of you are convinced that all it takes to clear your crippling karmic debt thanks to a lifetime of depravity is frequent trips to places of worship with hordes of the similarly misguided risking the loss of lives due to stampede - friendly conditions. Perhaps you could eschew this unholy behaviour in favor of actually being nice, well  - behaved and the sort of citizen a nation can take pride in by cleaning up after yourself instead of leaving a mountain - high trail of garbage wherever you go and whatever you do. And if you must visit manmade dwelling places of the divine or even any public place refrain from shoving, spitting, or shouting. And do refrain from pissing or pooping anywhere outside a toilet.

 Remember, the odds of finding love are enhanced if you are loveable. And you can't be that if you make it a habit to stalk, molest or harass women. If you are a woman, do not file false cases and betray the feminist cause. Strive to do better fellow Indians. Mother India will thank and bless you!

Yours in EXASPERATION,

A DISGRUNTLED Indian

This article was originally published in TNIE Magazine