Rumi Nations

The Hindus have more than trebled in numbers in the past 50 years. Going by the comments below, these Hindus are nincompoops. Without exception. They contribute nothing in terms of innovation or in inventions. Merely keep braying about some mythical ancient glory. And lack common sense. If I were to share personal anecdote (while acknowledging that anecdote is not evidence): My grandparents generation had 13 (living) siblings. Each of them produced 6 or 7 kids on average. My parents' generation had 3 kids each on average. Thankfully, the 'young generation' seems to have got the message and usually tends to have one kid — usually a son. [I guess we will have a lot of homosexuality in the manner of the English boarding schools that Hitchens mentioned.] There is unfortunately too much ignorance or illiteracy around. Which is why absolute fossils of the BJP/VHP/RSS are able to suggest in all seriousness that Hindus should have 4 or 5 or 10 kids each. ...

How do you find out about the guys who had leukemia and thought that if they got to touch Sai Baba's penis or something (or vice versa) they would get cured? The problem with superstition is that it's more often than not innocent. How do you deal with the fact that the educated 30-something professionals of this country can get taken for a ride by the 'sophisticated' charlatans like Sr Sri or Deepak Chor pa? It's so annoying to find out as I did that the educated types say that they're all skeptical and don't believe in God but will do stupid stuff which contradicts that position. I've an aunt who says she got cured from her back trouble because she keeps photos of some godmen ... I don't remember ... probably the name of the charlatan is ... well ... Bhagwan! Take that for humility! How do you prove the 'harm' in visiting temples every Monday morning to touch or kiss a penis of a god? (sorry if offending anyone) I like to keep photo...

Every Monday morning, there's a universal outpouring of groans — that it's MONDAY again! It's as if everybody's mom-in-law AGAIN was about to come to visit them on Monday. This deafening noise is heard in specific parts of the world. It comes from the office-going class of people. In India, the young generation of IT and other professionals make this noise through all available means such as Facebook and Twitter. I suppose it's the same in the developed world where people have been caught up in this vicious cycle for a generation or more now. I don't know about rural America or rural Europe, but in rural India, villagers don't start groaning on Monday mornings. There's hardly any difference between Mondays or other days of the week. Their life-cycle is not a weekly one. Conversely, there's invariably an exuberant outpouring of joy come Friday. It starts in the morning itself and rises to a crescendo by the afternoon by when the youngsters i...

Yeah. Sorry. Could not resist that nod to Hemingway. It occurred to me just today. So dumb of me really ... to realize this so late in the day. Why is it that "men of religion" ... and they tend to be invariably and without exception 'men' ... God men, the "leaders" of the various religions, whichever way you want to put it, they all are WITHOUT EXCEPTION old men . I am thinking of the 'Father's of Christianity, the myriad gurus and god-men littering the land of the Hindus (with their saffron attire, perhaps a fashion beard and hairstyle) , the Islamic clergy with their long beards, the Jewish Rabbis with their beards, the Tibetan monks ... well, I can think of only one I guess ... Dalai Lama with his fashionably bald pate and mild, kindly disposition, Sikh holy men of the gurudwaras too, etc. Yeah. So, what's the story? What's the logic? Is it that we are willing to defer to old men more than, say young men ... or women? And, if...

Today is as good a day as any to reflect on this tragi-comic situation. Religion committed one more murder the other day . And Hindus commemorated Shiva, one of the numerous gods of Hinduism just the other day. For the uninitiated, Shiva is the guy who's responsible for the destruction of the world as opposed to Vishnu who is the creator of worlds ... Brahma is responsible for the day-to-day upkeep of worlds ... correct me if I am wrong since it's a long time since my childhood when I learnt these things. So, you've got a guy who's basically responsible for the Big Bang and another guy who's responsible for the Big Crunch ... so to say. Pretty nifty. Anyway, this god Shiva or Lord Shiva as Hindus would have it has got some interesting characteristics such as: He lives on the top of one particular mountain named Kailash ... in the Himalayas of course. I would imagine it would be pretty cold (as in sub-zero temperatures) up there. But clearly, since he's a god, he...