Rumi Nations

So, who are you? Or, what? Are you a Congi? A CRT? Perhaps a pseudo-secular Indian. Or an Internet Hindu. Or a right winger. A Hindu nationalist (dwelling outside India?). These are some of the gems that one comes across as the frenetic debate rages in this country about the direction we wish to take. Clearly, India is 'resurgent.' India is not the first nation in the history of the world where people suddenly acquire a heightened sense about who they are just on the basis of their imagined or real history. History is fact -> except when it's entirely fiction that people want to believe . Nationalistic pride has not been a positive force in world history - just think of Japan, Italy and Germany in the 20th century. A sense of superiority based on notions of nationality, race, or religion makes people blind to reason and facts. Yet in the 21st century, despite the world wars and the Rwandan  and  Balkan  genocides of the '90s, we are again seeing resurgent na...

            There are people who believe that a river is a god. Or a goddess. It’s called the Ganga. The believers are the Hindus. They think it originates out of the head of a god called Shiva. BTW, that god also has a snake wrapped around his neck. There are other gods in Hinduism one of whom has four hands and holds specific stuff in them. A god with four heads is there. And a goddess with 10 hands. You won’t think with these sort of imaginative creations (or creators) being part of its collection, Hinduism might put up a fight with the major monotheistic religions of the world to claim the title of being the most rational religion or the one that makes the most sense. But I think these folks notwithstanding, the overall religion makes more sense than other religions. If you look at the other religions (I have Islam and Christianity in mind specifically), they propose that specific humans were representatives of an unseen god. In the case of Chris...

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...

Manmohan Singh is hardly Hosni Mubarak. Although most Indian prime ministers occupy the office only in the seventh or eight decade of their life — that's about the only similarity. Be that as it may. At the end of the day, I do not like to paint all politicians with the same brush. I also do not believe in blaming politicians for all that ails India. Indian voters choose who they wish to represent them. Indians are a nation of believers. Hinduism has a range of gods across the whole spectrum of possibility. Some gods are male while others are female. Some are neither male nor female. Some gods like vegetarian dishes while others prefer non-vegetarian dishes. Some gods are benevolent while others are ferocious as well as capricious. Indians love their gods. They not only love them, they like to anoint ordinary humans with godly qualities too. So, we have a plentiful supply of demi-gods too. The office of the prime minister has been elevated to that level as well where t...

When celebrities die — and these past few months seem to have seen more than the usual quota of celebrity deaths — we see an overwhelming outpouring of public grief and grieving and reminiscing. What a contrast this is to a true tragedy such as when a baby dies. The doctors at AIIMS recently performed a rare surgery to treat an infant who had been born with her heart outside her rib cage. The doctors created a cavity inside her chest and put the heart where it belongs. However, 22 days later, the baby dies. One story of death in a nation of billion-plus people which didn’t get the attention it deserved. Because of the unique nature of the problem and the treatment, it at least made it to the news media. What I want to say here though is this: what does this story tell us about life? Is there anything we should learn about life or question — does this story have the power to unhinge us to our cores? It’s easy to read about this news item and forget about it in due course. But I’m sure w...