2018 / Articles
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How conversation on food and food culture helps us connect with business partners
Food is one of the most powerful tool to discover how people imagine the world around them. It is a mirror of culture.
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Queer Gaze for the Indian Tourist
A manifestation of thought, temples like the hidden verses of epics, have unseen images on their walls. What you understand depends on what you want to see.
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The forgotten Buffalo King
Not much is known about him, but the shrine is clearly not a Brahminical one and there is nothing about him found in Sanskrit literature
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How Brahmins helped create temple-states and kingdoms in South India and Southeast Asia
It is fashionable nowadays to use the word ‘Brahmin’ with contempt … But this outrage (real and imagined) must not blind us to the contribution of Brahmins …
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The goddess of sailors
Most images of boats in Indian art are related to ponds and rivers, and not the sea, such as images of Ram and Sita crossing the Ganga, or Krishna and Radha on Yamuna.
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To Goddess, With Love
A short story by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on http://www.gaybombay.org on 1st June, 2018. 28th May 2018 …श्री… My dear Oindrilla, Just got your wedding card via email. Congratulations! I will not be able to come. I am sure you…
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Trishanku in America or those betwixt and between
Trishanku is a famous character in Hindu mythology who hangs upside down between heaven and earth, belonging nowhere.
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The spread of Hinduism
By the time the Upanishads were composed, 2,500 years ago, there was a familiarity with the Gangetic Plain.
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Who is a Hindu? Indra: Entitled, insecure, dispensable
How the primary god and great warrior of the Vedas ended up as a minor Puranic god.
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Marking your expiry date
Nothing lasts forever. We know that. Yet, culture is all about ‘built to last’.
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Homophobia is subtle in Gurudom
Most of these gurus do oppose the criminalising of homosexuality, and so appear to be modern. However, they do see homosexuality as a deviance (or its Sanskrit equivalent), or a ‘fluidity’ that needs explanation, management and re-alignment.
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Yagna or Puja
Vedic yagna is conventionally translated as ‘sacrifice’ and Puranic puja is translated as ‘worship’. This translation is the basic problem.
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In Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu is associated with economic activities
In contrast, Shiva is about letting go and accepting what is while Vishnu is about making efforts to enjoy a good life.
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Who is a Hindu? The temple as saviour
Our monumental temples, such as Puri’s Jagannatha temple, were a reaction to the arrival of a foreign faith, and a sign of resistance to it.
