2021
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The Spiritual Marketplace
The spiritual marketplace: New Era Gurus Are Here to Help You Find Your Ikigai. Published on 3rd April, 2021, in Economic Times. A market is where there are buyers and sellers. There are people who seek spiritual comfort and those…
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To Burn or Bury.
Published on 21st March, 2021, in Mid-day. Hindus are constantly reminded of the cycle of life, in ritual after ritual. In Vedic times, 3,000 years ago, bricks would be gathered to build a fire altar where the gods would be…
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View: How Rigveda Speaks of Aspiration and Collaboration
Published on 19th March, 2021, in the Economic Times. The Veda is not a single book. It is a corpus of knowledge, layers over layers of thought, expressed in hymn, melody, ritual and ideas, produced over forty generations, as the…
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Dharma Artha Kama Moksha: 40 Insights for Happiness
Artha-shastra is about generating food, i.e. wealth, by creating goods and services; Kama-shastra is about indulging our hungers with this food. Dharma-shastra insists we consider the hunger of others, while Moksha-shastra is about outgrowing our hungers, in order to be…
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Does the Mahabharata Respect Women’s Desire?
Published on 14th March, 2021, in Mumbai Mirror. The Bhil Bharata is a tribal version of the Mahabharata. There is much it shares with the classical Sanskrit Mahabharata. However, when it comes to women, it has an altogether different take.…
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The Hamsa Hand
Published on 14th March, 2021, in Mid-day. The hamsa is a common symbol used across the Middle East as a good luck sign. Originating in Ancient Egypt probably, it is used to bring in prosperity and to ward off evil.…
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Fluid Marriage Rites
Published on 7th March, 2021, in Mid-day. Suriya, the daughter of the sun-god, marries the twin-gods, the Ashwins, and rides with them on their chariot. So says the Rig Veda. Later, we are told, that the Ashwins do not actually…
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Seeing Mahabharata from the Point of View of the Forest
“When Might Is Right: Seeing Mahabharata from the Point of View of the Forest.” Published on 6th March, 2021, in The Economic Times. Hindu philosophy makes no sense without appreciation of the constant comparison of the forest (aranya) with settled…
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Angels in Islam
Published on 28th February, 2021, in Mid-day. In Christian mythology, the Devil is an angel who disobeyed God. But, in Islamic mythology, angels do not disobey God. Creatures of light, they have no free will, and they bowed to Adam…
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Is Lanka Located In Madhya Pradesh?
Published on 28th February, 2021, in Mumbai Mirror. Temples dedicated to Ravana in MP, and rulers claiming descent from him in this region, indicate that Lanka may not be across the ocean as imagined, but very much within Indian territory.…
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The Rajput’s Umbrella
Published on 21st February, 2021, in Mid-day. When a Rajput king dies, his bones are collected after cremation and cast into the river, as is common practice amongst many Hindus. Additionally, the spot where he is cremated is marked by…
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The Rise of Indian Zaibatsu
The Rise of Indian Zaibatsu: How Indians are adopting more Eastern models Published on 20th February, 2021, in Economic Times. Zaibatsu means financial clique in Japanese. It refers to family-owned vertically integrated industrial and financial business conglomerates that played a…
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Sindhi Love Poetry
Published on 14th February, 2021, in Mid-day. In the 16th Century, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai wrote a set of love poems in Sindhi to express Sufi mysticism, metaphorically capturing the tension between love and law, head and heart. Each has…
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Is Goddess Saraswati Connected to Love and Longing?
Published on 14th February, 2021, in Mumbai Mirror. Valentine’s Day upsets Hindutva, that valorises men over women, celibacy over sensuality, politics over arts, and lets saffron eclipse the rainbow. They want to save India’s culture but this does not include…
