MyTruth

Published on 2nd November, 2018, in The Economic Times. Every time I give a lecture, there is always a participant who asks, “Sir, but is this not your interpretation?” What else do they expect, I wonder? This usually happens when the lecture seems very convincing yet at odds with something they already know or have been told by an authority figure like a guru or a parent. They relieve their anxiety by classifying my talk as ‘interpretation’ hence lesser than ‘truth,’ over which either their guru, or their parent, or someone else they admire or have faith in, has proprietorship. This concept of THE Truth, ..

Published on 7th May, 2017, in Mid-Day. In universities around the world, there is an implicit acceptance of teleology, that human culture is moving from the primitive to the refined, from underdeveloped to developed, much like moving towards the Promised Land described in Abrahamic mythologies. But are they referring to the psychological or the technological? Contemporary time is viewed as an improvement over colonial and industrial times, which was an improvement over the dark feudal ages of Christendom, which was an improvement over pagan times. This is how history is taught in the West. We are better than the past as we have better laws ..

Published on 10th February, 2017 on www.scroll.in . Once upon a time, there was a girl who heard from all her relatives that her father was a loving and kind husband, father, son and friend, who died young under tragic circumstances. She grew up adoring this absent father. During her teenage years, the girl learned the police had killed her father in an encounter. That he was a murderer who tried to escape from jail during his trial. What was the truth, she wondered: was her father the good person of the stories she heard as a child, or was he the criminal as per ..