Secular

Published on 24th December, 2017, in Mumbai Mirror. The Hindutva brigade despises Christian missionaries, though Hindus have always valued missionary schools. Secular media would like to reduce Hindutva attacks on missionaries into a simple villain-victim narrative, but those interested in going deeper will realise it has much to do with the incompatibility of their respective mythologies. Missionaries speak of One God and rejection of ‘false’ gods. They cannot accommodate multiple manifestations of the divine. By contrast, Hinduism celebrates diversity, many gods, which some people view as polytheism and others as qualified monotheism where the same one God manifests as multiple gods. A Hindu has no ..

Published on 7th February, 2016, in Mumbai Mirror. Long ago I saw a film called Lal Patthar. It tells the story of a rich, educated and bored man, played by the dashing Raj Kumar, who marries a village girl, played by the gorgeous Hema Malini, and as part of their honeymoon takes her to Taj Mahal, that global pilgrimage of lovers and romantics. But to his surprise, she does not share his admiration of this monument of love, this 'tear drop on the cheeks of time'. She calls it a 'tomb', and runs out because she feels polluted and has to take a bath. It ..