Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Gender Fluidity In Hinduism
Who is a Hindu? Gender fluidity in Hinduism Published on 2nd August, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. Greek mythology focuses a lot on same-sex love: love between men and men, women and women and between men and boys i.e. inter-generational love. Hindu mythology focuses on transgenders — men who turn into women and women who turn…
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Articles
Middle Eastern Mythologies
Published on 12th July, 2020, in Mid-day. The Middle East includes Mesopotamia (Iraq), the area watered by the Euphrates and Tigris. To its East is Persia (Iran); to its South is Arabia; to the West is Levant (Near East); and to the North is Anatolia (Turkey). Egypt is also included in the Middle East due…
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Articles
How ‘Breaking India’ Started
WHO IS A HINDU? How ‘breaking India’ started. Published on 7th June, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. At the heart of Hindutva is the idea that Hinduism is under threat from external and internal forces and they must be countered at any cost. The proponents of Hindutva are wary of Muslims and Christians and Dalits, but…
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Articles
Why Hindus Should Read Islamic Mythology
Who Is A Hindu? Why Hindus should read Islamic mythology. Published on 24th May, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. People often challenge me to write on Islamic mythology. These ‘challengers’ don’t realise is that Wikipedia already has an entry called Islamic mythology. And in academic circles, people speak of Islamic, Christian and Judaic mythology as freely…
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Articles
Islam’s Agricultural Contribution
Published on 17th April, 2020, in the Economic Times Nabi Bansa is a Bengali epic written over 300 years ago that narrates the tales of Islamic prophets. Here we are told that when Adam was cast out of Eden, he fell to Serendib, the island of Sri Lanka, and then walked across what we now…
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Articles
Aryans of the Freedom Struggle
Published on 15th March, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror The British had long justified colonisation using different stories. Before the 1857 Uprising, they said British were saving Hinduism from oppression of Muslim rulers. They propagated the lie that they were using Indian soldiers in Afghanistan not for Company interests but to get the doors of the…
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Articles
Mapping mythology, history and art with Wendell Rodricks
Published on 3rd March, 2020 in The Hindu I find it hard to believe that Wendell is gone. The news was a shock. But then, Wendell has always surprised me. From his habit of waking up very early in the morning, to living his life confidently and openly with his husband, Jerome, giving courage and…
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Articles
How Evangelical Models Inspire Hindu Gurudoms
Published on 1st March, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror For many people, ‘guru’ is no different from a church elder, or even a prophet. Just as a prophet has direct access to God and communicates God’s will to people, many people believe that their guru has direct access to the divine and presents the wisdom of…
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Articles
Seven Abrahamic influences on contemporary Hinduism
Published on 2nd February, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror When someone passes away and people say, Rest in Peace, or RIP, they are being part of a paradigm where death is followed by waiting in purgatory till the final day of Judgement, a concept found in Christianity and Islam. In Hinduism, the soul does not rest…
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Articles
Mythology of White Hindus
Published on 5th January, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror We may claim to be free of colonial rule, but we are still spellbound by Caucasian people. We link their skin to beauty and power. So it is not great surprise that Hindus seek validation of their faith from Caucasian scholars and converts. We place great value…
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Books
Behold, I Make All Things New : How Judaism, Christianity and Islam affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities
In 2015, a historic panel discussion took place at the global Festival of Theology held in Sweden. Its objective was to examine what the sacred texts of the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — had to say about human sexuality. Behold, I Make All Things New is the outcome of the effort. This…
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Articles
Messaging Modes – Hearing, Overhearing
Published on 29th December, 2019, in the Economic Times In Abrahamic mythology, God communicates with humanity through messengers. Judaism informs us how God spoke to Moses, Christianity informs us how God spoke to Jesus, and Islam informs us how God speaks to many prophets from Adam onwards to the final Prophet Muhammad. Messengers hear God’s…
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Articles
Hindu Conversion: A New Idea
Published on 22nd December, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror Once, Hinduism was inclusive, and memorising hymns didn’t turn you into an ‘instant Brahmin’ Christianity and Islam spread through conversion. A Christian missionary comes to the village and speaks of the virtues of monotheism, and the shortcomings of polytheism. An Islamic teacher turns people away from jahiliyyah,…
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Articles
Spot the difference between sign and symbol
Published on 16th December, 2019, in The Hindu The symbol of India in Indian passports and Indian currency notes has been a lion and a spoked-wheel or chakra, both from the Ashoka pillar. Now the government has introduced the lotus on the passport, as part of security measures, we are told, to be replaced by…
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Articles
Love in simplified Chinese is without a heart
Published on 18th October, 2019, in Economic Times In China, there are many dialects and a lot of diversity; however, everyone is united by the use of the single script. You can read the same script, in different languages but arrive at the same meaning. This is unlike Indian scripts, where even if different languages…
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Articles
Equating Paganism With Hinduism
Published on 11th August, 2019. in Mid-day Christian missionaries used the word ‘pagan’ and ‘heathen’ to derogatorily describe all non-monotheistic pre-Christian religions that indulged in nature and idol worship. Hinduism came under this category. Today, many Hindutva followers want to reclaim the word ‘pagan’ for Hinduism. Let us first understand the meaning of these words.…