Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Tirupati: Playing dice with a god in debt
Debt or rina is a key concept in Hinduism… life is about ‘giving’ not about ‘taking’. Giving reduces debt and liberates us. Taking binds us to the world…
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Articles
The Bacchus of Bharat
On the fringes of mainstream Hinduism lie the stories of Kilkari Bhairava — raw and elemental, they deal with sex and violence…
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Articles
Worshipping the womb
At a time when any public discussion of genitalia evokes shame, goddess Kamakhya celebrates a woman’s fertility and desire…
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Articles
Temples of death
The city of Ujjain with 84 shrines dedicated to the destroyer, ultimately venerates the unending cycle of life and the immortality of the soul…
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Articles
Moved by bhakti
Pilgrims make the long journey to Pandharpur singing songs of revolution, their affection for Mother Krishna syncopated to a beat of social reform…
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Articles
The everlasting flame
The agiary is off limits to non-Parsis, but the basis of the exclusion may be common to the Vedas and the Avesta…
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Articles
A ritual cleansing
Notions of reform are often based on ‘assumptions of deformity’, which are dependent on ‘assumptions of normality’…
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Articles
Shrine a light
That a Muslim tomb is the most popular image of India may exasperate some but the Taj Mahal is emblematic of the many kinds of pilgrimages we undertake…