Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
How Hinduism Reached Manipur and Remains Entrenched
Published on 22nd May, 2023, in Times of India. Manipuri dance is a popular classical dance in India, which shows Raas Leela of Krishna, a reminder that Vaishnav parampara and Krishna bhakti reached even the eastern most state of Manipur. Northeast India is full of hills and valleys, full of tribes, who have a contentious…
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Articles
The Hindu History of Bengal
Published on 6th May, 2023, in Times of India. When we talk about Bengal, we speak of its partition. The eastern part became Muslim Bangladesh, the western part became communist West Bengal. It almost seemed as if Hinduism had been wiped out in this eastern corner of India. Yet, this is where Hinduism was defined…
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Articles
Why East India’s Contribution to Hinduism Remains Forgotten
Published on 24th September, 2022, in Times of India. Whenever we talk about Hinduism of India, most of the attention is taken over by talk of North India, with Rajput lands to its west and Gangetic plains to its east. Attention then shifts to South India, followed by talk of the Aryan-Dravidian divide. Hardly any…
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Articles
History of Bharat in Seven Days
Published on 10th July, 2022, in Mid-day. When you compress India’s history to one week, we gain a rather delightful perspective of our past. Indian history from Harappan times till today is approximately 5,000 years, so each day of the week is approximately a period of 700 years. On Sunday, in Northwest India, farming appears.…
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Articles
Tales of Mandodari
Published on 15th May, 2022, in Mid-day. Lambodhara is the name given to Ganesha because he has a big belly. Damodhar is the name given to Krishna because a rope was tied by his mother around his waist to ensure the overactive toddler would not run too far away. Then there is the name Mandodari.…
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Articles
How Do We Know What’s History, Myth or Legend?
Published on 12th March, 2022, in Times of India. In ancient times, ‘itihasa’ meant stories ‘witnessed’ by the storytellers. So Ramayana is ‘itihasa’ because it was witnessed by Valmiki who wrote the story. Mahabharata is ‘itihasa’ because it was witnessed by Vyasa who wrote the story. The Brihaddevata is a Vedic text full of such…
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Articles
What Hindutva Doesn’t Get About Sanatan Dharma
Published on 7th January, 2022, in Times of India. Sanatan means something that is timeless. Dharma in colloquial parlance is religion. It can also mean culture and civilisation. So, sanatan dharma can mean “timeless civilisation”. In the Gita, Krishna describes the knowledge he shares as sanatana, timeless. Hindutva — a word that was invented in…
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Articles
Hindutva’s Caste Masterstroke
Published on 1st January, 2022, in The Hindu. Ever since erstwhile champions of secular values have begun differentiating between Hindu and Hindutvawadi, a whole lot of intellectuals are bristling. They are arguing how these nuanced metaphysical differentiations hold no relevance on the street. Mostly from the Hindu elite, these are the same scholars who will…
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Books
Bengali: How to Become Rich
Translated version of How to Become Rich: 12 Lessons I Learnt from Vedic and Puranic Stories …
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Articles
‘Thali’, ‘handi’, ‘paniki’
‘Thali’, ‘handi’, ‘paniki’: Unique Inventions of the Indian Kitchen by Women Who Remain Nameless Published on 26th June, 2021, in Economic Times. An Indian kitchen is a sacred place. Many people do not take footwear into the kitchen. They insist on taking a bath before commencing the activity of cooking. This reminds us that a…
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Articles
Hindutva: A Sampradaya, Not a Parampara
Published on 30th May, 2021, in Mid-day. The word Hindutva was invented by Chandranath Basu in Bengal in 1892. He was against the 19th Century reform movement popularly known as Hindu Renaissance led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who had coined the word ‘Hinduism’ in 1816. This period saw Dayanand Saraswati who said, ‘Back to…
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Articles
Were Hindus Ever Invaders?
Published on 30th January, 2021, in Mumbai Mirror. Hindutva keeps saying that Hindus never invaded foreign lands; that India has always been invaded. They speak mostly of Muslim invasion and ‘thousand years of slavery’ but rarely of Persian, Greek, Scythian, Kushan (Chinese) invasions that took place 2,000 years ago. And they completely ignore the invasion…
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Articles
Mythology of Bengali Pirs
Published on 24th January, 2021, in Mid-day. Islam reached Bengal somewhere in the 13th century. Mongol raids forced migration of Sufi Pirs, also known as Ghazi, from Iran via Delhi. They spread their faith, in regions that were far away from mainstream, where Hindu as well as Sultanate influence was sparse. These were lands recently…
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Articles
The Origins of Bharat Mata
Published on 22nd November, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. Every Indian village is personified as a grama-devi. So, we have Chandigarh associated with the goddess Chandi. Calcutta is associated with the goddess, Kali. Mumbai is associated with the goddess, Mumba Devi. The idea of Bharat-mata, the goddess of the Indian nation state, has roots in this…
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Articles
Was The Buddha Nepalese?
Published on 13th September, 2020, in Mid-day. Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, and has achieved great global success. We, Indians, want to identify him as Indian, although his entire achievement has been in America. Freddy Mercury was born in India, and denied his Indian roots all his life. But,…
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Articles
Was Ram Born In Ayodhya?
Published on 6th August, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. Devdutt Pattanaik, the author of The Book of Ram, answers some commonly asked questions. ♦ Was Ram actually born in Ayodhya? Hindus believe he was, just as Muslims believe Mecca is where Adam and Eve (Hawa) met after they were cast out of Eden, and Christians believe…