Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
How Call me By Your Name reclaims Eden for gay people everywhere
Luca Guadagnino’s Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name, with brilliant use of narrative, visuals and music…
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India’s New Age gurus believe sexuality may be fluid – but not brutal structures of caste, gender
They have fine-tuned Indian philosophy to pacify middle-class guilt about wealth and power while amplifying guilt over pleasure that could disrupt social norms…
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Ireland’s mythology tells us why it is not surprising that its next PM is the son of an immigrant
Leo Varadkar, whose father is Indian and mother Irish, was voted leader of the country’s main governing party recently…
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The big question: Is yoga for power or fitness, wisdom or devotion?
Today, any understanding of yoga is often obscured by a grand media war to dominate the discourse on yoga…
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How to spot a lesbian in sacred Indian art
Is it our discomfort with homosexuality that makes us believe that it cannot be part of the sacred?…
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How Adi Shankaracharya united a fragmented land
Is our current understanding of Shankara contaminated by the ambitions of his not-so-intellectual followers who relish the idea of domination?…
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Feudal trap: Why do Indians fear prostitutes and traders?
We yearn for loyalty and are afraid of those who sell their skills and expertise to the highest bidder…
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What are Vedic values, aka ‘Indian Ethos’ of the Hindus?
We are all in between, hopefully moving towards dharma and atma…
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The hermit’s smile: How celibacy, non-violence and purity work to establish patriarchy in India
Of these, purity is the most lethal as it is here where we find the seed of the inhuman practice of untouchability…
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Food is truth: What the Hindu gods are given to eat and why
Excerpted from Devlok with Devdutt Pattanaik, based on the TV show, Penguin Books…
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How a new akhara of transgendered people stole the spotlight at the Ujjain Kumbh
Thousands of devotees lined up to seek the blessings of the kinnar order…
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Passport shame: What’s really at the heart of the California textbook row on Hinduism?
It is a battle that will not die down, for it reveals a great split in the Indian American community…
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Are Indian courts and activists denying the gods their gender and sexuality?
This de-sexing of gods and goddesses makes it difficult to explain the exclusion of women from the presence of celibate gods…
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A mythology checklist: Are you Left or Right?
India’s best-known mythologist has a checklist to identify the leanings of people. Which category do you fall into?…
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Articles
Why is Ram misogynist, but not the Buddha?
The world is conditioned to see the Ramayana and Manu-Smriti as anti-women, but not the Buddhist lore…
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Superstition and the inherent cruelty of rationalists
Rationality, secularism, religion, and superstition are parts of the same continuum called culture…