Tag Archives: In the name of Dharma

Tolerance – do we know what it means?

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This post was written about a year ago – but posted today, when this issue has come up again in my son’s circle of friends.

Whenever someone tells me that our culture is old and rich, I shrug.  Whenever someone tells me that we are a non-violent and satyagrahi country, it makes me want to puke.  Whenever someone says that we are understanding ……. I look at them with disbelief.  The fact is that we are racist, bigots and narrow minded.

I was surfing the net for some strength to face certain truths about myself…. and I came upon this, The Museum of Tolerance, and it brought tears into my eyes.  I was quite complacent and proud of myself because I do not practise intolerance.  Its a big step – since I was born and brought up a Jain.  Jains grow up feeling that they are blessed, because after doing good karmas for many many lives, they get to be born a Jain, which is the best of the human race.  We are almost divine – so our religion teaches us.  And if we follow all the precepts of the religion, we will definitely attain moksha.  Its pretty far out.  Any way I am a lapsed Jain, a sinner, so I am not superior and will definitely undergo many more cycles of life.  My live in help eats out of the same utensils we do, and I do not do things like get cheaper rice or stuff for him.  Non vegetarian food is cooked and consumed in our home, yes even on a Tuesday – all days are the same for us.  It does not matter to me what religion is being followed by my friends and loved ones.

So I thought I was tolerant – but am I?  Kid#1 has a friend who is gay.  He had never declared it – so we did not know.  Apparently his younger sibling opened his mail box and snooped into his emails and private stuff and found out…… and told their parents.  They live about two houses away.  The parents did not take it well at all.  The father actually slapped his son and told him “My son is dead for me”.  The boy came to talk to me, for some emotional support.  I said all the sympathetic things, but deep inside me was a feeling of relief that my son is not gay.  I was actually happy that I did not have to face this.  This is how tolerant I am.  I think I have gone quite a few steps down in my own self-estimation.

One of my best male friends was gay and it did not bother me.  He was the sweetest guy I knew.  This friend of Kid#1 is a loving affectionate and polite boy.  But when it came close to me and my family, it simply freaked me out.  All men are created equal irrespective of caste, creed, colour, religion and sexual orientation.  Yes I believe this and hate reading news about nuns being raped or Moslems being discriminated against.

The single most meaningful exhibit in this Museum building was the one dedicated to the civil rights movement – one of the most volatile and emotional periods in American history. A wall of large monitors at the exhibit reflects images and video from that period: African-American men and women being sprayed with fire hoses, hit with clubs, and hung from tree limbs by people who refused to believe all men are created equal.  We as a country are too hypocritical and cowardly.  We will bury this period somewhere deep and refuse to believe it ever happened …. and hope and pray that our children and loved ones do not force us to face our own narrow mindedness.

Today this issue came up again.  The boy has been given an ultimatum – to either become “normal” or leave home.  What is normal anyway?  Why is homosexuality such a bad word?  Why can’t we let these people co-exist peacefully – just because they are not like us?  Who says heterosexuals make great members of the society or parents?  Where is the outrage about the children who suffer as a result of divorce, infidelity, abuse, and other “crimes” perpetrated by heterosexual couples? Are we to believe that even those kids are better off than those who would be raised by two loving parents who happen to have the same plumbing?  And why don’t I freak out so much on facing lesbians?  Just because I have sons and not daughters?

I have no answers … I wonder if any one does?

Do read this on the same subject

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty

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I have two sons and no daughter.  I felt very discriminated about this because I really wanted a girl child.  I had this burning desire in me to show my family how a girl child should be given confidence and empowered.  I had visions of how I would bring her up, how I would not be bothered if she wanted to fly kites, play marbles or climb trees along with her story book and spend time reading on the branch of a tree.  I was scolded and beaten up for doing that.   But unfortunately this was not to be.

Life happened and I have had no time to actively participate in any kind of programme but I contribute to this charity and hope it makes a difference.  I am a guardian to one girl child and fund her education.  At least it keeps one little one off the streets.  Do visit the website.

A visit to the temple

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I visit the temple every day during Navratri.  The positive vibrations and the piety of the devout is so energising.  I also like the feeling of the “Do It Yourself” kind of thing.  While the priest is busy chanting his mantras (on the mike) the devotees do their own worship unsupervised.  Once I have done my own prayers, I like to look for her.  She is impossible to miss, you know and over the past few years its become a game with me to spot her.  She is in every temple or place of worship these days ……. ………

I am sure you would have spotted her too, every neighbourhood has one …. ….. ….

She is the one who puts brakes on the pious aspirations of every male devout.  They cant seriously atone, as she wordlessly says, “Seriously dude, there’s plenty of living and sinning to be done yet, before atoning”.  She is inappropriately dressed in clothes that are a tad too revealing for the holy temple precincts.  This time she was wearing a blue semi transparent (short v. short) kurti whose front buttons were on vacation and tight figure hugging jeans, smart goggles hung on the neck and when she knelt in front of Sheran Waali Maa, I could sense the mood of the devotees switch from “Hey Sheran Waali Maati, Teri Sada Hi Jai” to “Oye Hoye”, as the goggles and gravity did their job.

Seriously though, I do not think it was coveting, I think it was healthy appreciation for the well packaged bundle of feminine youthfulness put on display.    There was a paradigm shift in the mood of the men in the temple which was noticeable.

I think I learnt a very important lesson of life right then and there (ummm somewhere in the unbuttoned neck line of her kurti).  Life is to be lived NOW.  Religion, God, worship and moksh will happen when we are ready for it.  First we have to clear this level and graduate further.

Thank you Blue Kurti waali Menaka of our neighbourhood.

Ravan – Sinner or sinned against

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We have this ritual that I started when the kids were small.  I would take them to the Ram Lila grounds early in the day where they could see huge Ravans being constructed.  They would get under the effigies, peer into the hollow bodies and then watch the fireworks being stuffed inside.  They had fun, and I could avoid the evening visit and the risk of getting trampled by the crowds.  Lots of people came in the morning, did Ravan poojan and there would be a priest over there who distributed prasad to the devotees.  This was new to me and I started asking questions. 

Ravana

Ravana

Apparently Ravan, the antagonist in Ramayana was truly neither God or demon.   Ravana’s great-grandfather was Brahma, a deity. His grandmother was a demon. Ravana’s father was a sage and his mother was a rakshasa – a type of demon.  So, he had both bloodlines, but was fully neither.  When I asked devotees at the Ramlila Grounds, they said that they came to pay their respects to a learned person, a power infatuated human who was a great scholar but lost his way somewhere along the line.  He was a worshipper of Lord Shiva not a god himself. He is called a demon because of his acts….. or rather his pride in his learning and power became too much and led to his downfall.

You know what I think?  I think he got bad press.  Here is a man or superman or whatever … he loved this lady (so what if she was married) and tried his darnedest to win her over, staked his entire kingdom and life to do so and lost.  Of course it was shocking lapse of judgement on his part to abduct the lady, but he was angry at the mutilation of his own sister.  I don’t think there are any blacks and whites in this tale – there were too many grey areas glossed over.

I have heard of another book called the Ravayana which tells the story from the other side.  I wonder if any one has read it?

Do you know Ravan is a DC Comics villian?  Check it out.

LHC and organised religion

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There is a heated debate going on every where about LHC.  On Day one of the experiment, doomsday experts freaked out and predicted that the world is going to end, fence sitters adopted a wait and see approach and organised religions went into a tizzy.  I am against organised religion and rituals.  I dont like to have people butting in and trying to teach me how to talk to my God.  Besides, I am not entirely sure that God doesnt have his/her own agenda, and we dont feature to high on his To Do list.  This belief settled in when I was in Class III and had to take a Geography test.  There were some fill-in-the blanks to do, and the question was:

Nile flows through _________

and Chump that I am, I filled in Italy.  I was a big fan of the Roman Empire and Pizza I guess.  Well I prayed, was a good girl and even helped my mother in the house.  But no amount of bending over backwards got that answer to change.  My mother gave me hell when the test papers got marked and had to be signed.  Was I angry or what?  Now in retrospect, I feel that God has plenty of fish to fry and one little girl’s butt ranks way down on the heavenly agenda.

If the LHC proves succesful, I wonder if religions of this world will experience a whole lot of debunking?  My fear is that it won’t.  Religion will just transform, backpedal and adjust itself to the new situation.  The sad truth is that religion never dies, much like any other virus.   We will still have bigots who will be instrumental in causing a lot of death and misery, all in the name of God

Ditches

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I have a history with ditches … the bad kind.  When I was a kid, one of our neighbours grew a whole lot of baingan in her kitchen garden, and then distributed to harvest to all the families unlucky enough to live near her house (rather generously I might add!)  It did not go down well with us kids – who wants to eat baingan in various forms every single day.  So the entire tribe of kids got together one sleepy afternoon and we plucked all the damn brinjals and threw them into a small pond a largish ditch full of water and ran off to our various homes.  Of course our crime did not go unpunished.  The damn brinjals floated to the surface, and we got royally spanked.  Yeah, I hate ditches.

Recently, while I was getting our home constructed, I made a habit of driving early in the morning to the site and bullying the contractor and the builder.  Soon both of them made a point of disappearing as soon as they spotted my car.  The poor labourers did not have that option, and had to bear the brunt of my anger.  Soon they had their revenge.  Right in the front, where now we have our front lawn, they had dug a huge area, which was full of wet soil.  To avoid the muddy water, they had placed planks and bricks.  I walked into the house, and blew my top.  Those idiots had used cracked floor tiles and it looked ugly!  I raved and I ranted and walked out in a queenly huff…. ….. Yeah you guessed it, ……….. right into the muddy ditch – fully clothed, with my mobile phone, etc etc.  The labourers hauled me out, and while I was spluttering and trying to recover, they picked up a pipe and hosed me down.  Somehow, while blushing with embarassment, I stuttered my thanks and slunked off to my car, desperately hoping to avoid notice.  But there was no escape. The contractor, who I had not seen on the site for the entire week, suddenly materialised,  followed me to the car with a huge bundle of old newspapers, and said in (I am sure totally false sympathy) Madamji, the seat will get dirty, please sit on these papers!  Speechless, I just accepted the darn newspapers, dumped them on the seat, parked my ass on them and fled.  Damn ditches!!

The ditches have struck once more.  My office net is not working.  The authorities have woken up to the fact that we do not have adequate stormwater drainage – so the roads are all dug up, and somewhere in the damn ditches is my office internet connection.  I am suffering major withdrawal symptoms and its all because of the ditches!

I think I should get a pooja organised, to appease the Lord of the Ditches.  Some divine intervention is desperately needed