Where I ramble about religion

The term "against our culture" puzzles me.

I'm not the most religious person around, but I grew up reading every single Amar Chitra Katha comic I could lay my hands on (including one memorable Delhi Book Fair where I spent my entire allowance on all the ACK comics at the first stall, and got them bound into three volumes), as well as C. Rajagopalachari's versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata, so I feel like I know something about the stories of Hindu mythology, if nothing else.

And the thing that always struck me about our mythology is how flawed our Gods are. You look at everything Indra did, sometimes for nothing other than pride. Krishna, Shiva, Rama - they've all done things that not everyone would say was the right thing to do. Sometimes they regretted and/or atoned for their actions, sometimes they didn't. But I feel like our Gods were a lot more tolerant than anyone gives them credit for.

I've also been to a few churches and attended a few sermons in my life - probably understood them a lot better than any puja I might have gone for too. And a common thread I've always heard in them is that it doesn't matter what you've done in your life, as long as you believe in God and accept Him in your life, you will be accepted by him into Heaven. Which always feels like a bit of a cop out to me, but also convinces me that if there is a God out there, or a gazillion of them, he/they is/are a lot more accepting and human than us mere mortals.

I've heard the phrase "against Indian culture" being countered by examples of sculptures and writings from ancient times. But for those who use religion as an argument to not accept something about a person, you need to go back and remember how accepting your religion really is.

Because our gods were flawed. And heck of a lot more tolerant than those who claim to follow them.

Of squirrels and their stripes

The story goes that when Rama and his Vanara sena were building a bride to get to Lanka, a squirrel appeared out of nowhere and decided to help them, by taking one tiny pebble at a time and adding it to the bridge. The monkeys and bears of the Vanara sena saw this and started mocking and laughing at the squirrel, because y'know, how can that tiny thing help?

Rama, on the other hand, in his infinite wisdom and kindness and all of that, picked up the squirrel to thank it and and stroked it, which led to stripes appearing on the squirrel's back.

I had read this story years and years ago, but it came back to me last year when I came to the US and was startled to see these non-stripy squirrels all over the place. And now, every time I see a squirrel, I remember this legend.

Squirrel. It's a fun word. And a fun animal to watch.

Good Lord

I think more than the actual ruling itself, I am far more startled by the comments in response to this article. Why do I seem to be the only one who seems unable to see the "secular" aspect of this ruling?

I'm a Hindu, yes. But no, I have never read the Bhagvad Gita. As a child, I religiously followed - pun completely unintended - Mahabharata every Sunday morning, except for when the Gita was going on. Which meant for at least six Sundays in a row, I could get up late.
I don't think I've ever even seen a copy of the Gita. Unless you count the Amar Chitra Katha comic version of it. And even that I just flipped through without ever reading the whole thing.

And you're talking of making this our national "dharam shastra"?

Come to think of it, what the devil does "dharam shastra" mean anyhow?

[Link courtesy India Uncut]

Tell me...

How do you translate lajja into English? Shame? Embarassment? Coyness? Shyness? They're all close, but not quite the thing.

Lajja is one of those things which, without intending to sound be discriminatory in any way, is probably a characteristic found in Asian women. I really doubt that any, say for example American woman would ever experience the feeling of lajja.

Legend has it that the demons Shambu and Nishambu were once given a boon that no man could kill them. As a result, as demons are prone to do, they went on a rampage and started killing pretty much everyone they came across. The Devas, as they are prone to do, went into a panic. Luckily for them, they managed to find a loophole. You see, the boon said no man could kill them. So what did the Gods do? They went to the Goddess Durga and asked her to do something about the situation.

That was when Goddess Kali was born from Durga's forehead as Kal Bhoi Nashini to save heaven and earth from the demons. After killing the demons, however, she lost control (and I have no idea why) and started killing anyone who came her way. So this time, the Gods went to her husband, Lord Shiv to ask him to stop her. He went and lay down in the forest she was walking in. While walking around in a rage, she stepped on his chest, and suddenly came to her senses. Realizing she had stepped on her husband, she stuck out her tongue in lajja.

So tell me, how do you translate lajja into English?

Fleeting moments in time...

I heard a beautiful analogy today (well, yesterday). Which I am now going to make a hash of as I clumsily attempt to explain it to you.

You know that dumroo Lord Shiva holds in his hand? Apparently, it is representative of time. One side of the dumroo represents the past, while the other represents the future. The string in the centre with something at either end indicates the present.

So what happens is, when you shake the dumroo, the things at either end of the string hit the two sides and make beats, right? That, my friends, is indicative of the present's relationship with the past and the future. What it indicates (and which was the whole point of the class discussion that led to this being mentioned) is that just as the string connects with the two sides only fleetingly, the present has a very minor relationship with the past and the future. Bottom line is, live in the present and don't worry so much about what has gone by or what will come.

You know, that sounded so much nicer when my professor told us about it.