Caution: This blog is not for the silent, suffering spiritual slaves who are likely to find its contents offensive!! This article reflects my personal views and must not be construed as “anti-religious”!
Festivals are fun –but it’s also a time when our carefully –crafted world takes a turn for the bizarre!
On a certain pooja day, a colleague rushed into my room with a bowl of sandal wood paste and proceeded to smear it on the bookshelves, furniture and other inanimate objects with formidable fervor! Having nearly completed her task she came to my desk, stood menacingly, and was about to resume her smearing when I decided to protest.
She gave me a startled look, which soon gave way to a condescending snigger; translated it meant that sometime in the future she would be watching from Heaven while I gnashed my teeth in Hell in retaliation for the sacrilege ....!!
Another community act that evokes rash behavior is the “pumpkin act.” It is customary to see innocuous-looking pumpkins being used to ward off the “evil eye” after which they are ceremoniously smashed on the roads outside shops or homes. This has often led to fatal and near-fatal accidents, forcing the cops to ban the “act”! What a sorry state of affairs for a nutritious veggie originally created to serve a far nobler cause..!
At this point I need to draw your attention on to a religious sect whose members are constantly on the look -out for lost sheep. Once such a sheep is identified they trail him until he threatens them with dire consequences or, alternatively, decides to enter their fold (for want of anything better to do!!).
I happen to live in the same neighborhood where members of this sect meet every week and take immeasurable glee in bringing the roof down with their religious excesses. This went on for a while until tired neighbors with frayed nerves notified the police. Now the decibels have lowered, but the show goes on!
Yes, we are a secular land where everyone has freedom to express. But I personally believe that religious ‘expressions’ must never spill on to roads, offices or other public places and clog our lives, but must be confined to the precincts of our homes or other allotted premises !
Any public display of religious emotions, acts, symbols, verbiage or bravado must be strongly condemned. Zealots must be encouraged to practice the irrefutable doctrine of “mind-your-business-mend-your-soul-first” !
Given our current scenario there is no such thing as religious harmony—at best there can be religious tolerance which is akin to skating on thin ice!!
I am not saying that there should be no public places of worship---all that I’m suggesting is “please make them sound-proof”!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
A Belated Travelogue
I have never been very good at chronicling my life, despite being the proud owner of a diary!
Even as everyone I knew wrote about their new year revelries and produced photographic evidences of the same a fortnight ago , I lazed and sulked around in a mental mire.
The need to describe my year- end journey sprouted lately and I decided to lend life to it !
Travelling to Kerala is always an enriching experience – the bountiful beauty of the Western Ghats, its landscapes and waterscapes, its calmer lifestyles and cleaner surroundings can indeed be a balm to any wearied soul.
Outings were fun!
A trek was organized to explore the ill-explored regions of a near-by dam. It was infested with snakes -- we were warned-- but I had dealt with the deadlier, two-legged species earlier and on a comparative note these slithering creatures were slime-free. So we went, my cousins and I …..!
Then there was this unusual tryst with an assembly of pious and not-so-pious pachyderms-- a hair-raising experience, if any! It was both overwhelming and humbling at the same time!
Also went cruising on a lake up until a point where it met the sea. It was then that I felt that breath- taking beauty could sting…! There were shades of blue and velvety green all around . We stood out in our reds and blacks--- even wondered if we should be there..!
I was traversing a land where communism shakes hand with commercialism. There were ayurvedic resorts on small islands, where the rich and the famous could ease their worries and trim their waists by undergoing the pleasurable rigors of ayurveda.I was told it cost 17,000 rupees for a single day. …I swore I’l take to walking, and that too in right earnest!
Meeting relatives has always been a down- to- earth experience and I wished I could do it more often.
Good things come with a dead line and so it was with my vacation. I had to get back home- to Chennai.
Kerala was to me the land where my parents came from-- the land of my ancestors – and I always observed it through an alien’s eye. It was no different this time too.
I can, with ease, comprehend the angst of an ABCD, just that the latter’s confusion is compounded by geographical distance and cultural disconnect.
Strangely, this time, when I came back home , the sense of belonging was not palpable, although I wouldn’t say it was altogether missing.
Was it a kind of mental regression or is the COSMOS trying to tell me something…??
I’m yet to find out……
Even as everyone I knew wrote about their new year revelries and produced photographic evidences of the same a fortnight ago , I lazed and sulked around in a mental mire.
The need to describe my year- end journey sprouted lately and I decided to lend life to it !
Travelling to Kerala is always an enriching experience – the bountiful beauty of the Western Ghats, its landscapes and waterscapes, its calmer lifestyles and cleaner surroundings can indeed be a balm to any wearied soul.
Outings were fun!
A trek was organized to explore the ill-explored regions of a near-by dam. It was infested with snakes -- we were warned-- but I had dealt with the deadlier, two-legged species earlier and on a comparative note these slithering creatures were slime-free. So we went, my cousins and I …..!
Then there was this unusual tryst with an assembly of pious and not-so-pious pachyderms-- a hair-raising experience, if any! It was both overwhelming and humbling at the same time!
Also went cruising on a lake up until a point where it met the sea. It was then that I felt that breath- taking beauty could sting…! There were shades of blue and velvety green all around . We stood out in our reds and blacks--- even wondered if we should be there..!
I was traversing a land where communism shakes hand with commercialism. There were ayurvedic resorts on small islands, where the rich and the famous could ease their worries and trim their waists by undergoing the pleasurable rigors of ayurveda.I was told it cost 17,000 rupees for a single day. …I swore I’l take to walking, and that too in right earnest!
Meeting relatives has always been a down- to- earth experience and I wished I could do it more often.
Good things come with a dead line and so it was with my vacation. I had to get back home- to Chennai.
Kerala was to me the land where my parents came from-- the land of my ancestors – and I always observed it through an alien’s eye. It was no different this time too.
I can, with ease, comprehend the angst of an ABCD, just that the latter’s confusion is compounded by geographical distance and cultural disconnect.
Strangely, this time, when I came back home , the sense of belonging was not palpable, although I wouldn’t say it was altogether missing.
Was it a kind of mental regression or is the COSMOS trying to tell me something…??
I’m yet to find out……
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