RIFLE RANGE BOY

Benzaiten, Japanese equivalent to the diety Saraswati. Saraswati Pooja used to be a vital feature in our household in childhood. The highlight of the whole event was placing our textbooks and getting the blessings of Goddess Saraswati. Thinking we would perform better in studies with Her blessings was naive. Amma did not fail to gently remind us that praying would not make us pass exams. We needed to put in the hours and concentration. There was no substitute for education; it was our key to happiness. Every Saraswati Pooja reminds me of my childhood of respecting books and learned individuals, irrespective of their teaching styles or content. Then I questioned myself: Can smut be given the same recognition if presented in book form? With all the ill effects that come out of the web but nullified by all the good things it spreads, does it still qualify as a learning tool? I soon realised that the spirit of Saraswati is the zest of reinforcing to immerse oneself into the ocean of knowle...

Adipurush (Primordial Human, 2023) Director: Om Raut Growing up immersed in many devotional movies, I concluded they were all too uninspiring. I remember Dasavaratham (1976) was a bore with song after song. Then some stories were unbelievable, like Aathi Parasakthi   (1971), where a new moon day becomes full with the Goddess' divine intervention. I was not impressed. I was seeking a scientific explanation, which I have yet to find.   As an adult, I was once called bewildered by a Christmas production by a local church. It was produced, choreographed, stage-managed, and sound-checked all by the teenage members of its church. And the musical accompaniment was theirs too. Now, I told myself, that is what draws (or keeps) members in their fold. It fulfilled their contemporary needs - staying attuned to the times and keeping them 'entertained'. That was where it stood. Hindu narratives remained myths, and the hidden life lessons were lost in translation. Times have changed, and ...

Gauri There it was, another family celebration and another tête-à-tête with my favourite uncle. Whilst the rest were immersed in their revelry, we were pretty engaged in our own private discourse - with him looking for someone to impart his 85-year old life experiences, and I, just listening and sometimes trying to tease more out of him. This time around, we discussed the role of the significant other in the family, among many things. This post is what transpired out of that. They say that behind every man's success, there is a woman. Many are quick to quip that behind their every fall, there is another, the other woman. Women have the uncanny ability to create as well as to destroy. With the biological assets that they are endowed with, they can create, nurture and sustain life with their tenacity and ever-embracing progestogenic demeanour, like a mother hen, able to hide her chicklings under my wings away from the prancing eagle. And they will protect their little ones with the ...

Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (1992) Ram Swarup The thought of my simple-minded mother heartbroken over her beloved son's conversion from his birth religion into an Abrahamic religion was deterrent enough for me to maintain the status quo. The vision of her disappearing into the horizon as I am saved by the second coming of Christ at the end of times and the image of her burning in hellfire whilst I, because of my foresightedness in following the Shepard, savouring the sweet nectar of bliss was just too much for me to stomach.   I cannot blame her for feeling the way she felt. After all, it is her life experience. In her eyes, as the script of Ram Swarup's view suggests, there is no reason to embrace another religion as the Hindu religion has it all. It has been around since the beginning of time. There must be a reason why unlike the other new kids of the block, its philosophy of living in harmony with our inner self, the environment and the cosmos resonates with other...

Hindu Society Under Siege (1981) Sita Ram Goel Hindu culture has a very long history. Its history goes back beyond 2500 BC. Recent astronomical calculations as referred to Valmiki's description of planetary constellations during Lord Rama's date of birth ascertained his birth as 5114 BC. Similarly, Mahabharata's account of Krishna's birth puts his date of delivery as 3228 BC. Suppose the scriptures and old temples were anything to go by, nothing stops us from assuming that Bharat indeed had a highly developed civilisation long before any Western force set foot in the land beyond the Indus Valley.  Being the accommodating hosts and the inquisitive philosophers there were, they embraced all cultures with open arms. In the quest in search of the eternal truth, they accepted other routes towards this end.  Over the generations, the visitors have tried to impress upon the hosts of their superiority and demean India's age-old traditions. According to the auth...