Skip to main content

Bastards, Saints and India


This cartoon fascinated me.  Just like most cartoons in The Hindu, this too unfolds the infinity before us, the ordinary mortals.

The sadhu and the sadhvi are supposed to live a life of renunciation.  They should be somewhere in the Himalayas braving the snow and the landslides.  Or in some jungle covered with a gargantuan anthill.  Acquiring the wisdom that they failed to acquire in the normal course of life.  Instead they are in the Indian Parliament calling some Indians bastards.   

The Parliamentary proceedings in India have been stalled for days because of one such saintly woman who became a sadhvi by climbing up the elevator of success with the help of the Prime Minister rather than climbing up the arduous stairs of austerity and contemplation.  Or plain hard work like a few of us Indians.

In the meanwhile the government of India, under Mr Modi’s dynamic leadership, had already cut down Rs 11,000 crore from the Education budget.  Education is not important.  Becoming a sadhu or a sadhvi may help.  (Sanskrit is important in that process.)  Becoming a trader will help better.  Becoming a politician will surely help.

I am a bastard teacher in this country.  Bastard, because I belong to that category  officially designated by Sadhvi Niranjana Jyoti, Union Minister appointed by Mr Narendra Modi.  Teacher, because that is my profession for the last three decades. 

Thank you, Prime Minister, for giving such wonderful laurels to your citizens.   

But look at the cartoon once again, please.  The halo keeps changing even before the people are dead.  Today’s hero is destined to be tomorrow’s bastard, especially in your regime. 

Comments

  1. It was indeed a humiliating and embarrassing remark from a Parliamentarian. Wonder if future parliamentarians will have people from all factions except the smart and educated class.

    Teachers are next to parents and there's hardly any respect to this profession unfortunately.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even if one is not highly educated, one can be civilised, I'm sure. A sadhvi has to be more than civilised. Such remarks coming from a sadhu or sadhvi make us sit up in shock.

      The profession of teaching was mentioned only to imply that I consider it my identity. Such identities are also under threat these days, it looks like.

      Delete
  2. That is too unfortunate about the slashing of budget for core sectors. Really worried what negative effect this is going lead to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm afraid Mr Modi has got his priorities all wrong. He may bring in some economic achievements and also succeed in making Pakistan a more intimidating enemy. Beyond that, he is likely to do a lot of harm to the country - that's my perception.

      Delete
  3. we beat ourselves in derogatory remarks, uncouthness and barbarism ... corruption, misdemeanour and not being human ko to hum bahut pehle hi peeche chod aayen hai... it one of the many the lowest of lows which we can go ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Perhaps, it is more about winning Brownie points, Kokila. I think the BJP workers are vying with one another to get noticed by the PM who has already become a Superman. They are making such statements merely to get his approval. He opposes such statements in public but appreciates them privately, I guess. See the kind of people whom he promotes to higher positions.

      Delete
  4. I was so impressed with our prime minister when he spoke to the students of our country on teachers day. I have no shame in admitting that I like our PMs style of working. This time though I am at a loss of words, how does it make sense in cutting the budget? Teachers are already paid peanuts, there aren't enough schools and now this budget cut. Working when kids are small is important for us to have a good set of citizens, this cut is going to harm us in many ways, specially our future.

    Sadhu and Sadhvis in today's world are people who are entire caught in every aspect of every sin, but they wear the saffron color and are given respect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Priorities are changing, Athena, as I commented above.

      Religion is a commercial enterprise today. Nothing to do with spirituality. See the ways Babas are being exposed.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Life of a Transgender

Book Review Title: From Manjunath to Manjamma Authors: B Manjamma Jogathi with Harsha Bhat Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 Pages: 171 I had an aversion towards the transgender people I met on the trains during my frequent travels as a younger man. These people came across as rude and vulgar. They would enter the train compartment in a large group, clapping hands loudly, waking up sleeping passengers and insisting on being given generous alms. They would go to the extent of hectoring the passengers, even making physical intrusions like poking and caressing body parts that we won’t let strangers touch. Reading Arundhati Roy’s novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , a few years ago, made me look at transpersons with some empathy. Anjum, the transperson protagonist, is also a Muslim. Double alienation. Anjum is an undesirable citizen of the country by virtue of being a transperson who is also a Muslim. She is pushed out of the mainstream literally and driven to living i

Hate Politics

Illustration by Copilot Hatred is what dominates the social media in India. It has been going on for many years now. A lot of violence is perpetrated by the ruling party’s own men. One of the most recent instances of venom spewed out by none other than Mithun Chakraborty would shake any sensible person. But the right wing of India is celebrating it. Seventy-four-year-old Chakraborty threatened to chop the people of a particular minority community into pieces. The Home Minister Amit Shah was sitting on the stage with a smile when the threat was issued openly. A few days back, a video clip showing a right-winger denying food to a Muslim woman because she refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’ dominated the social media. What kind of charity is it that is founded on hatred? If you go through the social media for a while, you will be astounded by the surfeit of hatred there. Why do a people who form the vast majority of a country hate a small minority so much? Hatred usually comes from some

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation

Trapped in Pandora’s Shadows

Anjana Alphons George I wanted this to be a guest post from a former student. However, getting this poem from Anjana Alphons George wasn’t quite easy. So this is going to be a hybrid of the guest and the host coming together like the waves and the intertidal zone in the ocean. “I’ve become your fan,” I said to Anjana. She was in grade 10. I wasn’t teaching her since my classes were confined to grades 11 and 12. It was a few years back. Anjana had delivered a speech in the weekly morning assembly. Her speech was entirely different from all the speeches of students I had ever listened to. It sounded impromptu. It carried feelings from the heart. Convictions, rather. It was motivational. Inspiring. It moved goosebumps on my skin. “Your speech was splendid,” I told her when I met her on the corridor later in the day. She became my student in grades 11 and 12 and I watched her grow up into intellectual and emotional maturity. When I asked her to write a guest post on my blog, I ha