Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book back in 2018 to explore the paradoxes that constitute the man called Narendra Modi. Paradoxes dominate present Indian politics. One of them is what’s called the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS). What constitute the paradox here are two parallel realities: one genuinely valuable, and the other deeply regressive. The contributions of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta to mathematics, Panini to linguistics, Vedanta to philosophy, and Ayurveda to medicine are genuine traditions that may deserve due attention. But there’s a hijacked version of IKS which is a hilariously, if not villainously, political project. Much of what is now packaged as IKS in government documents, school curricula, and propaganda includes mythological claims treated as historical facts, pseudoscience (e.g., Ravana’s Pushpaka Vimana as a real aircraft or Ganesha’s trunk as a product of plastic surgery), astrology replacing astronomy, ritualism replacing reasoning, attempts to invent the r...
We visited Bhoothathankettu last week only. It is one of the three places that we keep visiting, Bhoothathankettu, PaniyeliPoru and Ezhattumugham are those three as all three of them are easy to reach and so similar. Bhoothathankettu, due to its proximity, is like the first real tourist place I visited multiple times during childhood.And that tree is quite the one to catch one's attention, so is the cave and the swing, right? Is the fallen tree also there on the way?
ReplyDeleteYes, the tree is still lying on the way though not obstructing the path.
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