When Arif Mohammed Khan becomes a Hindu

Pic from Manorama

Arif Mohammad Khan, the governor of Kerala, declared himself a Hindu yesterday while addressing the Hindu Conclave at Thiruvananthapuram. The term Hindu is not religious but geographical, he asserted with his characteristic disarming smile. ‘Hindu’ is a geographical term denoting the people of a region, the whole of India.

I was excited. Patriotism surged in my veins. Goosebumps embraced my entire body. I am a Hindu, I said to myself. Now I can enter the temple which has been denying entry to famous people like K J Yesudas because of the temple authority’s ignorance about what ‘Hindu’ means. ‘No entry for non-Hindus,’ says a board outside that temple (and many other temples in Kerala). But my governor gave me hope. So I went to the temple.

The board is still there. The temple looks slightly different from usual. The crowd is less and there are a lot of police around. Something is wrong, I can see. Maybe, Mr Khan has inspired a lot of other Indians like me and there is some security problem for the Lord Krishna, the presiding deity of the temple.

I notice a helicopter in the playground of the nearby college. Soon I learn that the son of the richest man in the world [that title keeps switching from person to person] is here along with his fiancée. No devotee will be allowed inside the temple gate until the country’s heirs leave. So I choose to wait outside.

“Why are you here?” The board asks me. That board which has been staring at me for quite some time with the inscription about no entry for non-Hindus.

I explain to the board that I am a Hindu according to the Khan theorem.

“What Hindu?” The board questions me. “A Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Shudra… You are not even an untouchable Hindu and you want to enter a caste Hindu temple!” The board spits out.

This is getting complicated, I say to myself as I walk to the nearby ‘cool bar’ to have a cool pineapple juice and contemplate on how to get geography and caste in the same circle of definitions.

The TV of the cool bar says that Akhilesh Yadav was stopped from entering the Pitambara Devi Temple in Lucknow. “Shown black flags by activists of Hindutva outfits during his visit to Pitambara Devi Temple in Lucknow’s Daliganj on Saturday, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the BJP sent its goons to stop him from entering the temple, and that this is part of the ruling party’s antipathy towards people from backward communities visiting temples.”

Dear Mr Khan, will you please check which premise of your theorem is wrong?

On the way back, the passenger on the next seat in the KSRTC bus tells me an  anecdote.

A man was standing the brink of the Venduruthy Bridge in the middle of the night. He was apparently going to commit suicide by jumping into the backwaters. A person who happened to pass by stopped his bike and asked the potential suicide to give him a minute.

“Are you a Hindu?” the biker asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“I am a Hindu too. A Brahmin or Kshatriya or Vaishya or…?”

“A Kshatriya.”

“How nice! I am one too. Nair or Menon or Pillai or …?”

“Nair.”

“Fantastic! I am a Nair too. Kiriyath Nair or Marar or Chembotti Nair or …?”

“Marar.”

“Oh! Then you die, wretch.” And he pushed him over. He was a proud Chembotti Nair.

I laughed. I knew it wasn’t a joke. But what is not a joke in this country anymore?