Skip to main content

Left out of Ayodhya


I just received a query from a friend on WhatsApp.

Have you received an invitation to visit the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha?

I responded with a lot of laughing emoticons.

Then I thought

Is it a matter for laughter?

I am a citizen of India whose Prime Minister is going to inaugurate the temple. As a citizen, I deserve an invitation. Otherwise, the inauguration (whatever name one may give to it in local languages) should be carried out by anyone other than a government official. What has the government got to do with a place of worship without involving the citizens?

I’m grateful to my friend for provoking me to write this.

I’m reminded of a parable I read in a cynical novel a few years ago.

Some crows were sitting on an electricity cable as they always do in India as if they were mocking our entire systems. Even our electric power can do them no harm, let alone the semiliterate politicians.

Then came a dove, pure white dove, from somewhere and sat a few feet away on the same electricity cable.

One crow said to the next one pointing out the white colour of the different one, “Saala, convert kar liya.” [The bastard has been converted.]

Anyone who doesn’t look like us is a traitor in India today.

Religious conversions are the worst crimes.

You can rape in India. You can plunder. Kill. You can do whatever you wish. As long as you belong to a particular religion, a particular political party. Wear a particular robe of a particular colour. Worship a particular god - not the heavenly one, you know.

Even if you do all that, you won’t get the invitation to the inauguration [Pran whatever] of the Mandir. Because the god there suffers from an acute sense of insecurity.

I have no problem about not being invited though I do feel let down as a citizen of India. But my friend who sent me the WhatsApp message seems to have a serious problem somewhere. He is a diehard fan of the god who suffers from the most terrible feelings of insecurity in the world of ordinary mortals.

 

Comments

  1. You wrote:
    "One crow said to the next one pointing out the white colour of the different one, “Saala, convert kar liya.” [The bastard has been converted.]"
    The translation of text within the square brackets, honestly is:
    [The brother-in-law has been converted.]
    Now Sir, never ever call bastard to anybody's brother-in-law, even if he is a convert or pervert or whatever and/or has not been invited to go to Ayodhaya or Vadodara etcetera, because this may lead to a mini Mahabharat war.! 😂

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was going to say I hate to say, but I'm clueless what an "Whats-app is. I really don't hate to say. But I don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hari OM
    Yeah, there's a reason I don't app, what... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. You probably don't want to be there, anyway. Sure, you should have a right to go. But it sounds like it'll be filled with people you'd only argue with.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The growth of Hindu fanaticism is the product of Islamic threat - cruelty.

    ReplyDelete
  6. THE TEMPLE WILL BE DESTROYED

    100% ! NO MATTER WHAT ?

    WHETHER BEFORE OR AFTER CONSTRUCTION IS DONE - IS THE QUESTION !

    THE WORLD HAS TO NOTE THIS VERSE IN THE GRANTH ! WHO IS REFERRED TO HERE ? dindooohindoo

    Bhai Gurdas Ji Vaaran - Pannaa 33

    ਦੁਹ ਵਿਚਿ ਦੁਖੀ ਦੁਬਾਜਰੇ ਖਰਬੜ ਹੋਏ ਖੁਦੀ ਖੁਆਰਾ।

    Out of these two, the mongrels-apparently sadhus but internally thieves--are always in wavering state and, suffering for their ego, go astray.

    ਵਾਰਾਂ ਭਾਈ ਗੁਰਦਾਸ : ਵਾਰ ੩੩ ਪਉੜੀ ੧ ਪੰ. ੨

    ਦੁਹੀਂ ਸਰਾਈਂ ਜਰਦਰੂ ਦਗੇ ਦੁਰਾਹੇ ਚੋਰ ਚੁਗਾਰਾ।

    Such double-faced thieves, backbiters and cheats remain pale-faced due to their bewilderment in both the worlds.

    ReplyDelete
  7. nice post, thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete

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

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

Fantasy

  My nights are generally haunted by nightmares. Amorphous creatures who pretend to be benign lead me on familiar paths and leave me in alien territories. I had a surprise last night, however. I was abandoned in some kind of a wonderland where everyone smiled like angels who were carrying some happy message to some Virgin Mary somewhere. Yet another virgin birth. The dream left me in a half-awake state. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I knew I was fantasising. And I found it all quite amusing. Here are some of those delightful fantasies of semi-wokeness. One All the money in the world’s banks, all banks included, is distributed equally to all the adults in the world. Ambani, Adani, Advani, Kolani, Indrani, Malini, Shalini… everyone on earth now has equal wealth. And everyone is told by some mysterious angel that they will always have the same wealth as anyone else on earth as long as they don’t misuse it. If they misuse it – on drugs, for example – then the amount spent won’t be replen

Terror Tourism 2

Terror Tourism 1 in short : Jacob Martin Pathros is a retired school teacher in Kerala. He has visited most countries and is now fascinated by an ad which promises terror tourism: meet the terrorists of Dantewada. Below is the second and last part of the story. Celina went mad on hearing her husband’s latest tour decision. “Meet terrorists? Touch them? Feel them?” She fretted and fumed. When did you touch me last ? She wanted to scream. Feel me, man , she wanted to plead. But her pride didn’t permit her. She was not a feminist or anything of the sort, but she had the pride of having been a teacher in an aided school for 30-odd years and was now drawing a pension which funded a part of their foreign trips. “I’m not coming with you on this trip,” Celina said vehemently. “You go and touch the terrorists and feel them yourself.” Celina was genuinely concerned about her husband’s security. Why did he want to go to such inhuman people as terrorists? Atlas Tours, the agency which b

Women as Victims or Survivors

Book Title: The Blue Scarf and other stories Author: Anu Singh Choudhary Translator: Kamayani Sharma Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023 Pages: 188 There is no doubt that the Indian social system is overtly patriarchal and hence a lot of women endure restrictions of all sorts. There are exceptions like the matrilineal tribes of the Northeast. The 12 short stories in this volume by Anu Singh Choudhary focus on some women from the patriarchal societies of India, particularly North India. Originally written in Hindi, the stories have been translated quite effortlessly by Kamayani Sharma though the book does show a few signs of poor proofreading. The very first story, First Look , shows us the rising aspirations of a few women from a remote village and the futility of those aspirations in a world where even marriage is a business deal. “With this deal, we’re interested only in maximizing profits for both parties,” The boy’s father says. But the girl’s family can’t ever tou