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Sunset and moral police

Fiction The sea became more restless as the sun turned crimson in the western horizon turning the distant waters resplendent with a riot of colours.  Raghav continued to stare into those colours as if some genie would emerge out of them and solve his problems. “Thief! Thief!”  A middle-aged woman who was sitting a few feet away shouted.  A commotion followed.  The man who had snatched her handbag had already disappeared into the motley crowd on the beach.  People asked a few questions like “Did it contain many valuables?” or offered some counsel like “You should be careful!” and then the commotion subsided.   People returned to the sunset. “Is there any way I can be of help?”  Raghav asked the woman when the sun had vanished into the sea and the people started moving away.  A few chose to settle down on the beach as usual.    The woman looked at him for a moment and said, “Yes, in fact.  I’ll need the bus fare to go home.” Raghav pulled out his purse and offered

Blank Page

My friend Sunanina made a suggestion to fellow bloggers: Pick up the book you are reading and from the 12th page, choose a word and use it as a prompt to write your next post. Try to relate it in some way to the twelve months of the New Year. Don't forget to tell the name of the book to your readers . Though I had voted for the suggestion at Indiblogger, the prospect of looking ahead into the next twelve months acted as a dampener.  I am good at looking back like most failures.  Unlike failures, however, I look back and grin .  Because I know I defeated myself by colluding with those who wanted to defeat me.  Like the penitent at the confessional, I should thump my chest and cry “ Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa .”  That will be joining the enemy again.  I’d rather take Don Juan’s advice to Carlos Castaneda: “... there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.” And decisions belong to the future.  Like new year resolutions.  So, follow

My Name is Red

Book Review “To God belongs the East and the West,” says one of the prominent characters who commits two murders in the novel.  “But East is east and West is west,” pat comes the response from Black, the one who identifies the murderer. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s novel, My Name is Red , revolves round the European (West) and the Turkish (East) perspectives of art.  The artist is free to look at the object according to his individual inner truth and understanding in the Western view.  Such an artist has an individual style.  But the genuine Islamic view has to see an object as Allah would see it.  Any individual nuance  given by the artist is blasphemy.  The novel is set in 1591, a year before the 1000 th anniversary (by the Islamic calendar) of Prophet Mohammed’s flight from Mecca to Medina.  The Sultan wants to celebrate the anniversary by publishing a special book which will be illustrated by the best artists (miniaturists) of the country.  Enishte Effendi is giv

We are the beggars

We are the beggars begging for our own money Standing in serpentine queues before Automated bureaucratically heartless machines. The boss will charge a cess For giving us our own money and peddle us promises in return. There is food in the market. Vegetables rot on the stands For want of money to be bought. Fruits rot. Fish and meat rot. Money rots in our accounts. We live in a rotten country. Having everything, we have nothing. Not even voices to speak out. We mistrust the very air we breathe. The person standing behind or in front in the queue Is my enemy in all probability. There are only patriots with burning hearts And traitors to feed the passion’s blazes. My government is the wizard of words. Words conjure up a utopia, paradise, in people’s fancy, Swachh Bharat where wealth and all else is white, Whose godman sells  miraculous   fairness creams For whitening all that is black. Whiteness is Prakriti ka ashirwad. The

Communalism - a brief history

One of my favourite books in my early twenties was Richard Bach’s Illusions .  It begins with the story of a water creature whose fellow beings spent their entire lifetimes clinging to the river bottom “for clinging was their way of life.”  This one creature decided one day that its existence was absurd.  “Clinging, I shall die of boredom,” it said and let itself go. It went down the stream trusting itself to the current.  The creatures downstream said, “See a miracle!  A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!  See the messiah, come to save us all!” The creature told them that he was no messiah.  That only they could be their own messiahs.  He asked them to let go and embark upon the adventure that life really is. But the creatures loved to cling.  Clinging was what they were used to for generations and generations.  Clinging, they made stories about a Messiah who came to deliver them once upon a time.  Richard Bach’s story ends there.  We may carry on and say tha

Can religion be delinked from politics?

India is passing through a historical period of self-purification.  Our Prime Minister is putting an end to black money and corruption.  Our Supreme Court is feeding patriotism into our hearts via cinema halls.  Now the apex court has weaned our politics from our gods.  125 crore Indians may go down in history as the people who sanitised a whole polity. Can politics exist without corruption?  Can greed be washed out of human hearts?  Can religion be separated from public affairs especially politics? Politics and Corruption Corruption is an integral part of politics simply because politics is about power and power is about subordination of most people by a few.  Subordination, swindling, manipulation, exploitation... these are the normal synonyms of power unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool idealist.  There is no power structure without bribery, cronyism, nepotism, extortion, parochialism, embezzlement, and whatever helps one climb up the endless rungs of the ascent. 

Dogs of Religion

In Orhan Pamuk’s novel, My Name is Red , a dog takes offence when a religious preacher calls his enemies dogs.  “It is common knowledge that hajis, hojas, clerics and preachers despise us dogs,” says Dog who thinks that it is because the Prophet [“peace and blessings be upon him”] once displayed a special affection to a cat by cutting off a piece of his robe on which the cat was sleeping rather than disturb the creature.  Says Dog, “By pointing out this affection shown to the cat, which has incidentally been denied to us dogs, and due to our eternal feud with this feline beast, which even the stupidest of men recognizes as an ingrate, people have tried to intimate that the Prophet himself disliked dogs.” The dog knows that religious likes and dislikes can be shaped as easily as the scriptures can be interpreted variously to suit each one’s taste and motive.  The dog is religious too.  It is proud of the fact that a dog it was that guarded the seven young men who took refuge in