WORSHIPPING FALSE GODS

One of the first grammer lessons that I remember to have learnt was to write GOD with a G i.e. capital. Next in line were rules that told 'his, him,he' when refferred to God should always start with capitals.

Capital, bold letters figuratively meant more respect, more deference to the almighty. I was told in the early years of my life to always bow before the God, always to praise Him, sing hymns in repect for Him, never to ridicule Him. And I did all that.....without questioning.

So I experienced all of the above, rather faced it with no other option left, and so did many of my contemperories. We, if born in the Hindu society are always told things the same way.slowly, but steadily we become Hindu,we start reciting Hanuman Chalisa, Gayatri Mantra, we make it a habit to visit the temple on tuesdays and saturdays, it becomes a rule to avoid the non vegetarian food on Tuesdays. Gradually, the pride of bieng a Hindu turns into an arrogance, we ridicule the neighbouring Muslim, make him a Mullla,make fun of his beard and scorn on his baking the chapatis on the other side of the pan. And then......PERIOD. no we dont start a riot,we are now saturated of our thoughts,and now we start to live life in a normal way...to put it as cliche ......life goes on.

The above paragraph's a general trend followed by most of Indian Hindus, we feel good in discussing it because we know everybody feels the same way and its somtimes good to be 'just another guy'.

But come what may there's always and as I see it, in each of our lifes, a second and contradictory phase. We begin ..... no we don't begin, we question the Divinity. It never is a logically taken step, it is an urge. We doubt the Saturdays and the Tuesdays. We fail to recognize the Chalisas and the Mantras,we compare the Metaphysics and the Physics of the Dharma. The conflict goes on and on, there's a fight going on in the inside...we think we have sinned and our religion wins the battle not for the love of it, but because of the fear of it.

Let's give this FEAR part a little bit rest.

Atheism , a word I started hearing quite often since 2006,when I started my college life. I found three kinds, rather categories of guys in my ambience. There were these kind of guys as mentiond in the last pararaph...those who feared.second in the list were those ,lets say them Atheist -1 who defied God just to be in the scene "ARRE YAAR HAMEIN IN SABSE FARK NAHI PADTAA " types. they are the ones who question divinity so that prople can see them questioning divinity. They to , in a way fear God , they too, in a way long for a support, a divine support ....when exams get screwed up , when life gets screwed up, but then "HUMEIN FARK NAHI PADTA"

And then the third kind...guys i have found out more recently, ATHEIST-2.People who put forward their disbelief quite openly and question the ethics quite confidently. They doubt the existence of the ultimate but marvel the spirituality of the Kashi Vishwanaath. he is one of those guys who want to find logic in his answers but then he thinks that his queries are not satisfied by his own DHARMA,,,and thus he drifts apart.

As a Hindu and as a 23 year old, I have come across these three breeds of Hindus. there are people who think HINDUISM is a religion, followed by following some special principals some specific activities, and they will be ridiculed, they will be abused or land up in hell, if they question it, so FEAR and for the fear they follow the rituals, or in their language, HINDUISM.

Secondly 'humein kyaa farak padataa hai?' , these guys are helpless, they are helpless in exploring faith, of feeling the joy of following a particular DHARMA, the joy of bieng pure..,.no furthur comments on them.....and then the third kind, who have the questions but they fail to get the answers, or dont want to get the answers, they abstain from the religion, without really knowing the religion, they want to find the answers, but then , they don't want to LEARN how to find those answers.....in my opinion 'a confused lot'

But for india...for me...for all of us....they are all Hindus...reciting HANUMAN CHALISA, not eating non. veg. on tuesdays etc etc...but then they do not follow hinduism, they do not follow the religion the ARYANS have given to us. Just because, this thing cant be followed , it has to be imbibed, Hinduism is way of living and leading a life.

Etymologically, a HINDU is a guy living east of Indus river, implying the whole of INDIA (with parts of PAKISTAN )is a flood of Hindus. Well abstractly, my definition ,kind of matches the geographical definition given above. For me Hinduism is a synonym of freedon, a freedom to live life on our own terms, a life where we can question the illogical, defy the contradictions, and thus believe what is implicit. It doesen't ask us to join our hands , recite the mantra 5:00 AM sharp but it expects us to enjoy the beauty of this place, the justified symmetrey of this mother earth, the mathematics of this universe. We dont have to fear God to live a life of a Hindu, we have to live life of peaceful accord to be a Hindu, we dont have to modify to a specific culture to become one Hindu, instead Hinduism is the name of a force that binds our culture together as culture is too pure be modified.

Its just that somewhere, we go wrong, when we become one staunch Hindu by sacrificing a sheep in a KAALI mandir, but defy the religion, in eating the same sheep on a Tuesday.It might be the perception of ours, perhaps, that God has made this a religion of 84 lac divine biengs, of scriptures, of rules. but then this religion is like the divinity itslef, shapless, formless, guileless. Of course, those 84 lac divine biengs,our very own RAMA ,KRISHNA, and the scriptures, they become fallacy if the growing beard of Mussalman, and the baking of the roti on the other side of the pan becomes a ridicule for us, because those Muslims , if they follow a path of principle,a path of peace, combining both which becomes a path of culture, then they are also the purest of hindu. As Hinduism is nothing but a way , of living a life and a process, .....a process of exploring truth, of exploring wisdom,

10 years back, the topic of my first speech was FEAR OF GOD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM. i won the first prize in it. Much to my ill-fate, its not the fear , but the process of questioning God, asking God, about the path of real truth that brings in real wisdom to lead a peaceful life.

* The above title is basically the title of Arun Shourie's book.

LETTER TO AN ACTOR

To,
Mr Shah Rukh Khan,
Prominent actor (Bollywood),
Address- A lavish bunglow,somewhere along the sea side in Mumbai,

sub : A plea to empower India

Sir,

With due respect I beg to state my thoughts that I wanted to confide in you for so long.

First of all,I am one of your biggest fans.From Deewana to My Name is Khan , each of your flicks have been watched by me, felt by me. I have cried , laughed ,faught in real each time you did the same on reel.

You are a guy who made himself into a man on his own terms, never compromising on values, and never making adjustments in family life. You did things every Indian does, and achieved things the same Indian craves for.You revered the Gita, respected the Quran. You played Raj in DDLJ and the whole India fell in love,you enacted Mohun Bhargava in Swadesh, and the whole nation went back to the villages.This time , on behalf of the whole of India, I want you to play the role of an Indian.

Indian culture,the oldest thriving lifestyle after the Egyptians, a jewel which reflects the shine of valour, affluence, penance and honour. Indian Culture, a candle which is toward its end, of which most of the sons and daughters have forgotten about.

These days we watch 300, we admire the reflexes of the spartans, but somewhere we forget the courage and strength of Rana Pratap and Co. We watch without the blink of an eye the classics of World War-2 when the solidarity of the Azad Hind Fauz of Subhash chandra Bose, somewhere gets lost amongst us, when thw world remembers the jews and the Holocaust through Schindler's List , no body here cares to reminisce that sanguinity of Partition. We watch a 3 hour motion of Alexander, but then we forget the grit of Porus, who moved the former, the Great one.

How do we bring back that past to the knowledge of every Indian, sir? Through History books? Whose boredom has made these unforgettable incidents into Forgettable chronicles.Through leaders, politicians? who change the whole course of our past , just for a 5 year reign.

They are your films , which , apart from cricket have influenced every Indian.Films, that for the last 80 odd years have been giving a 3 hour fantasy life to a common man.

Perhaps.....no..... for sure...... ,a common India needs a 3 hour acting from your side to underatand the realities , stories , glories and of course the atrocities of India. The nation at the edge of becoming a super power cannot be one if it remains blind folded to its glorius past.

Rana Pratap, Samudra Gupta, Shivaji, Bose, they need to be endorsed by you, enacted by you, so that India can come to know how great India is.Ashoka needs something more than his love life to be shown by who, so that the world , let alone India can Understand the meaning of Greatness.

The patriot of India needs you to awaken Indians from the deep slumber they are in .


I have chosen a letter to interact with you in this e- generation of Twitters and Facebooks 'coz letters have made revolutions, haven't they ? Marx compiled Marxism through them, Gandhi became Mahatma through a pen. Be it the World Wars, or the Papal Conferences, be it the Nazis, or the red cross, they ran the world in thier own ways through letters.

And then, a man, called Jawahahar Lal Nehru, above all the comeplexities of power politics , away from all the intricacies of diplomacy, very innocently taught his daughter about Indian Culture through letters. With such powerful proofs of the power of letter from the annals of history , I have tried to write to you what I feel is to be done at the moment.

I will be grateful if you will act in the affirmative.

Yours Sincerely,
a common man( of INDIA)