In the past days we have been ‘treated’ to what I can call call the absurdities of one Dr B, who has taken on single handed the mantle to defend India in a rather inane way. But beware this is not just a lone crusader that would at best be laughed at and set aside. Far from that. Today his books are being ‘taught’ in all primary and secondary schools in Gujarat. A sample of his ‘beliefs’ can be savoured here. One particularly caught my attention for two unrelated reasons. In one paragraph it quotes Sarvepalli Radhakirshnan saying that Indians are the most loved people.”Once God wanted to make a chapati. He was not able to cook the first chapati properly and he (God) termed the first chapati as ‘Britishers’; he failed in his second attempt as well and overcooked the second chapati as well. Thus were born the African nationals. The explanation goes further and it points that the third chapati, made by the God, turned out to be perfect. Thus God gave birth to Indians.

The reason this quote my attention is two fold. First of all I am named Anouradha because of Dr Radhakrishnan. The name my mother had chosen for me was Mandakini but the day I was born Dr Radhakrishna, then Vice President was in Prague and when told that an Indian baby was born, decided to visit the hospital and thus me and suggested I be named Anuradha. My parents esteemed it an honour and he became my the facto godfather. Over the years I met him a few times and have read most of what he wrote being a Philosophy student and cannot imagine him being the author of this absurd quote. A humanist and eminent thinker, I do not see him state anything that could be derogatory to any other human being.

That is part one.

Now comes part two and that pertains the quote itself. I must have been 4 or 5 when I once came back in tars from school and asked my mother why I was not white. To soothe and assuage a disturbed child, Ma related this ‘story’ as she knew that I needed a boost in my self esteem and more than that to accept with pride the colour of my skin. The tears dried up and the story was forgotten till Dr B brought it up again.

Dr B is also on a crusade to do away with all English and Urdu words, words we use daily and perhaps without even realising that they are ‘foreign’. Often we add a bit of India flavour and appropriate them so it is Masterji and Professor Sahib. And there is much more Dr B dislikes. Again you can read it here. Now according to him we should not blow birthday candles and so on.

His dislike for English is scary as as things stand today English is what can make our children’s morrows brighter. Way back in 2000, when I first landed in Giri Nagar, the first and only thing every parent asked me was to teach their kids English. I am taking about illiterate parents from humble homes who are ware of how important its is for their children to learn a language than came get them access to what they could never get. If Dr B gets his way, our kids will regress irreversibly.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Kamal Ataturk who decided to modernise and thus westernise his country and thus make some fundamental institutional changes. One of them was the adoption of the latin alphabet. That meant that Turkish children need only to learn one alphabet that would lighten the burden of their further learning. We need a Kamal Pasha, someone who can change India without altering its ethos.

When I blow my birthday candles I do not feel less Indian or Hindu for that matter. But I feel my blood run cold when I see the kind of ‘valued’ the likes of Dr B suggest. In my opinion they will annihilate the very essence of Hinduism and India.

Neil Gaiman begins his book American Gods with the following quote quote from Joe Miller’s jest book: The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equinoxes, and on the west by the Day of Judgment. It may have been words mouthed in jest way back in the XVIII century but in our times where boundaries seemed to be placed within boundaries and more boundaries, these words are poignant to say the least. All across our planet innocent people are being killed. Missiles bring commercial flight down, and missiles rip through schools for children. People are killed in the name of religion leaving us wondering what religion truly is and what kind of God allow such aberrations. I for one am lost. Children die each day by the thousands whilst their country mates throw food with impunity or pour milk on stone deities. Again in the name of religion making me almost feel that ‘religion’ has become a multi-headed hydra monster.

 The blood of every human, whatever her or his creed, caste, social or economic status, colour is red. A child is born from a mother’s womb after nine months. The pain of a mother losing her child is the same the world over. People suffer pain the same way no matter where they come from or which God they pray.

How wonderful then if we could in all seriousness define the boundaries of our country as it is in the quote and do away with all the divisions and barriers and walls created by humans and see ourselves as inhabitants of this beautiful planet whilst remembering that one of the boundaries is the Day of Judgement. Wishful thinking but worth a thought.

I embraced Hinduism with pride. That is not because of what its written word is, but because as I was growing up in a Hindu family though my parents were not overtly religious and far from being fanatics, whenever I asked a question pertaining to other religions and how I should view them, I was always told to embrace them too! As a child I, lived in Morocco where I had Muslim and Jewish friends and whoever I asked my parents whether I could fast with them during the Ramadan month or partake of the Sabbath meal, the answer I always got was a resounding yes with a small caveat: provided you do not hurt their sentiments. Having spent some of my school years in a Convents I, like all my catholic friends, said the Lord’s prayer with conviction and attended mass as I was in the choir. For me I was just praying to God, and my God had no specific religion. To a child growing up far from her country, Hinduism seemed a wonderful religion and making it mine was a matter of pride.

Then came the fanatics and everything changed. I was deeply hurt when a mosque was destroyed in the name of a temple and other terrible things happened in the name of religion. No God can approve of killing innocents. It does make sense.

Religion to me should be contained within the walls of your home and should not cross the door. The problem is that it is a wonderful tool that all rulers have used to control populations and exercise power with impunity.

The day of Judgment that lies on the west according to the quote awaits us all. I still believe that the maker we will ultimately meet whether we are cremated, buried in a shroud or grave or left to the vultures will never forgive us what we have die in His Name.

I just hold on to the religion I was taught, even if at times it is almost impossible to do so.

Dispassion is a gift not given to all, certainly not to me. I found this turn of phrase in the personal histories column of last weeks Tehelka magazine. The piece is entitled How Does One Deal With So Much Suffering Every Day. This is a question I ask myself day after day and having been doing so for as long as I can remember. The author, a young student cruise out: Every day, we encounter tragedies that by all means should tear us apart emotionally. However, confronted by these happenings, we sigh, we sympathise, we pray for those in distress — sometimes we even help them in our small ways — and then we just continue with our atomised, quotidian lives, moved yet unaffected. It disturbed me how we all seemed to live like islands in impervious bubbles, which pain and sorrow would touch, but never invade. The problem with me is that it has more than invaded me. I have lived with this feeling since I was barely 3. Human suffering has always disturbed me and still does every time I step out of the house.

For the author the human tendency to forget and heal is not a character flaw. Nor is it a virtue. It is a survival tactic. I guess when you are young you are able to forget easily and heal faster. This tactic does not work for me. Actually it never has as I feel the same knot in my gut each time I recall the dancing bear that my grandmother lovingly invited to ‘treat’ her only grandchild. What she did was open the eyes of my heart.

I wrote about this incident some time back. I share it again.

The big bear has just finished the last of his antics. The noose around its snout ensured he did not step out of line. The owner in his tattered and threadbare clothes stands proudly hoping to get a good take. The house is imposing; its inmates look rich.

It is a chilly morning in this small Indian town. A watery sun is trying to break through the late morning mist. The grandmother has specially arranged the show for her 3 year- old grand daughter who has come from across many seas. She gets up and gives the man a few notes. A lot for a simple bear show in times when a few coins bought a lot of ware.

The man still wants to try his luck.

“It is very cold, Memsahib, would you be kind enough to give me an old coat”

The grandmother knowing the game smiles and tells him to go. The man insists. The grandmother raises her voice and repeats her words. The game goes on for a while till the man realises he will get no more and packs up his ware, urges his bear to move on and walks out of the gate.

As everyone gets off the rope chairs that had been laid out in the veranda for the performance a loud wail is heard:

“You are all very mean, you have so many coats hanging in your cupboards and you could not give the man one”

It is the little girl who has been watching the show from a corner, a tad frightened by the huge animal. Maybe she saw much more than the simple antics of the performing bear.

The grandmother and all present try to reason with her and tell her that the man has got a lot of money and must be happy. But the little girl refuses to be quietened and goes on crying and repeating her now almost incoherent pleas.

The grandfather who had remained in his office now comes out to find out what is happening. The little girl is still saying in between wrecking sobs:” you have so many, why did you not give him one”.

The grandfather somehow sees beyond the words and simply asks his wife to find a coat and send the house servant on bicycle to find the man and give him the coat.

Only when the servant comes back and tells all present that the coat has been given does the little girl stop crying.

The year is 1955, the small town Meerut. The little girl was me!

I am still the girl who said: ” you have so many, why did you not give him one”.  I cannot begin to understand why those who have plenty do not feel the need to help another. I have been shocked beyond words at the callousness and the kind of reasons for not giving that I have had to hear. I recently cakes across a person who could sponsor project why without it making a difference to his lifestyle, a person I took to see the children in their homes hoping that would open his heart, but no way. It did not affect him at all. All it did was made me mad!

The young author of the article I mentioned in the beginning quotes a passage from Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods that freed her of the guilt of not feeling lasting pain. Gaiman writes: “No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other’s tragedies. We draw lines around moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearl-like from our souls, without real pain.”

I pondered on these lines for a long time wondering how you draw lines around pain and remain on islands and cover our pain with safe layers, however nacreous. If that were so, than the bear story could have been recalled without the hollow feeling in my gut. Maybe I am the odd one but I am who I am and like what I see.

These is how the  author ends her piece: Human suffering is limitless. If you see what I see, you’d realise, it is limitless. We expose a tiny fraction of our hearts to it, and yet we get burnt. If we could expose all of ourselves to it and feel its true immensity, it would cripple us. We would never be able to do our jobs. Dispassion — it is a gift.

Dispassion is a gift but not for me!