The Technicolor Yawn

Hindutva detained?

2007-04-19T12:31:00.000+05:30

Babubhai Katara,BJP MP from Gujarat, is the news right now for trying to take a woman and a 16 year old boy to Canada. So what's wrong? Nothing. It's perfectly normal for a man to take anyone along with him anywhere. But what if he was trying to take them on his wife's and son's passports? The immigration authorities detained the trio at the IGI Airport at New Delhi yesterday for questioning. There's a human trafficking angle to the story that is now being investigated.

Hindutva and Katara - what's the connection? When Vinayak Damodar Savarkar coined the term Hindutva in 1923, little did he imagine that it's upholders would be people like Babubhai Katara. The BJP swears by the Hindutva ideology.Hindutva or Cultural Nationalism presents the BJP's conception of Indian nationhood. Sadly, for the people who form the BJP it remains just an ideology.Something that's too hard to practice in reality.

This excerpt written by Jagmohan from The Hindustan Times, is from the BJP's very own website. Read on...

"Politics is increasingly coming under the sway of criminals and the corrupt. India's intellect is getting more and more disintegrated. Her emotions are being daily debased by the beams from sky. She is being virtually robbed by new agents of new imperialism and pushed, to use the words of T.S. Eliot, "Father from God and nearer to dust". And in "the kingdom of the deaf", to which the country is being increasingly reduced, the common man cries in vain: where is truth? Where is justice? And where is the great India which every leader promised to build at the dawn of independence?

The fundamental challenge that the country faces today is how to provide a healthy soil and a healthy climate in which the seeds of her constitution can get embedded deep into her psyche and flower into genuine articles of faith. And this challenge can be met mainly by redefining her cultural heritage and by reconstructing the Hindu thought and by washing out the mud and muck that her culture and religion have accumulated in the course of its long march of 5000 years.

The pure has to be separated from the fake and profound from the profane.The gems have to be picked up and the stones thrown away. Only a regenrated culture and re-awakened Hinduism can answer the country's manifold fields. The need for re-invigoration of Hinduism, which has been exposed to ravages of a vast span of history, is obvious. In fact, Hinduism itself recognises that change and dynamism are parts of life and of cosmic reality. It believes that the universe is continuously changing. It has its own creative process, its own self-generating flux.

One dynamic equilibrium is continuously giving way to another dynamic equilibrium. It is time we restored the long dynamic equilibrium of Hinduism, rejuvenated it and used it to carve out a new style of social and cultural life, a new design for our polity and administration. A fresh constructive and creative impulse, therefore, needs to be imparted to Hinduism so that it can bring on the scene a new Hindu, a Catholic, compassionate and contemplative Hindu with a clean conscience, a Hindu who cherishes the positive values of our culture, of 'tyaga' and 'tapasya', of 'satyam', 'shivam' and 'sundaram', and is ever-willing to synthesize them, in the highest tradition of Hindu thought of 'moving from a lower level of truth to a higher level of truth', with new knowledge and new perceptions that have since become available to mankind."

I wonder how often the BJP and its members refer to this article.

Today it's a Katara from the BJP, tomorrow it could be someone else from another party. Like Jimmy Carter said, the sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

Oh well...!

This woman is from Venus!

2007-04-17T13:05:00.000+05:30

India Today

November 15, 1983

School Chale Hum

2007-04-13T15:56:00.001+05:30

192 million children between 6-14 years of age across 1.1 million places in India are not going to school.
This film for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Universalization of Elementary Education) addresses the needs of these children.
The film catches the moment when children all across India from Kashmir to Kerala wake up in the morning and run to go to school.

Music:Shankar/Ehsaan/Loy
Lyrics:Mehboob
Directed by: Kanika and Bala, Bharatbala Productions (BBP) for the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India.

George Carlin - I'm a Modern Man

2007-04-13T15:15:00.001+05:30

That's diveristy for you!

Apocalypse Now

2007-04-12T14:51:00.000+05:30

My brother's classmates use Orkut to find out what lessons they missed, exam schedules and portions! Scrap education. Pun intended!

This post is dedicated to my new age brother and his new age friends!

Granite Poetry

2007-03-05T11:15:00.000+05:30

In my previous blog I mentioned I was in Tanjore for a few days;Thanjavur is (தஞ்சாவூர் in Tamil), also known by its anglicised name Tanjore. Rajesh was training there and I joined him from Kochi. From the moment I set foot on Tanjore soil,I felt there was something in the air that was welcoming.May be it was the popular Tamil hospitality.May be it was the fact that Tanjore has 74 temples that radiate positive energy.May be the Chola,Nayak and Maratha kings who once ruled Tanjore are watching over their favourite city and its people.May be...

Tanjore was always on top of my list of places to see in India,simply because of its rich history and heritage.And all the rulers of Tanjore were at the peak of power when they were there.So their contribution to art and architecture in Tanjore reflects their success.The grandeur can be seen in the almost every scuplture, big and small.

When one talks of Tanjore, the most obvious thing that comes to mind is the Brihadeeswara Temple,also known as the Big Temple for obvious reasons or Periya Koil in Tamil.'Big' is a small word to describe this crowning achievement of Raja Raja Chola.Commissioned in 975 A.D, the construction was completed after 25 years and 275 days. The main tower, or the 'Rajagopuram'(in left pic), carved out of a single block of granite,which stands majestically at 215 feet, was built in such a way that it never casts a shadow at noon during any period of the year!For a building that is so imposing, I imagined the foundation would be extremely deep. "4 feet",came the answer from our guide(not your average,butler-English-speaking guide,but a person who works in the temple maintenance committee and a man of true knowledge).

As someone who was born and brought up in the post modern era, the visit to the Brihadeeswara temple was a humbling experience.I couldn't help but wonder how so many centuries ago ancient civil engineers created such marvelous structures using the simplest of soft iron tools.Such single minded focus and application on the job at hand.And not to mention the creative genius of the sculptor.Where else can you see anklets in stone, complete with links and loops,just like it is in the jewel?Or the statue of Lord Subramanya and his consort sitting on a peacock, with the entire weight of the statue balanced on the peacock's legs?

Volumes have been spoken and written about this temple and its beauty but no justice can be done to this Magnum Opus till one sees it for oneself.I can put down every adjective in the thesaurus in this blog to describe the temple and yet leave you unsatisfied.

"See it to believe it", I say!