NavDharmyug

The discussion of supposed fight for supremacy of Hindu majority, has once again taken center-stage with the Hindu religious guru and political leader, Yogi Adityanath winning the election in the most populous state in India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi . The media, in its own wisdom and driven by its own self-interest, shocked, surprised and saddened by a definitive win by right-wing ideology, as the intellectuals, prodigies of carefully crafted communist ecosystem calls it, went into overdrive to denounce the results. The usual trend of nitpicking began. Some were smartly obtuse about it, with fake stories, mistaken identity and stuff like that; others, too shocked to hold on to the pretense of neutrality declared war, claiming to take the role abandoned by a week, wily opposition. The sight of a man clad in saffron was enough to make these self-proclaimed guardians of collective national intellect melt down like sudden shame. A decision by the Apex c...

About a fortnight back, I had picked up Valmiki Ramayan from the bookstore, primarily to read it to my daughter. That the weekend was to be followed by Dusshera and Valmiki Jayanti was not on my mind. Valmiki Ramayan is to my mind a great work of Indian Literature. It is the first big book I had ever read, sometime when I was in class IVth. It is considered to be first epic in the human history, first poetic story.             The book was written in the backdrop of early human history. I would rather presume that it reflects the time when Human civilization was in the initial stages of moving out from the forests, with one set of people still staying in the forest, still away from the concepts of reading and writing, farming like Vanars; another who moved into agricultural world, still close to nature and counting on the early discover of fire to keep themselves safe, being on the periphery of the forests; and the third w...