NavDharmyug

Ever sat down in the dark of the night besides vast and violent river Ganga and watched a lonely earthen lamp floating its way into oblivion? When I look at the way world has changed in the recent centuries, and two leading younger religions overwhelmed the globe, I often feel, India as that singular, silent lamp floating amid turbulent waves in a hostile world. When I look at the way things happen all around, makes me believe even more on that.  We mostly look at the small, mischievous gestures and wave it off as routine impertinence of the intellectual elites. But the meanings often are deeper and the game, much bigger. We always think a small piece does not matter, a little giveaway here and there, after all, life is but a criss-cross of well-meaning mutual compromises. But what we miss is the key term- mutual. Unless it is mutual, it is not compromise, it is subjugation, even if it means yielding an inch. That is what Five villages meant for the Pandavas in The Mahabhar...

My idea of religion is borderline-atheism. In today’s India, it is very down-market to be talking about religion. Customs and traditions unnerve me. There seems to be no logic in continuing to do things the way they have been done for centuries, simply because that is how we have been doing them, for centuries. Still, there are places I would not want to go and touch. Modernism today has two problems, one, it tries to change benign symbols which identify a people merely for the sake of change. Just as “This is how we have been always doing it” is not an argument to continue with a thing. On the flip side, that can also not be an argument to oppose it. Secondly, there is such a surge of fake righteousness that the real meat of any movement is lost in the noise. Those who control the narrative, claim to be the weakest and are the first to cry victim-hood. It is a common trend. So you pelt stone, hold the state to ransom, out of your free-will (you can very well chose not...