Dead cow in the Ganga

February 28, 2016September 12, 2016 / Shoba Narayan / 4 Comments

HOW BLIND FAITH IS CHOKING THE GANGA

Photo: Shoba Narayan

The mission to clean the Ganga will be a pipe dream as long as Indians have no problem in perceiving and accepting the river as both pure and dirty

Shoba Narayan

The Ganga would be a good place to jump in. The question that looms before me is whether to jump into the Ganga in Kashi: the holiest of rivers in the holiest of cities, according to Hindus.

I ask friends and family. My French friend Pasquale has jumped into the Ganga in Kashi. See, nothing happened, he says. Then again, he is a war photographer who thinks riding a motorbike through the Swat Valley is normal. Another friend, Ashok, recently returned from Varanasi, said no, he didn’t even dip his feet in it.

An older uncle says to go deep into the Ganga and jump in. “In the middle, there is flowing water, so even the pollutants will be washed away,” he says.

“To be in Kashi and not immerse yourself in the Ganga is a waste of a trip,” pronounces an aunt.

It is this unshakeable faith in the Ganga that causes millions of Hindus to plunge in even though they see sewage flowing into it. This type of faith ignores rationality, data about faecal matter, coliform bacteria counts, contamination or even their own eyes—which is probably why it is called blind faith.

It is a mind game really. You may see dirt; you may even see the dead buffalo a few yards downstream. But because you believe that the Ganga is holy, you don’t really care. She will purify your mind, heart and soul. The body doesn’t even enter this equation. It is superfluous to this world view; merely a carapace to be shed en route to liberation.

“Ganga mata pavithra hai,” they chant. “Mother Ganga is sacred and pure.”

Photo: Shoba Narayan

The problem is the semantics—the difference between pollution and purity. Indians know that the Ganga is dirty. They also believe that she is sacred and pure. After all, that is why she descended from the heavens and came to earth: to wash away sins.

It is the reason for her existence. Her power originates in her creation myth. She is liquid Shakti; a tangible reality of divine power. She connects the heavens to earth; washes away the sins of us mere mortals.

This is why she is a great tirtha or pilgrimage site: because of what she takes from us (our sins) and what she gives to us (moksha, or liberation from death). This is why the Ganga is pure even though she is dirty.

When then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi launched the Ganga Action Plan in 1986, he alluded to this distinction. Standing on the steps leading to the Ganga, Gandhi said, “The purity of the Ganga was never in question.” The problem was that a river “that was a symbol of India’s spirituality was being allowed to get dirty”.

Pavithra versus gandhagi: purity versus dirtiness. The Indian mind has no problem in perceiving the Ganga as both pure and dirty. It accepts both ideas, without really wanting to do much about it.

This is a problem for the Clean Ganga mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose links with this city are both obvious and tenuous.

Unlike in Chennai, where billboards and hoardings of chief minister J. Jayalalithaa are all over the place, Modi’s photos thankfully do not take over Kashi’s urban sprawl. Yet, of all the constituencies from which he could have stood, fought and won the 2014 Lok Sabha election—and he could have literally written his own ticket—Modi, significantly, chose Kashi as his constituency.

At Madison Square Garden, where he performed like a rock star, Modi asked the Indian diaspora to contribute to his dream of cleaning mother Ganga. In short order, the National Mission for Clean Ganga was set up under the newly renamed ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, headed by Uma Bharati. It has commissioned surveys and reports.

In August 2013, a 134-page interim report was submitted by a venerable group of institutions—seven Indian Institutes of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, National Institute of Health, World Wildlife Fund and others. It states—no surprises here—that “the Ganga river’s present-day water quality is abysmal due to anthropogenic (human) wastes polluting the river network in various ways”.

This is obvious to anyone who stands on the Ganga’s banks. People bathe, wash their laundry and defecate all along the 2,510km long river that serves a staggering one-third of the Indian population. Faecal coliform bacteria levels are off the charts. Chromium levels are at least 10 times the permissible amount. Untreated sewage flows directly into the waters.

Add to that the fact that industries dispose their waste into the river—leather tanneries along its banks in Kanpur; carpet factories in Mirzapur; paper factories; distilleries and dyeing units—and you have the makings of an environmental disaster.

The Ganga is essentially dead, say activists. Her vaunted oxygen levels and ability to regenerate are being choked by the sheer amount of garbage being thrown into her, ranging from corpses to contaminants.

A Kanpur-based uncle of mine, who I will call Mahen, said that when he was young, crocodiles and tortoises were teeming in the Ganga, eating up corpses. “Within Modi’s term, the Ganga will get salvation,” he says. “It has to because it is a huge part of his promise to India.”

The Ganga’s pollution is linked to India’s population. Sometime in the 16th century lived a Bengali scholar named Raghunandana, who wrote 28 books on tattvas, or elements, which could be viewed as “how to” books. Vivaha Tattva: how to get married; Daya Tattva: how to show compassion; Grihastashrama Tattva: how to live as a good householder; and Durgapuja Tattva: how to celebrate Durga Puja are some of the books.

One of the books is called Prayaschitta Tattva, and it means how to make amends; or how to expiate sin. This section contains a verse about how to treat the Ganga.

Ganga punyajalan prapya caturdasa vivarjayet

Saucamacamanam kesam nirmalya madyamarsanam.

Gatrasamvahanam kridam pratigrahamatho ratim.

Anyatirtharatim caive anyatirthaprasansanam,

vastratyagamapaghatam santaram ca visesatah.

The verse talks about how to treat the Ganga. It lists, or rather prohibits, in some detail, 14 acts. Comments in parenthesis are mine. The prohibited actions are: no excretion, no bathing, brushing teeth or spitting out gargling water (only holy dip permitted); no cleaning of the ear and throwing earwax into river (Seriously? People did that?); no shampooing of hair; no throwing of used garlands (done all the time these days as a commercial activity—the Ganga is full of leaf candles and marigold garlands); no frolicking or playing in the water (come on—not even frolicking); no obscene acts (meaning nude bathing or sex?); no attachment or praise of other sacred places (meaning that they viewed the Ganga as a goddess who could get jealous?); no washing clothes and throwing garments (we discharge corpses these days); and in particular, no swimming across the river (I wonder why—because the river is so broad that people could urinate en route?).

Not a single one of these dictums has been followed. Instead, people believe that the Ganga will self-rejuvenate; that her waters, considered healing and self-perpetuating since the dawn of Hindu civilization, will simply continue to do so.

This is alluded to in a type of literature called Nighantu literature, a Sanskrit materia medica of sort—a glossary of words and objects that delineated the characteristics of herbs, trees, forests, water bodies, minerals, rocks, humans, animals and, well, pretty much everything that was available at that time. Some 30 works were written in this manner, empirically classifying among other things, water.

Nighantu is a hard word and concept to translate. It alludes to the secret meaning inherent in objects. Madanapala Nighantu, for instance, says that coconut water is an aphrodisiac, digestive stimulant and a cardiac tonic. How would the ancients know this? By making thousands of people drink gallons of coconut water and seeing the effect it had?

Or did some sage who had meditated for centuries to the point where he was so attuned to the nature of things, drink the coconut water, get a— shall we say—rise, and decide it to be an aphrodisiac? I say this tritely, but honestly, I am a secret practitioner and admirer of these subtle ways. Cowrie shells, alternative medicine, astrology, crystal gazing—you name it and I am interested.

I studied acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I believe that the ancients in most cultures took an empirical approach towards health and healing that resonates with me more than the randomized double-blind clinical trials of drug companies all of whom have a commercial agenda to sell drugs.

As my cousin who worked for years in the US pharmaceutical industry says, “The permissible diabetes numbers used to be 140—no problem. Now, they keep reducing the acceptable level every year so that drug companies can sell more Metformin.”

I’d love to know how the Nighantu literature was composed. How did our ancients know that buffalo milk was soporific, that sheep’s milk was easy to digest and that Ganga water was different from the waters of the Narmada, Bhagirathi or Saraswati?

Amid this materia medica approach is a particular type of literature that fascinates the tree-lover in me. Like Prem Koshy, the ebullient proprietor of the Koshy’s restaurant in Bengaluru, I hug trees. There is a particular brand of poetic convention called “Dohada” rituals.

Do hada literally means two hearts and it talks about cravings that pregnant women—and pregnant trees—get. These Dohada rituals allude to the intimate connection between trees and women; and allude to the hunger or yearning that comes about when you are pregnant with children or buds. The simplest way to explain this is to describe the trees and their rituals. In the Parsvanatha Chaitra, there are descriptions such as the following:

“The Priyangu tree bursts into blossom when touched by beautiful maidens. The Bakula trees bursts into blossom when sprayed by a mouthful of liquor from maidens who are giddy with sport and merriment. The Asoka tree waits to be kicked by the heel or foot of young maidens who have red lac as decorations on their feet before it gives itself to flower. The Tilaka tree is happy with just a glance from maidens. The Kurabaka tree needs to be embraced and enfolded by heavy-breasted young maidens. The Mandara tree likes pleasurable talk; the Champaka likes to be surrounded by scantily clad, laughing young maidens who sport under the full moon. The Nameru tree likes songs and is partial to young women who sing to it before it blooms.”

The over arching motif is the intimate connection between women and trees, all of which is described by the word, Salabhanjika: she who seizes the branch of the Sala tree and breaks it.

As a birdwatcher and tree-hugger who gains strength and solace from trees, I can totally relate to plants blooming when touched, sprayed, kicked, talked to and sung. Jagdish Chandra Bose, the scientist who discovered that plants are sentients beings with feelings (as exemplified by the quivering of injured plants) would have approved.

If plants have life, why not water? Even in our time, our mothers and grandmothers treat river water with a respect and sanctity that those of use who use rationality to mask our receptiveness towards the sacred cannot ignore.

Water that is exposed to the sun’s rays in the morning and the moon’s rays at night is considered rejuvenating, promoting strength and intellect, and balancing to all the body humours.

My mother does this. She places water in a copper pot, throws in some tulsi or holy basil leaves, along with some cardamom and cinnamon, leaves it out in the sun in the morning and makes it “absorb the moon’s rays” through the night and then drinks it on an empty stomach the next morning. All good things; all prescribed in Ayurveda. But how did my mother know? Through word of mouth and homespun wisdom that she heard from her parents, perhaps; or through the all-encompassing word that we call tradition.

The Sanskrit word for tradition is agama, or “that which has come down”. The word, gam, meaning “to go”, and the prefix a, which means “towards”. Agama means “to come towards” us. The word, Ganga, flips this around. Gam-ga, or “because she goes, she is Ganga”.

River waters, too, are classified in the Nighantu literature. In an English translation, titled Materia Medica of Ayurveda: Based on Madanapala’s Nighantu, by Vaidya Bhagwan Dash, the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Sarayu and Satadru are considered to have healing properties because they have fast-flowing water that originated in the Himalayas and flows through rocks.

In contrast, rivers that flow out of the Sahayadris—the Sahya mountains—like the Godavari causes kustha or obstinate skin diseases like leprosy. Rivers like the Shipra and Reva, which originate in the Vindhyas, cause anaemia and skin diseases. If I were a non-Himalayan river (and I know I am anthropomorphizing here), I would be really pissed.

A Kashmiri polymath called Narahari Pandita took this riverine water analysis to the next level. He is believed to have lived in the 17th century (some say the 14th century), knew 18 languages and wrote the magisterial Raja Nighantu, with chapter headings such as the following:

1. 47 types of forests with details of names, properties, actions and uses

2. 40 types of fragrances

3. 154 types of human beings with age, qualities, character and ailments

One of the 24 chapters talks about the Ganga’s waters, which have the following properties: coolness, sweetness, transparency, high tonic property, wholesomeness, potability, ability to remove evils, ability to resuscitate from swoon caused by dehydration, digestive property and ability to retain wisdom.

Consider this: people actually believe that the Ganga gives you the ability to retain wisdom. Our ancestors believed that, and to some extent, that belief has percolated down the centuries. For a Hindu, wisdom is the highest of aspirations, falling just below moksha.

If Indians believe that the Ganga can give you wisdom, the highest of all human desires, then pollution and defecation are trivial problems. If faith can heal the planet, then the Ganga doesn’t need human intervention. The reason why cleaning the Ganga is so complicated is because it requires behavioural modification—or brainwashing—on a scale that is staggering.

Photo: Shoba Narayan

You cannot even point fingers and say that it is the peasants, the illiterate, the great unwashed hordes who are causing this contamination. It is People Like Us (PLUs). My cousin Vikram studied economics at Princeton, went on to Harvard Business School and now works in public policy. When his father died, he acceded to his mother’s wishes and brought his dad’s ashes to throw into the Ganga. He knew that this act only increased the amount of anthropogenic waste (or waste from human activity) that went into the already burdened river.

“As a climate change activist and someone who believes in sustainable living, what I did to the Ganga was abhorrent to me,” said Vikram. “But as a son, it was the least I could do for my grieving mother, who firmly and fervently believes that throwing my dad’s ashes into the Ganga will take his soul to heaven.”

There are tens of millions of Vikrams in India who do this every single day. Eighty million of them converge during the Kumbh Mela to bathe in this holy river at a holy moment. This happens all along the course of the river and its tributaries, across 29 cities in 11 states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and West Bengal.

Kashi, as it turns out, is one of the worst offenders. And while we are at it, I might as well tell you that I am going to refer to the city by its ancient, intimate name—one that is used by locals and all over south India.

Not Banaras, the name given by invaders beginning with the Sultans, the British and even Mark Twain, who famously observed that “Banaras is older than history; older than tradition; older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”

Not Varanasi, the city’s official name, denoting the stretch of land between where the Varuna river and the now-dry Assi river join the Ganga. The name I love is Kashi, from the Sanskrit root, kash, which means shining; as in Pra-kash; as in “moksha prakashika kashi”, the effulgent city that offers the path to moksha or enlightenment. Kashi, the city of light, the luminous one.

In some parts of south India, wedding rituals include the Kashi Yatra, where the bridegroom mock threatens to walk out of the wedding and head to Kashi to become a sanyasin—an ascetic scholar. My husband did this. With a great deal of merriment, all my relatives charged after him to make nice.

“Please don’t leave for Kashi,” my father repeated after the priest. “I will give you the hand of my daughter: a good woman who will stand beside you for the rest of your life.”

And there the wedding rituals take over with a lot of flower throwing and drum-beating so that the poor bridegroom or bride cannot think—which perhaps is the point of these rituals: to literally beat the young people into thoughtless submission.

My husband didn’t leave: not then; not now.

Kashi was not just the place where eligible young men went off to escape getting hitched. At one time, it was a centre of learning where young ascetics and students flocked—to study with scholars, formulate their beliefs, and search for the divine.

Like Greece in the time of Socrates and Plato, Sanskrit scholars used to stand in the street corners of Kashi and invite other philosophers to debate with them. Anyone who came up with a new theory or a new philosophy had to road test it first in Kashi.

The famous grammarian, Patanjali, who wrote the yoga sutras, taught here in the 2nd century. Vatsyayana lived in Kashi in the 3rd century and wrote the Kama Sutra, the treatise on sexuality. The three great Hindu philosophers—Shankara in the 8th century, Ramanuja in the 11th century and Madhva in the 13th century—all spent time here.

It wasn’t just the Hindus. At least two Jain tirthankaras (sages and teachers) spent chunks of time in this city. An entire sect of people who believe that Jesus was buried in Kashmir also believe that he spent time in Kashi. The Buddha spent his summers in Kashi. Many of the Jataka tales about the previous births of the Buddha—he was called Bodhisattva before he became the Buddha, the enlightened one—were centred in Kashi.

Several stories begin with the line, “Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta ruled Kashi…” The Jataka tales are dated between 300 BC and 400 AD, and they referred to events that happened a few hundred years ago, all of which lends weight to the Hindu claim that Kashi is the oldest continually occupied city in the world.

Kashi was to Indian philosophy what Florence was to Renaissance artists, what Paris was to the Impressionist painters and what Silicon Valley is to today’s entrepreneur—an intellectual hub where ideas could cross pollinate. It was the place to be; to learn from other scholars engaged in the same pursuit, whether it was philosophy, logic, metaphysics, spirituality or poetry.

“There is hardly any city that can claim greater antiquity, greater continuity and greater popular veneration than Banaras. Banaras has been a holy city for at least 30 centuries,” said the great Indologist and Sanskrit scholar P.V. Kane, who was awarded the Bharat Ratna. “No other city in India arouses the religious emotions of Hindus as much as Kashi does.”

As I stand in front of the goddess Annapurna, I am trying to feel aroused—religiously, I mean. All around me are men and women, palms together in supplication, staring at the goddess with her large black eyes, muttering appeals, their gaze unwavering, lost in hope and prayer.

I envy their transcendence, their engagement with divinity, even if it is self-perceived. I want to feel it. If Kashi doesn’t do it for me, I am a lost cause. Please, I mutter, let me experience divinity. Instead, my mind remains stubbornly observant, questioning and judgemental.

Something is wrong with me. Do these devotees actually believe that the goddess will change their lives? How? How can they surrender free will, ego, pride and sense of self to a nebulous higher power?

The goddess gazes back at me passively. Don’t tempt fate, I think to myself, a little fearfully. I remember the Tamil movies I watched as a child in which a wrathful god decided to teach a disbeliever a lesson by throwing hardships and life lessons her way.

Those movies showed a beautifully simple cause-and-effect relationship between humans and god. You go to this temple and voila, your blind son gets his eyes back. Sudama offered Krishna some beaten rice. When he returned home, his hut had become a mansion.

Having grown up in a religious family, I am not an atheist. I am not even agnostic. I am a Hindu—a questioning one, perhaps, one who is hypersensitive to petty religious hypocrisies for sure. But I have long lost the boundless self-confidence with which I could dismiss the divine.

The school of hard knocks has made me a little more humble; it has taught me that everything in my life is not in my control, that there is such a thing called luck—or the divine hand if you will—and that random acts can change the course of a life.

A priest stands in front of the idol, chanting Sanskrit mantras, some of which I recognize.

Annapurne sada purne, Shankara prana vallabhe…

Oh Annapurna, always whole. The one who gives Shiva his life force. Please give me the boons of wisdom and detachment. “Jnana Vairagya Siddhyartham, Bhiksham dehi cha Parvati.”

Man, my ancients were obsessed with detachment as a path to wisdom. Yoga says the same thing. It says that vairagya is letting go of attachments, of fears, of sins, of false identities. Put that way, it is uplifting. You fly free of all these illusions or delusions of grandeur and remove yourselves from the shackles of fear. If a goddess can do that, I will stand in line.

My grandmother used to say these shlokas to Annapurna, which is why I know this bit by heart.

Above the stove in my home is a tiny bronze image of Annapurna, given to me by my grandmother after she visited Kashi. My cook, a devout Hindu, places steaming hot rice in front of this tiny idol and allows the steam to envelop the goddess, offering the cooked food to her first before setting it on the dining table.

In Kashi, I view first-hand the goddess who has been part of my family for three generations. Two women stand on either side of the idol. They are folding saris into long strips and placing them on top of the idol. Stalks of yellow wheat are placed next to the idol.

Annapurna is the goddess of grains. She epitomizes sacred food, holding in her hands a vessel and a large ladle to dole out a nourishing, unending supply of food to her people. She is the queen of Kashi. The story of how she came here is one that I relish, as a spouse and a feminist.

It turns out that Shiva and Parvati, or Shakti, as she is called in this story, were having a philosophical discussion in their Himalayan mountain abode. Shiva grandly pronounced that the whole world wasmaya—an illusion. Only he (or the realization of him) was the true reality.

“Is that so?” asked his wife. As Shakti, she was the material half of the world, manifested in all things. Stung by her husband’s dismissal of her role in creation, she vanished.

The world came to a standstill. Time stopped. The earth became barren; devoid of sustenance. All of creation suffered. Seeing this, the compassionate goddess Shakti appeared in Kashi as the goddess Annapurna. She set up a kitchen and began feeding the world again.

Shiva did something that all men ought to do when they are proved wrong in a spousal quarrel. He showed up at his wife’s door and made nice. The mythological version of an apology is that Shiva appeared with a begging bowl in hand, shame-faced and sheepish at his grandiosity.

“Say it,” the wife must have said.

“I realize that the material world is as important as the spiritual,” Shiva must have mumbled. “I shouldn’t have dismissed it. Your role is as important as mine. More important.”

The smiling wife fed her husband. All was forgotten.

The husband and wife made a deal. In Kashi, Shakti would take care of the people during their lives. Shiva would help them after they died. Living and dying: a good division of duties. Both are important in Kashi.

This is the second in a four-part series from Kashi. Read the first parthere.

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

http://www.livemint.com/Object/pSU7yvixWV1446QqD70VhJ/newsletter.html

Current Edition

Kashi, Ganga and the politics of religion

February 21, 2016September 12, 2016 / Shoba Narayan / 9 Comments

I enjoyed writing this four part series for Mint on Sunday. Kashi is a dream-like place. Seems to belong to another time, and yet to all time. The photos are mine too 🙂

OF DEAD COWS AND THE GANGA: THE PARADOX OF RELIGION

Photo: Shoba Narayan

In her quest to embrace faith, the ultimate feel-good pill on the rocky road called life, this writer looks for divine intervention in Kashi

Shoba Narayan

A dead cow is floating down the river Ganga. She is a black and white Holstein Friesian cow, like the one I own in Bangalore. She floats sideways, legs spreadeagled. Half of her face is visible, even though it is dark—7pm on a Friday. I wish I could say that she looks peaceful, but her teeth are bared.

Some 100 boats filled with Indian and foreign tourists are converging on Dashashwamedh Ghat for the evening Ganga aarthi, the spectacle that is the culmination of daily religious life in Kashi. The cow floats amid the boats, forcing embarrassed guides into stuttering, apologetic explanations in Spanish, French, Russian, Hebrew and English.

“Sometimes, when people have a pet cow that died and they cannot afford to bury or cremate her, they simply throw her into the Ganga,” says our guide, J.P. Mishra, of Magic India Tours. He stares at our horrified faces and shrugs. “Ganga is the mother. She accepts everything.”

Would the Ganga have been better served, had we imagined her to be our child rather than mother? What if our ancients imagined the Ganga to be a daughter, or better yet, given the Indian preference for male heirs, a son? Would we have taken better care of Ganga, our child, than we do of Mother Ganga?

These are moot questions; whispers into the mists of time that reach back to 1500 BC when the Vedas were “revealed” (not written or composed but revealed, but more on that later) to Hindu rishis. The first Veda, the Rig Veda, mentions the Ganga but a few times. The most famous reference to the Ganga in the Rig Veda comes from thenadistuti sukta, or the “hymn in praise of the rivers”. Even that mentions the Ganga somewhere in the middle, along with nineteen other rivers—including the Saraswati, Yamuna, Purushni, Asikni and Gomti.

The hymn is predominantly in praise of the river Sindhu, or Indus, described as the mightiest of all rivers, into which other roaring rivers run “like mothers to their calves”, not calves to their mothers as I first mistakenly thought. The Sindhu—who flows flashing and white, with ample volume; whose roar can be heard to the heavens; who bellows like a bull; and who is beautiful like a steed. Ganga is just part of a list in these early days of Hinduism.

An aside: Unlike other ancient literature like the Egyptian Book of the Dead (recorded on papyrus) or the Sumerian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh, often called the first story in the world (recorded on carved tablets), the Vedas were not written down until much later. They were not even believed to be composed by humans. They were heard—a better translation is seen—by Hindu sages, who were therefore called seers.

For this reason, the Vedas are apauraseya or authorless—revealed texts that were grasped by Hindu seers as fully formed philosophies or insights about the world. The Vedas are preserved as shruti or listened literature in exactly the same form—unchanged words, exactly the same meter and intonation—for millennia.

It is only later when stories and myths were compiled into the Puranas that the Ganga gains importance. Her creation myth, depicted in the Bhagavata Purana is spectacular and goes thus: To teach a lesson to an arrogant king called Mahabali, Lord Vishnu lifts one of his feet heavenward in the Trivikrama pose, and pierces the sky with his toenail. Like piercing an egg, this causes the milk of human creation—the Ganga—to flow downwards from the upper reaches of the cosmos into the mere heavens where Brahma the creator resides, the Brahma loka, as it is called—Brahma’s world. In some tellings, the Ganga is imagined as the Milky Way. The gods enjoy her fertile waters and she enjoys her stay and status in heaven.

Several millennia later, on earth, a dutiful son is in a quandary. He has just discovered that 60,000 of his ancestors are wallowing in the netherworld because of a sage’s curse. They cannot even attempt reaching heaven. The dutiful son performs a lot of austerities, which pleases Brahma, the creator. Brahma tells him that the only way his ancestors can have a shot at heaven is if the purifying waters of the Ganga touch them. The son begs Brahma for help. Brahma orders the Ganga to fall to earth. She isn’t particularly thrilled to leave the heavens, but has no choice but to agree. Brahma, after all, is the creator, her father.

The problem is that the power of her fall will smash the earth to smithereens, wash it away in a great cascade of water. So the son prays again, this time to Shiva, begging him to cushion the Ganga’s fall by absorbing her into his long matted locks. As is seen in a wonderful painting by Raja Ravi Varma, there stands Shiva, with the kind of six-pack abs that would put Shah Rukh to shame. His long matted locks flow out like Sonam Kapoor’s—and isn’t it pathetic that the only metaphors I can come up with are from Bollywood?

Moving on, a leopard skin is wrapped around his waist, a snake around his neck. Shiva gazes upwards as the Ganga falls. He wraps her in his hair, trapping her impetuous arrogance, and allowing only a small trickle to fall on earth. Man subdues woman in the feminist telling of it; except that Hindu myths are gender agnostic. There are enough Durgas and Kalis who will ruthlessly kill the bad guy and swallow his blood if they need to, like Kali did with the demon Rakthabeeja.

So the Ganga hits the earth. With folded hands, the son—his name is Bhagiratha—leads her to the netherworld where she purifies the souls of all 60,000 of his ancestors, allowing them to make their journey upwards to the heavens. No wonder all Hindus want to have a dip in this holy water—touched by Vishnu’s feet, Shiva’s hair, and Brahma’s command, she is the liquid goddess linked to the divine trinity in Hindu mythology.

As creation myths go, the story of the Ganga is hard to beat or duplicate. Is there a way to massage this myth to serve the Ganga in her present state? Indians view her as Ma Ganga. Mothers are taken for granted. Viewing her as a cherished daughter—or son—might have served her better through the ages. The instinct to take care of a child is primordial.

Photo: Shoba Narayan

Might we have taken care of Ganga the child, better than we do Ganga the mother? Too late. Rationality cannot alter lore. Myths are carved in stone, and certainly one that is so braided into the Indian psyche cannot be morphed so easily, even if it might potentially help the river.

A dead cow is floating down the Ganga. This irritates me on many levels. Cleaning the Ganga is a Herculean task—or should I choose from Indian myths instead of Greek and say, Bhagirathan task? And why not choose a woman’s name? Cleaning the Ganga is a Malala Yousafzai-ian task.

This dead cow with her wide-open eyes symbolizes everything that is impossible about this venture. Why couldn’t this cow have been given to a slaughterhouse? Did the poor farmer whose cow it was live in a state that banned the killing of the cow? Why couldn’t the poor farmer have cremated the cow instead? Or did he love the animal so much that he wanted it to attain salvation through the holy waters of this river?

Or was it simple economics? He didn’t have the money to deal with her death. Tossing her into the Ganga was an easy option. Was it faith or desperation that led to him throwing the dead animal into the waters, polluting her further?

***

At the Dashashwamedh (Ten Horse Sacrifice) Ghat, the Ganga aarthiis about to begin. The boats are fitted against each other like a jigsaw puzzle, to form an arc that faces the bank. In the next boat, two young women—American by the sound of their accent—sit cross-legged on the wooden boat, chatting with their guide. Ahead of us, on the steps of the ghat, a huge crowd of people has gathered. In the buildings behind them are billboards with photographs. Actor Sunny Deol posing, as if in a Calvin Klein ad, selling Cozi underwear to religious tourists who want to elevate their minds.

Those of us on the boats are a captive audience, or as it turns out to be, customers. Within a few minutes, an energetic group of children balance their way across the boat, carrying bamboo baskets filled with ice water, candles to float on the Ganga, matchboxes, incense and photographs of gods.

One young boy who looks about seven years old entreats the two American women beside me to buy his wares in broken English.

“This candy (he means candle) very nice,” he says, holding up a leaf cup inside which nestles a small tea candle amidst a bed of yellow marigolds.

It is a beautiful arrangement, Balinese in its simplicity, handmade and tenuous—a floating candle, carrying wishes and hopes into the Ganga.

“You buy? Good price,” the boy says.

The two American women shake their heads even though he is charging them the same price that he charges everyone—Rs10. Hardened by beggars and touts who swarm around them, warned by guides about bargaining for anything sold to foreigners in India, they fail to recognize a good deal. I feel sorry for the kid and buy six candles even though I don’t intend to float them on the already overburdened Ganga.

A male voice begins singing over the loudspeaker. Seven priests, all male, take their positions at different points on the broad ghat. They depict the Saptha-Rishis, or seven primordial sages. They follow the protocol of a puja, beginning with flowers, then incense, then a lamp with a single wick, and then a beautiful multilayered lamp with a tiered pyramid of wicks, all shining in the darkness.

In synchronized movements, the seven priests lift the shining pyramid of flickering lamps, face the river, and circle their hands round and round. A group of men paying homage to a female goddess. All religions are male-dominated. Hinduism is no different. I have never seen a female priest in any Hindu temple. I resent the fact that Ganga aarthi does not even have a token woman as participant—a female singer at least?

“Here have a peda,” says our guide, opening a box. “It is from the Hanuman temple.”

In Kashi, sacred food is everywhere. The peda is delicious and we chew it contentedly while watching the priests do their synchronized movements—like chewing popcorn at a movie. The aarthi lasts about half an hour. At the end, I search for the cow, wishing I had photographed it.

“Ghai? Woh chala gaya,” says the boatman casually. It has gone.

“At least it is better than those corpses we used to see floating in the Ganga,” says our guide soothingly.

We take the motor boat upstream to Assi Ghat where my hotel is. Along the way, we see a dead buffalo right by the bank of Harishchandra Ghat, which, along with Manikarnika Ghat, are the two crematoriums on the Ganga. Somehow, this isn’t as horrifying, perhaps because it is on the banks of a crematorium. A remnant corpse, even if it happens to be an animal, left behind, perhaps by a poor farmer, who couldn’t pay for its funeral.

Photo: Shoba Narayan

A few yards upstream, a couple is immersing themselves into the river. Like most devotees, the man is topless, with a cloth wrapped around his midriff. The woman is fully clothed in a maroon sari and mustard yellow blouse. She wades into the water and dunks her head in. The man does this three times. Can’t they see the dead buffalo to their left?

“So many people take a bath every day in the Ganga. They don’t fall sick. It is the power of belief,” says our guide in explanation.

Photo: Shoba Narayan

Ah, belief. The great divide between the rational and the spiritual. The problem with religion is that it is predicated on tenets that are hard to measure, understand, explain or duplicate. Like reiki healing, noticing auras, or anything to do with intuition, religious belief has to be experienced. That is the problem.

The path to belief can be zig-zagging and precarious, full of questions and second-guessing, like mine is. Sometimes, it happens gradually over a course of a lifetime through a guru—although that too is a circular, chicken-and-egg situation. They say that a guru will come when you are ready to accept the lessons she has to offer; but how can you evolve to the stage when you are ready for mysticism, faith and spirituality without a guru?

Faith can also happen in an instant, like a lightning stroke, through divine grace, although that is rare and requires miracles. “Look at me through the corner of your eye; your kadai-kann,” goes the lyrics of a Tamil song. Just a glance from the goddess—not even a full one—but one from the corner of her eye—can elevate a moron into a mystic, as the goddess of learning, Saraswati, is supposed to have done to the poet Kalidasa by drawing on his tongue.

As nebulous as faith is, numerous studies point to its benefits. Faith is in vogue—on the cover of publications worldwide. It confers self-control and peace of mind, fosters relationships, increases happiness and nurtures community. Faith is the ultimate feel-good pill on this rocky road that we call life—it heals and empowers. I get all that. I would like to embrace my faith. I would like to be a better Hindu.

Religion, however poses a perplexing paradox. Only if I have faith will I experience the benefits of faith. But how to embrace faith without some sort of proof—not scientific proof necessarily but even some sort of inner awakening, some sign from the cosmos? “Anything?” as George Costanza said in Seinfeld.

How do I get on the religious bandwagon? Where do I jump in?

The first of a four-part series.

Palani Hill & Kartikeya

August 9, 2015September 12, 2016 / Shoba Narayan / Leave a comment

My piece on Kartikeya, also called Skanda, was the cover story at Mint on Sunday. Best to read it here. Warning: it is long.

I also made two videos to accompany the piece. You can see them in Youtube

About the Palani temple. Click here.

About the Panchamritam. Click here

Ajmer Dargah

July 12, 2015September 12, 2016 / Shoba Narayan / 5 Comments

Mint has been sending me on trips to various spots to write on “sacred food.” This week, it is Ajmer Dargah. What a sensual experience. I respond to scents and sounds. The enveloping scent of roses was amazing. You have to read it at the site for the full photo cum words experiences. Oh, I am taking photos for these pieces myself.

For Mint on Sunday here

Photos here

I am standing outside the main shrine of the Ajmer Dargah listening to a spirited group of qawwali singers perform. They voices are entreating; their eyes sincere, rising up to search for the divine. They sit cross-legged and pray, using their hands to express the strength of their feeling. They aspire towards rapture; to forget the self. They seek oneness with God– a quest worth undertaking; the only quest worth undertaking for some people. Non-believers though, have to begin with the rather somber question that crashes debates from the realm of the divine down to earth: what is God?

When you think about it, God is such an abstract concept, which is probably why humans gave labels and names when they began the discussion: Mohammed, Jesus, Mary, Kali, Hanuman, Durga, Buddha or Zarathustra. Only Hinduism has female Goddesses; the rest are men, most of who began as prophets and teachers before being converted into and worshipped as Gods. Are Sri Sri Ravishankar and Mata Amritanandamayi going to be the Gods of tomorrow? An uncomfortable thought.

Religion—all religions were an effort by early humans to wrap their head around this nebulous idea of the cosmic controller. He—or she– who has created this web of life that we all inhabit. When early humans confronted events that shocked, awe and confused them, they had to explain it somehow. A child gets hit in a road accident and dies. Why? Who can explain the timing of it? Why now? Why to this particular child? Religion, I am guessing, was the answer that early humans came up with when they got hit by the proverbial truck or the Paleolithic version thereof. Why did the lion kill my son—of all people? When he was such a great warrior? Why now, when he was making off with that eligible Homo sapien beauty in the neighbouring hunter-gatherer group? Questions that have no answer. Ergo, religion. Religion was—is—the human search for answers; a quest for truth; a way of explaining the happenings of the world, much like scientists do today– except now science is looking for alien life and cloning genomes; and religion has climbed down from its pioneering expedition into the soul and became an ‘opium for the people,’ to quote Karl Marx.

Most religions began with mysticism. One man goes into a cave or sits under a tree. He meditates; and gets visions that answer fundamental questions. He spreads these ideas to his followers. Over time, they get codified and formalized as a faith. One man’s interpretation of the answers that sprung from his subconscious resonates with countless people. They affiliate themselves with this idea and give it a name. Behold religion.

Music, dance and rituals are tools that most religions use to disseminate ideas to the masses. The acts of praying, singing and dancing help devotees connect with a higher power. Religious music, whether it is gospel or bhajan, springs from the same place and has the same goal: to connect with the divine. Sufi music does it better than most. The qawwali is one manifestation; the Mevlevi order is another. You may have heard of the Mevlevis. They are also called whirling dervishes; and they are unforgettable. A Japanese sensei told me that whirling was a way to center yourself and sync your soul with the universe. Try it. One hand reaches for the heavens; another reaches for the earth in a diagonal. And then you whirl—round and round—for several minutes or more. It is that easy; or that difficult. I once watched whirling dervishes in Konya, Turkey. It was among the most moving things I have ever seen. A line of men, clad in white robes, circling for a long time– time that extended out like their hands. They were in a trance and put us in one too. Although I didn’t know it then, there was a connection between the whirling dance I watched and the poetry of Rumi that I loved.

“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”

Rumi

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī is perhaps Sufism’s most famous poet, thanks to numerous translations and Turkish writer, Elif Safak’s novel, The Forty Rules of Love. The novel tells the story of how Rumi became the student of Shams Tabrizi, a Persian Sufi dervish. When Rumi died, his son, Sultan Walad founded the splendid Mevlevi order. They have been dancing ever since.

“Dance, when you’re broken open.

Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance when you’re perfectly free.”

Rumi

Like the bhakti cult, the philosophy behind Sufism is the idea of tawhid, a complex Persian word that symbolizes the primal root; the foundation from which we all spring from. Sufism believes that we have become cut off from this primal connection to God. All human action—the whirling, the singing, the poetry— is an expression for the devotee’s longing to return to this root; to restore the connection. This is why the annual Urs, officially the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, is celebrated joyfully as a wedding anniversary. The logic is that death reconnected the saint’s soul with its primal root, with God.

The word Urs, comes from the Arabic word ‘uroos’ and it means ‘wedding.’ When a saint dies, as Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti did in Ajmer, he has achieved wisaal or the ultimate union with the beloved. Realize that they don’t say “union with God.” Instead, they view God as their beloved. This intimate, all-encompassing lover-like connection is what differentiates Sufism from its parent religion, Islam. William Chittick, a leading translator of Islamic texts who studied at the University of Tehran has described Sufism as the “interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice.”

For a Hindu, it is easy to understand and access Sufism through its music and its tolerant, enveloping tenets. Indeed, millions of Hindus visit this shrine every year, clad in colourful saris and bright red bindis. “It is a Ganga Jamuna sanskriti here,” said a Hindu devotee, the Ganga referring to Hinduism and the Jamuna to Islam.

This then, is the distinctive beauty of this dargah. It is not just open to people of all faiths; it welcomes them. If you have a wish or mannat that you want fulfilled; a prayer that must reach God; an offering of thanks that you want to give, you are welcome here. And people do. They come from the four corners of the world, carrying baskets heavy with flowers–a ring of roses interspersed with marigolds— an aesthetic that is distinct to Indian places of worship. Multicolored flowers put together in an artistic way. The heavy scent of red roses fills the air.

Devotees bring nuts and fruits. They carry blankets and shawls to place on top of the tombstone. They tie strings with objects on a stick that extends across the empty cauldrons where food is cooked. The hanging objects offer clues to human frailties and wishes. There is a metal house, a cradle, a hand, a comb–each symbolizing a desire for a job, marriage, children, or wealth. People throw in money and rice grains into the empty cauldron. At the side of the cauldrons are metal containers filled with sacred food that has been cooked early this morning. The kesariabhat, as it is called, is orange and follows the usual recipe of broken wheat, sugar, ghee, and dried fruit, all stirred together for hours before distributing to the faithful. It is vegetarian, although legend has it that Emperor Shah Jahan mixed the meat of a Nilgai-deer that he had shot while hunting with the vegetarian food.

The dargah’s link with the Mogul emperors is close and traverses generations. It was Emperor Akbar, who ordered the first giant cauldron built. It is called Badi Degh (or Big Cauldron) and can cook a whopping amount of food. Akbar pledged to come to Ajmer on foot if he won the battle of Chittorgarh. When he won, he kept his promise and distributed food from the big cauldron. Some say that the big cauldron cooks 125 ‘mounds’ of rice, a number that is hard to fathom. Let’s just say that food from the big cauldron can feed about 15,000 people.

Not to be outdone, Akbar’s son, Jahangir ordered the construction of the smaller cauldron, called Choti Degh. He ordered that this food be distributed to 5000 people, taking the first offering himself, after which his queen, Noor Jahan and the other women of his harem followed suit. This kind of largesse was typical of the empire building Mughals. Today, moguls of a different sort, from hedge fund managers to business magnates pay money to the Dargah to have food cooked and distributed. Typically, this happens during the Urs every day or to mark a special occasion.

Every place of worship, be it a church, mosque or temple, has a rhythm. It is both universal and distinctive. The ethos of a religious place emphasizes simplicity and purity when you approach the shrine. You wear your best silks when you approach the shrine, or you go as a simple person clad in white with minimal clothes. There is water so that you can wash up after your long pilgrimage. There are offerings that you can buy. At Ajmer, it is red roses, attar, nuts, and most importantly, the chaadar or blanket that you can lay on top of the tombstone as a mark of respect. Through these utilitarian tools, you access the divine. Every year, various world leaders send a chaadar during the Urs as a mark of respect. This year, it was Barack Obama’s turn and he sent an embroidered red chaadar via the US Embassy.

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, the saint who is enshrined in this dargah was born in the Sistan region of Iran. His life followed the fairly standard trajectory of most great spiritual leaders. Pious family? Check. Interested in spirituality from a young age? Check. As a boy, he prayed and meditated instead of picking fruit from the famous Iranian orchards. Makes you wonder about future saints who are born in this era. If any child in our age has a spiritual calling, are they heeding it? Or are they playing Play Station 3 and other video games? The world might be losing the next Buddha or Khwaja to Candy Crush saga. Sad, isn’t it?

Moinuddin’s next experience is something I would have liked to have. While working in his orchard– which itself, is an experience not to be sniffed at, given the legendary quality of the melons of Iran— Moinuddin had a visitor. Being a well brought up child, he greeted the dervaish (spiritual man) properly by kissing his hands and gave him fruit. The dervaish, whose name was Sheikh Ibrahim Qandozi, was impressed by the pious nature of the boy. He took out some khul from his pocket. This is described as the dregs of sesame seeds after the oil is extracted. Some historians say that this was bread. Anyway, the dervaish put this piece into his mouth, chewed it a bit and then put it in Moinuddin’s mouth. The boy lost all connection with the current world and went into a mystical trance. This event caused the scales to fall from Moinuddin’s eyes, to paraphrase Bertie Wooster. He went into the divine realm and realized the true nature of things. I would have like to eat this sesame patty too.

After this experience, there was no turning back. Moinuddin left for Bukhara, then a great center of learning, where he finished his education. After that, it was onward to Samarkand to study philosophy, theology, and grammar. In Baghdad, he met a great Sufi Dervaish who became his guide and teacher for 20 years. It was here that Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty received the instruction to go to Hindustan or India.

Ajmer at the time was a great amalgam of many faiths. It was the pleasure resort of emperor Shah Jahan–a far cry from the dusty and gray town that it has become today. Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty set up his spiritual order using Ajmer as base. He became known as Garib Nawaz for the compassion with which he treated poor people. He spread Sufism throughout North India, gained many disciples and most importantly, established the Chishti order that continues to this day. His real achievement was to make his faith accessible to all.

Religions evolve through a somewhat contradictory impulse: by defining and differentiating themselves. It is one of the things that bother me about faith; any faith. You’d think that prayer or connection to the divine would make you see the world as one. Most religions advocate this notion of treating everyone as your brother or sister. Except that the deeper people go into religion, the more they seem to define themselves through ever-narrowing parameters, be it Sri Vaishnavism or Seventh Day Adventist. Religion doesn’t expand the self even though every great text advocates it. It causes a narrowing of boundaries in a sense so that you begin affiliating yourself with a Pentacostal order or a specific guru. You call yourself Sufi or Mahayana or Orthodox. You view other orders, even if they belong to the same religion with some amount of suspicion. “All religions are the same,” you say piously, while hobnobbing with other acolytes of the same order.

The relationship between what some call “mainstream Islam” and Sufism reflects this trend and is fraught in this way. Sufi practitioners emphasize that Sufism originated in Islam; that early Sufi thought was directly drawn from the Koran, except that it was internalized. Internalization is a word that comes up often in Sufism to explain its tolerance to all faiths and the use of song and dance in worship. The 12^th century Muslim theologian Al Ghazali has a wonderful passage in his treatise, “The Alchemy of Happiness,” in a chapter titled ‘The use of dance and music as aids to religious life.” The fact he has to defend music and dance speaks to his desire to make Islam and Sufism compatible with one another, which leads to the conclusion that they were diverging, even as early as the 12^th century.

In the chapter, Al Ghazali says, “The effect of music and dancing…fan into a flame whatever love is already dormant in the heart, whether it be earthly and sensual, or divine and spiritual.” Made me want to go out and dance. There is more that Al Ghazali defends. “As regards the erotic poetry which is recited in Sufi gatherings, and to which people sometimes make objection, we must remember that, when in such poetry mention is made of separation from or union with the beloved, the Sufi, who is an adept in the love of God, applies such expressions to separation from or union with Him.”

I am sorry to say this again and again but when and why did religions become so prudish? A few centuries ago, erotic sculpture and poetry was acceptable on the path towards God. What happened? When did we decide that God required seriousness? What happened to joy?

There is a lot of joy in the singing at the dargah. People sway in ecstasy; some, with tears rolling down their eyes. The whole atmosphere combines sensual bliss—the scent of flowers—with spiritual elevation. It is as faith should be, mixing the everyday with the elevated; the mundane with the divine; the senses and the soul.

I didn’t taste the kesaria bhat though. It was Ramzan when I went. Nobody was eating anything during the day. It seemed inappropriate for me to do so, even though there were several enticing containers full of them.

I was disappointed not to taste the food. It was a sign, I told myself. The women in my family use this word when they contemplate visits to temples. The God or Goddess has to “call” you, they will say. Or call me back, in this case, I thought– to taste the food during Urs.

A surprising twist emerged as I exited the dargah. My guide was waiting outside. He wanted to know if he could hitch a ride to Jaipur with me. His reason epitomized the Indian web of relationships. “My daughter-in-law’s brother’s wedding happened a few days ago and my sammdhi (the inlaws) have invited me for food after a puja. You like dal, bhaati, churma, don’t you?” he offered as explanation.

Two hours later, we drove up to a small flat on the outskirts of Jaipur. Inside were about 20 people, all colorfully dressed in saris. In quick order, plates were produced. We were the last two eat. They gave us a stainless steel plate filled with spiced dal; the bhaati, which was a round ball of cooked wheat dough; and churma, a sweet mixture. There was a piquant pickle and some water. We ate quietly. Men came up with additional food to serve. This is what I have noticed in traditional Indian homes. People accord the food the girth and seriousness that it is due. In my ancestral village in Palghat, you’d sit on the floor and eat from banana leaves, pretty much in silence. The focus was on the food; and in the eating. The servers would watch and add dishes quietly. This was how we ate the dish in Jaipur. It was delicious, although my driver told me later that he had eaten better versions of the dish. “You need to cook it on a slow fire, using firewood and cow-dung patties,” he said. “The scent of smoke gets infused into the dish. That is when the flavours bloom and take on a smoky hue.”

At the home, our hosts entertained us with questions about me and answers about them. After a few minutes of whispering, they asked a simple question: “What caste are you?”

I paused mid-mouth. Why were they asking me this question? Was it because I was dressed, all in black? Being South Indian, I didn’t have any context about the Ajmer Dargah, except what I had read. In my attempt to blend in, I had decided to wear all black to the Dargah. It was only after I arrived that I realized how unnecessary this self-imposed dress code was. I could have worn my bright red Kanjivaram wedding sari and still not have stood out.

Once I got that misunderstanding out of the way, I considered options. Call me naïve, but I think India should move beyond the caste conversation. But this was not the time for pseudo-intellectual if well-thought-out principles. So I answered my hosts. They were delighted because they belonged to the same caste too, they said. “We are Pandas,” they said. “We are the caste that does all the rituals at the Jagannath Puri temple.”

I concentrated on the food. It was delicious.

After the meal, my host took me through all the rooms were many women were engaged in rocking babies to sleep, chatting with each other, or combing hair. I asked them if they would pose for photographs. It might get published, I warned. They weren’t fazed. They came to see me off at the gate and stood in line for a photo that reflected the glorious colors of the land.

As for the dal, bhaati, churma, I felt like asking them to pack me some but I didn’t. I would just have to go back. For the kesariabhat and good old fashioned dal, bhaati, churma, made in the village with cow-dung patties and smoke.

END

U. Chicago Magazine

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 / Shoba Narayan / Leave a comment

Message from my dear friend Tommy (Tomas Haendler) who has known my eldest since she was born.

Hi Guys. Just came back from a week at the beach and among the reading stuff I take I reviewed the University of Chicago magazine article on Wendy Doniger’s writings on Hinduism, and surprise, surprise…. there she was.
Shoba’s comments all over it.

Link here

Very polarizing issue. I still get reader letters saying that I am wrong to defend Ms. Doniger. Below is a recent one.

——— Forwarded message ———-
From: ‘Nathu Ram Verma’ via Ideas QZ
Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 1:08 AM
Subject: doniger’s book Hindus: An Alternative history
To: “ideas@qz.com”

I read your column, Shoba, on the above. I could not digest it. I am also reading this book, now at page 252. I am not tired. I will finish the book. My objection is not about freedom of expression or thought, but the larger question of sensitivity of billions of people. Depiction of Rama and Sita in this book, to say the least, was obnoxious. From which version of Ramayan Wendy has taken details, I do not know. From her references, I gathered they were mostly Westerners. People have sensitivity, right or wrong. To violate it in such utter abundance is morally wrong. Do not tell me about scholarly/ academic / witty/ and what else approach. The story of Rama is venerated in many southeast Asian countries. In Thailand near the Buddha shrine, there is a Rama temple.
You call Wendy brilliant. Yes, but brilliance is to be tempered with wisdom.
I may be wrong. But I do not think Indians mock Christianity in the name of scholarship or otherwise, although there is a lot of bull… in it. To put it simply Jesus was a bastard. How Wendy will like it ?
Since you do not know me. I should tell I am not exactly illiterate and I dislike all organized religions. But Wendy is beyond me.
I do not know whether you reply to your readers’ comments. If you do, pl enlighten me with your wisdom at (REMOVED)

The Sexes– again

June 14, 2013July 6, 2013 / Shoba Narayan / 3 Comments

The thrill of being a beat reporter at a newspaper is to turn in copy and have it up in a few hours. Column writing takes away that immediacy but offers carte blanche with respect to voice and content– that is its thrill. I write my Mint column about two weeks in advance and The National column about ten days in advance. Last night at about 8 PM, I saw this piece about the Dalai Lama. Pitched it to Eleanor, my editor at The Sexes. She approved it within minutes. Wrote it in two hours. She edited it in an hour. And it is up. Felt like a reporter– although I didn’t go out to report, which Professor Blood said is what real reporters do.

Should read Carol Gilligan’s work. Hadn’t known about it at all.

The piece is here and below. The comments are interesting.

The Dalai Lama Says Female Leaders Are More Compassionate … Hmm

“If the circumstances are such that a female Dalai Lama is more useful, then automatically a female Dalai Lama will come,” he said.
SHOBA NARAYANJUN 13 2013, 2:09 PM ET

Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

As a Hindu, I often think that if I wanted to choose another religion to follow, it would be Buddhism—and not just because I might get to hug Richard Gere. The Dalai Lama’s recent comments in Australia about how his successor could be a woman only added light to my eyes, and made me exhale into a perfect Lotus pose.

Speaking at a press conference, the exiled 78-year-old leader, suggested that women were better equipped to lead the world in the current time. “If the circumstances are such that a female Dalai Lama is more useful, then automatically a female Dalai Lama will come,” he said.

His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso was then asked about the bitter gender debate that is permeating Australian politics. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been accusing her opposition Liberal Party of being sexist and removing women from the political sphere. Earlier this week, a menu for a Liberal Party fundraiser was leaked on social media. It carried the line: “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail: small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box.” The chef who created the menu called it a joke that never made it out of the kitchen. He said that the opposition leaders had not seen the menu. Ms. Gillard called the menu “grossly sexist and offensive.” The menu has gone viral and evinced reactions all over Australia. “Even when women ARE at the table, we’re still on the menu,” tweeted a woman in response.

The Dalai Lama responded to the gender question by referring to rising economic inequality around the globe. The world, he said, needs leaders with compassion. And in his mind, that means the world needs more female leaders.

“In that respect, biologically, females have more potential,” he said. “Females have more sensitivity about others’ wellbeing … In my own case, my father, very short temper. On a few occasions I also got some beatings. But my mother was so wonderfully compassionate.”

This is where I lost him. Are women truly more compassionate than men? In responding to the sexist saga that has Australia all a-twitter, is the Dalai Lama himself being sexist?

(This is the problem with us feminists: we bristle. People pay us a compliment—heck, the Dalai Lama pays women a compliment—and some of us, me included, take it amiss. He calls us compassionate and we call him sexist. But even if you take the Dalai Lama—given as he is to simple, playful remarks—out of the equation, the question remains: are women more compassionate than men? )

Research is both fascinating and conflicting on whether women are more compassionate than men. In 1958, Harvard psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg wrote his dissertation on what would come to be called Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. In it, he posited that males are morally superior to females because they scored higher on tests that measured impartial justice and equality. His research was considered groundbreaking at the time and continues to be widely cited. Kohlberg’s conclusions were challenged by his student, Carol Gilligan, who suggested that morality and ethics are based on gender and culture. Gilligan’s research posits that ethics follow two parallel paths: the justice perspective and the care perspective (no prizes for guessing which sex has which). In her 1982 book In a Different Voice, described by Harvard University Press as the “little book that started a revolution,” Gilligan suggests that people with the justice perspective (mostly men) base their ethical decisions on impartiality, fairness, rights, and justice. Those with the care perspective base their ethics on care, compassion, and empathy. Gilligan says that most people will base their choices on either one of these perspectives even if they are aware of both.

Other research suggests that women are socially compassionate but morally traditional. A 2005 study, for example, found that women would support legislation that would reduce income differences but would also oppose the legalization of marijuana. Chinese martial arts movies would have you believe that it is all a matter of perception. Men are compassionate but are not taught to show it. Instead, they are encouraged to hold it all in even if they can empathize with the other party. Last year, British ethicist Roger Steare, who has administered the “Moral DNA test” to over 60,000 volunteers in 200 countries, concluded that women make decisions based on how they impact others—”which tends to produce better decisions.” Men, concluded Steare, are more self-interested.

Despite all the research, or perhaps I should say, in spite of all the research, what is important is the qualities of the leader in question. So yes, let us advocate for more female leaders because that is what is fair. But we should also be advocating for more compassionate leaders, whatever their gender.

SHOBA NARAYAN is the author of Return to India: A Memoir.

jojoabc123 • 6 hours ago
So basically good leaders should be elected and not influenced by quotas based on gender politics
1 1 •Reply•Share ›

notbobcousy • 6 hours ago
This is the problem with us feminists: we bristle. People pay us a compliment—heck, the Dalai Lama pays women a compliment—and some of us, me included, take it amiss. He calls us compassionate and we call him sexist. But even if you take the Dalai Lama—given as he is to simple, playful remarks—out of the equation, the question remains: are women more compassionate than men?
I think most feminists don’t bristle at ideas like women are more compassionate. I often hear feminists say things like “if women ran the world there’d be no wars”, or wax on about the supposed positive virtues of women, and I hear little pushback from feminists against such statements. In the case of the Dalai Lama, these comments will probably go unnoticed by people who would write volumes on it if the Dalai Lama said men were better in some way.

It’s also worth pointing out the Dalai Lama is a feminist, and I guarantee that in saying women were more compassionate, he saw himself as making a feminist statement. Stephanie Meyer recently said she was a feminist because she thought the world would be a better place with women, and while people criticized her, it wasn’t for that statement but because people felt her novels don’t reflect feminist ideas.

To me, what he said is a feminist statement. I just am skeptical of it (at the least, if you think women are better at men at being compassionate, you oughta conclude that men are better on some other personality traits. I see it as nature vs nurture, and if you agree with the studies saying women are inherently more compassionate, there’s probably similar studies ascribing positive traits to men over women. But many people, feminists included, seem to agree with such statements when it’s something positive about women, disagree when it’s positive about men).
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CJ Anton • 4 hours ago
What a crock. Compassion wasn’t needed before now? We only just recently discovered this fabulous compassion allegedly possessed (mostly) by women? Very solid of the DL to say it would be cool with him if, thousands of years in, a woman got to take the top job in Buddhism. Good luck convincing the monks.
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CAinDC • 4 hours ago
You really are stressing the age thing! “Speaking at a press conference, the exiled 78-year-old leader, who is 78, ”
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Eubie • an hour ago
Perhaps it would have been more relevant to reference the economic research on altruism, which shows that men tend to be more generous when generosity is less costly, while women tend to be more generous when the costs of generosity are higher [http://econ.ucsd.edu/~jandreon…] . And, this research result is further muddied when expectations of payback are factored in, leading to a finding that men and women are about equally altruistic [http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de…]. The problem with the Moral DNA test is that it involves self-reporting, notorious for its strain on reliability.

New York Times

January 9, 2013 / Shoba Narayan / 29 Comments

The editor of Room for Debate got in touch and asked me to write this piece

Respect the Sacred, Ignore the Sexism

Shoba Narayan is a columnist and the author of two books: “Monsoon Diary” and “Return to India.“

Updated January 8, 2013, 3:42 PM

I am a Hindu. I love my religion’s glorious and imaginative epic stories, in which seers chose the moment they die and goddesses kill the bad guy while riding a tiger. Within my family, I have Hindu role models who teach me how to conduct the pujas (prayers) and celebrate Hindu holidays.

That said, I still have vexing issues with certain aspects of Hinduism. Like most religions, it is patriarchal–something that the feminist in me deeply resents–and its rituals, though beautiful, can be tedious. But at the end of the day, the mantras, chanting, yoga and other Hindu traditions are what I know and cherish…and what I want to share with my children…but in a Hinduism-lite way.

I tell my daughters that religions are products of a certain era; they have outdated rules.

I believe that raising children within the broad precepts of a religion is good for them. Faith grounds them and gives them part of their identity. My hope is that it will help them later in life when life throws monkey-wrenches at them. I hope that chanting the mantras that they learned at home will give them the strength and resilience to deal with difficulties. Studies have shown that faith helps to preserve relationships, and enhance longevity, health and happiness.

Although Hinduism is an easy religion to follow—we don’t have to keep kosher or go on pilgrimages, for example–there are some constraints that continue to make me uncomfortable as the mother of two daughters. Sons have to cremate fathers, for instance, and mantras like the Rudram, a hymn in praise of Lord Shiva, are supposed to be chanted only by men.

Such sexist rules anger me. I combat them through disobedience. And I try not to expose my daughters to them. They don’t know, for example, that they are not supposed to chant the Rudram. They’ve certainly heard women in our community chant it enough times (and me attempt to chant it in bits and pieces). As for sons being in charge of cremating the parents, my daughters, at 16 and 11, are far too young to ponder this. Instead, we have tangential discussions. I tell my daughters that Hinduism–and indeed all religions—are products of a certain era. They all contain rules that are no longer relevant. They need to be reinterpreted to suit the times and our lives.

I want my girls to be strong women capable of anything. I want them to imbibe a faith that gives them strength but is also flexible enough to accommodate their dreams and circumstances. For now, Hinduism will do.

Yoga Journal

February 13, 2012 / Shoba Narayan / Leave a comment

About Vishnu in the Yoga Journal

Super Man

Vishnu lives in luxury, but this Hindu god will abandon his opulent ways to take human form and save the world from evil.

By Shoba Narayan

In Indian films known as “god movies,” Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, the pale-skinned goddess of wealth, are shown living in absurdly luxurious surroundings, wearing golden crowns, glittering jewelry, and silky robes, and surrounded by clouds of fragrant incense.

But Vishnu is known as the preserver of the good, and in keeping with that role, he repeatedly assumes human form and goes forth to rid the world of evil. The most famous of his incarnations are Rama, a devout and dutiful prince, and Krishna, a born prankster and the revealer of the profound teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

Rama, the hero of the great Indian epic poem the Ramayana, epitomizes the virtues of filial obedience, loyalty, and honesty. When his own father is tricked into banishing him, Rama utters no protest and continues to serve the full term of his exile even though his father dies long before its end. In return, Rama commands extreme loyalty—from his wife, Sita, who follows him into exile and willingly undergoes trial by fire to prove she has remained pure while kidnapped by another man; from his brother Lakshmana, who leaves his own wife to accompany Rama; from the monkey god, Hanuman, who spends his life in Rama’s service; and, to this day, from legions of Hindu devotees all across India. Mahatma Gandhi died uttering the name of Rama, and in North India, a common greeting is “Ram Ram,” instead of “Hello.”

Mischievous Krishna is Rama’s opposite. He’s usually up to no good, whether enlisting his pals to help steal the butter pots stored high in his mother’s kitchen; hiding the clothes of the gopis, the cow-herding girls, as they bathe naked in the river; or playing sensual music on his flute, driving the gopis faint with longing. Despite these tendencies, Krishna is the teacher who reveals the lessons of the Bhagavad Gita. Exploring some of the most difficult of spiritual issues, including the nature of reality and humanity as well as the central problems of human existence, the Gita remains one of the most important books for any yogi as well as one of the world’s great spiritual classics.

The idea of karma yoga—the yoga of right action—is a centerpiece of Krishna’s message in the Gita. He teaches the importance of striving to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing, not because of the spiritual merit it might bring. Like all of Vishnu’s incarnations, Krishna reminds us to do our best to make the world a better place.

Yoga Journal

February 13, 2012 / Shoba Narayan / Leave a comment

Yoga Journal

Parvati Power

This Hindu goddess, consort of Shiva, proves that dignity and smarts prevail.

By Shoba Narayan

Parvati is one face of the divine female energy, often called Devi (the shining one) or Shakti (power), that many Indians worship as the power above all deities. The goddess is personified in many forms, including Saraswati, goddess of learning and consort of Brahma, and Lakshmi, goddess of fortune and consort of Vishnu.

Parvati came into being when a female demon was terrorizing the world, smug in the knowledge that only a son of Shiva could kill her. But Shiva had withdrawn from the world to practice ascetics high in the Himalayas. He wouldn’t even look at a woman, much less sire a son.

In an effort to woo Shiva, Shakti, the great mother goddess, took the form of Parvati. Shiva scorned her until she engaged in austerities of her own. Impressed, Shiva accepted her as his wife, and they produced a son who destroyed the demon.

Smart and curious, Parvati questioned Shiva about the Vedas and other sacred texts, whose secrets he whispered into her ears. But the couple also had their spats, one of which resulted in Ganesha: Parvati was frustrated that none of Shiva’s ganas (attendants) would swear allegiance to her, so she created a boy and instructed him to let no one enter her home. When Shiva arrived, the boy blocked his way, so the god chopped off his head. Parvati was sick with grief. To appease her, Shiva fused the head of an elephant onto the boy’s body and breathed life back into it—and named him Ganesha, “leader of the ganas.”

Today, Parvati is the epitome of determination and discipline. She refuses to let Shiva’s scorn intimidate her and doesn’t take no for an answer. Instead, she wins with grace and dignity, something we can all aspire to.

therefore, all sages worship him. He is there before anything else was there in the world. Whomever Narada approached could not give him an answer. Therefore, finally he approached Lord Shiva and asked this question. Lord Shiva replied that he mediate upon his guru. Narada satisfied and went back and told to other gods that he got his answer. Then the other gods asked Narada- who is Lord Shiva’s guru? The sage, then only realized that he did not get the answer to his question so far. So he went back to the Lord and praised him. ‘O Lord’, you are above everything. You can destroy the whole world and can create it back even better way within seconds. So, please be kind enough to understand all my doubts instead of asking you silly questions. Then, Lord Shiva replied with a smile. ‘Oh Narada, The person you and the entire world worship as their mother is my guru’. Narada surprised and replied; But, she is your wife? Then Lord Shiva said; Yes, that is the reason why she is my guru. Then he showed Narada his mediating form which we normally see in pictures. So, Narada saw Parvathi as Kundalini rising across Shiva’s spine and going across his neck and realized the reason why he is called ‘Nataraja’. Finally, he saw Parvathi at Shiva’s Crown Chakra in woman form just like the universal mother and water falling out of her mouth to feed the entire living beings. Then, Lord Shiva told to Narada: ‘Oh! Great sage, Narada, please spread the knowledge to the entire world that when one respect and believe their wife to the most, their Kundalini will start aligning with her and they will have the perfect married life. Then only, she will yield to him willfully’.

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Yoga Journal

February 13, 2012 / Shoba Narayan / Leave a comment

Thanks, Naomi, for sending me these links in the Yoga Journal. Wrote these pieces a long time ago. Didn’t know they existed.

Quite Contrary

Kali is both a fierce warrior and a compassionate mother goddess, reflecting the range of behavior available to us all.

By Shoba Narayan

Many of the female deities in Hindu mythology are powerful and full of contradictions. The goddesses Kali and Durga are perfect examples of this: They mix fierce destructive power with maternal protectiveness.

Durga, often shown riding a tiger, is one of the names given to the consort of Shiva. When one of their sons was battling a demon, Durga came to her child’s aid by assuming the form of Kali, a fearsome, bloodthirsty figure with a long, protruding tongue. The demon’s power allowed every drop of his blood to turn into a hundred copies of himself as soon as it hit the ground, but Kali’s tongue caught each drop in midair, and the demon and all his copies were vanquished.

The victorious Kali danced on the corpse-strewn battlefield, adorned herself with skulls, and, fueled by blood and gore, ran amok, wreaking havoc on the three worlds—the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.

To stop her, Shiva turned into a corpse on the battlefield. When Kali stepped on him, she stopped short, fearing she’d slain her husband in her rage. As she paused, Shiva became an infant and began crying. Kali instantly picked up and suckled the baby Shiva, transforming from a fierce warrior to a benevolent mother goddess. This story illustrates how Kali’s destructive power can bring about good, though it needs balance and direction.

Portrayals of Kali are symbolic in many ways. She is depicted as black-skinned, which means she’s without form: infinite and changeless. Her girdle of hands looks horrific, but it suggests the way for devotees to free themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth; our hands can free us from the karmic wheel. Her garland of 50 skulls signifies the 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, the destroyers of ignorance. Like Shiva, Kali has three eyes, meaning she knows the past, present, and future.

An incredibly powerful female icon, Kali is full of contradictions. She’s naked but not vulnerable, motherly yet unafraid of battle and blood. She’s a warrior but a compassionate one; she brings death but also gives life. Like Kali, we’re all capable of fierce opposition to evil as well as tenderness and compassion.

Kali is both a fierce warrior and a compassionate mother goddess, reflecting the range of behavior available to us all.

By Shoba Narayan

Many of the female deities in Hindu mythology are powerful and full of contradictions. The goddesses Kali and Durga are perfect examples of this: They mix fierce destructive power with maternal protectiveness.

Durga, often shown riding a tiger, is one of the names given to the consort of Shiva. When one of their sons was battling a demon, Durga came to her child’s aid by assuming the form of Kali, a fearsome, bloodthirsty figure with a long, protruding tongue. The demon’s power allowed every drop of his blood to turn into a hundred copies of himself as soon as it hit the ground, but Kali’s tongue caught each drop in midair, and the demon and all his copies were vanquished.

The victorious Kali danced on the corpse-strewn battlefield, adorned herself with skulls, and, fueled by blood and gore, ran amok, wreaking havoc on the three worlds—the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.

To stop her, Shiva turned into a corpse on the battlefield. When Kali stepped on him, she stopped short, fearing she’d slain her husband in her rage. As she paused, Shiva became an infant and began crying. Kali instantly picked up and suckled the baby Shiva, transforming from a fierce warrior to a benevolent mother goddess. This story illustrates how Kali’s destructive power can bring about good, though it needs balance and direction.

Portrayals of Kali are symbolic in many ways. She is depicted as black-skinned, which means she’s without form: infinite and changeless. Her girdle of hands looks horrific, but it suggests the way for devotees to free themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth; our hands can free us from the karmic wheel. Her garland of 50 skulls signifies the 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, the destroyers of ignorance. Like Shiva, Kali has three eyes, meaning she knows the past, present, and future.

An incredibly powerful female icon, Kali is full of contradictions. She’s naked but not vulnerable, motherly yet unafraid of battle and blood. She’s a warrior but a compassionate one; she brings death but also gives life. Like Kali, we’re all capable of fierce opposition to evil as well as tenderness and compassion.

Kali is both a fierce warrior and a compassionate mother goddess, reflecting the range of behavior available to us all.

By Shoba Narayan

Many of the female deities in Hindu mythology are powerful and full of contradictions. The goddesses Kali and Durga are perfect examples of this: They mix fierce destructive power with maternal protectiveness.

Durga, often shown riding a tiger, is one of the names given to the consort of Shiva. When one of their sons was battling a demon, Durga came to her child’s aid by assuming the form of Kali, a fearsome, bloodthirsty figure with a long, protruding tongue. The demon’s power allowed every drop of his blood to turn into a hundred copies of himself as soon as it hit the ground, but Kali’s tongue caught each drop in midair, and the demon and all his copies were vanquished.

The victorious Kali danced on the corpse-strewn battlefield, adorned herself with skulls, and, fueled by blood and gore, ran amok, wreaking havoc on the three worlds—the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.

To stop her, Shiva turned into a corpse on the battlefield. When Kali stepped on him, she stopped short, fearing she’d slain her husband in her rage. As she paused, Shiva became an infant and began crying. Kali instantly picked up and suckled the baby Shiva, transforming from a fierce warrior to a benevolent mother goddess. This story illustrates how Kali’s destructive power can bring about good, though it needs balance and direction.

Portrayals of Kali are symbolic in many ways. She is depicted as black-skinned, which means she’s without form: infinite and changeless. Her girdle of hands looks horrific, but it suggests the way for devotees to free themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth; our hands can free us from the karmic wheel. Her garland of 50 skulls signifies the 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, the destroyers of ignorance. Like Shiva, Kali has three eyes, meaning she knows the past, present, and future.

An incredibly powerful female icon, Kali is full of contradictions. She’s naked but not vulnerable, motherly yet unafraid of battle and blood. She’s a warrior but a compassionate one; she brings death but also gives life. Like Kali, we’re all capable of fierce opposition to evil as well as tenderness and compassion.

READER COMMENTS

K-km	YEP: “mix fierce destructive power with maternal protectiveness” dat’s what I am, but WASTED a so much of my life FEELING GUILTY about the CONTRADICTORY nature of me; little did I know: I AM GODDESS KALI
kali	this is so weird. my name is kali and yes, i am young, 13 to be exact but my mom reads this magazine and showed it to me. she was freaked out about how close this resembled me. i can say no to anyone and stand up for myself and my friends. i was coming on here to find the article to put on my myspace, my friends would agree with my mom. 🙂

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Respect the Sacred, Ignore the Sexism

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Super Man

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Parvati Power

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Quite Contrary

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