Pass the 'poor Muslim' some halal, please

I love it when the media tries so hard to sound secular. The Times of India had this first person account by someone who calls himself ‘A Son of India’. Now this SOI was on a flight back home from some holiday. The flight attendant apparently was rude to a Muslim. The writer is a Hindu. He makes that clear, just in case we make the grievous error of seeing a Muslim take up for a Muslim. That would be so bad, na?

The story is full of crappy stereotypes:

In the seat in front of us, there sat a young, quiet man, with a long beard, a typical Muslim cap, and white salwar.

So, our SOI has checked out the beard and the salwar although the man was in the seat in front. Even if they were travelling Business/First class, and he had to visit the loo in the front, how many people look at the clothes of men?

This Muslim man did what all Muslims are supposed to do – asked whether the non-veg meal was halal. See, what I mean? You cannot be a bloody Muslim until you find out how the animal or bird you are going to eat has been bled to death after some prayers were uttered.

There is also something about how he was not given tomato juice because it was over, but the White man was served. This does happen, but here the motive is different. You see, SOI had “downed a Ballantine’s with soda”, which is just so cool; his mother was also given half a glass of tomato juice. See, lady does not drink and because she is a Hindu she gets at least half a glass of juice. Muslim is offered Pepsi (how could he ever imbibe alcohol…taubah!) and just has to wait for his halal whatever.

The halal thing got our SOI furious. “All the poor man was doing was making sure that the meal was something that he could eat.”

Yeah. “Poor man.” Feeling good, eh? And, yes, our SOI can tell his V apart from his W…sooo werrryyy vonderful…

What really got my goat had started at the very beginning of this fable-like tale. It is about eight “Sardarjis” who were drinking themselves silly, making a noise. Of course, SOI is quick to tell us, “Some of my closest friends are Sardarjis. Some of the kindest, humblest, most intelligent and polished people I have met in Delhi are Sardarjis.”

Oh, cut it out…and some of the best bhangra I have seen is by sarjardis and sardarnis. So? Get to the point.

Here is the point. After that halal thing, he heard someone from the Sikh group say, “This is Indian Airlines, not Muslim Airlines!’’ SOI was aghast:

I could not hold back any longer. I turned to them and said as politely as I could, ‘Sir, please let me inform you that India is a huge nation. We have millions of Muslims. In fact, we have more Muslims than Pakistan. I am a Hindu and I really do not appreciate this kind of talk.’ At this point they all shut up and nodded.

Wahe SOI! He gave them an education. A bunch of people high on drinks wait to finish their meal and hit out at the poor Muslim? Does the poor Muslim not say anything at all? Does the SOI complain to the flight attendant in charge? Does he register a complaint? No. He writes this pathetic attempt at being the magnanimous fellow.

Pathetic because he goes on the ‘Jai Ho’ trip about India being the next superpower. What all his has to do with halal chicken only he knows. “The Europeans did it right, divide and conquer. We were great and rich once upon a time, and we are still the same now.”

Well, if there is anything this SOI has learned from the Brits it is to divide. If he wanted to tell us about the poor Muslim and rude airline staff, he could have written about that. He brought in the Sikhs. Imagine, Hindu saving the Mussalman from the Sikh.

What’s the next episode, kid? Pork on Muslim plate and how you saved the poor Muslim from Christian wrath?

This nonsense will get a lot of claps from people who think they are all liberal. TOI will publish letters. It is like their Sacred Space stuff…no-jhatka chicken for the soul.

People like SOI should just stick to their Ballantine’s and check out a bit of other booze that even Muslims relish. Oh, I forgot to ask whether the salwar was ankle-length or not.

Was it? Just wondering…

With a mouthful of rum-soaked chocolate, here I am signing off,
A Halal Mother of India.

Chand-Fiza-Rahman: Conversions and the use/abuse of Islam

“Talaq, talaq, talaq,” he pronounced on the phone and then via SMS. It sounds like such a Muslim thing to do, right? It just so happens that the man was Chander Mohan three months ago, married, with kids. The woman he has divorced was Anuradha Bali three months ago.

They decided to get married by converting to Islam, called themselves Chand Mohammed and Fiza Mohammed.

He is a politician and it is said his career was being jeopardised because of this alliance.

Now, due to this talaq and a supposed threat to the lady, the Ulema and the Muslim Personal Law Board have woken up to the “farcical conversions”. This has been happening for years and instead of taking out rallies denouncing terrorism they should stop these idiots with overworked hormones and illicit intentions from using the religion.

What if these guys have criminal backgrounds? Does anyone check the credentials? This is more important than just letting them convert. Islam is the last thing on their minds. Since these things fall within the ambit of the Personal law, the Ulema should completely debar such conversions, unless one of the persons is Muslim. The partner seeking conversion should be screened and it should be ascertained that s/he really does want to go through with it.

Will Fiza, who is now quoting para and verse about how ‘illegal’ such talaq is according to the religion, stick to this faith or reconvert? Or will she just join a political party and use this?

And for the Hindus who talk about exploding Muslim population, why don’t they raise their voices against this?

Some of the film-stars who used this ruse are prime movers and shakers of the BJP. Talk about irony.

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Regarding conversions, it isn’t easy. One is brought up in a faith and it takes a while to ‘unbelong’. That period is usually of deep thinking that could be agnostic or purely spiritual experimentation. True conversion requires study and commitment. I am not saying those born in a faith are naturally superior (I know for a fact that many converts are more learned about Islam and are definitely more committed to its core values than I would ever be) but when you change, you are giving up something. It has to be for a reason strong enough.

I find the A. R. Rahman conversion based entirely on a whim. His sister gets cured, the Pir suggests they all convert and they do.

The Hindutva movement wasn’t strong enough then, but can you imagine what would have happened had it been so and Rahman was the Rahman of today? They would be hopping mad and he would have been forced to revert to his Dilip Kumar status.

It is equally amusing that even now there aren’t any tut-tuts about it. They say it is because Rahman is not really Islamic, he is Sufi. Heck, Kailash Kher calls himself a Sufi and anyone with a begging bowl howling a sad song voice says he is a Sufi. Rahman follows Islam to the core. He prays, fasts…all the five pillars of Islam are part of his persona. So let us cut out the crap.

If the others want to legitimise him, stick to his music. Don’t go carping about how he is a good Sufi as opposed to Islamists. No one needs the certificate of bigots.

The army, a jealous VHP and the kissing sanyasin

…all you wanted to know about Hindutva’s new package

Dekha na, hai re socha na

Though the army views Lt-Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit’s arrest in connection with the Malegaon blasts as “a one-off ’’ incident in the “apolitical and disciplined’’ 1.13-million strong force, it admits its reputation has been tarnished.

Lt-General army deputy chief (planning and systems) Lt-General S P S Dhillon said “though this is a freak incident, our image has been dented nevertheless.”

Oh, so it’s all about the image, stupid. Not a word about terrorism, about the role of the army, and the rule of law. And freak incident it is not, since there was planning that went in it. What does the Lt-General mean by:

“We have our own mechanism for keeping a check on these kind of things”?

Is this some special secret? Should the junta not be privy as to how to keep a check on these things? Teach us so we won’t need you to leave your jobs and march down curfew streets.

Uff-uff mirchi

Shrikant Purohit, who could impress many with his views on the need to retaliate against “jehadi terror’’, had managed to win over many VHP activists who found the Parishad’s agenda “too mild’’ for their taste. His organisation, Abhinav Bharat, gave them the exalted title of Chanakya—after the legendary advisor to the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta.

See, this is how the army’s loss is Hindutva's gain. They have a strategist who knows how the army works. They are the real angry young men; Advani has not yet complained of weak knees and imported some NRI doc to operate on them, like dear mukhota Vajpayee, but he is getting on. Just watching taare zameen par is not going to make him twinkle for long.

And there are reports that this Lt. Colonel is also a fitness buff. Brawn and brains can make lamb chops of the most hardened rival.

The rival as it turns out is Pravin Togadia.

VHP leader Pravin Togadia may have styled himself as a fire-spewing radical, but he feared being overshadowed by Purohit, the serving Lt Colonel who has been arrested for the Malegaon blast and who has since acknowledged his role in plotting the September 29 “revenge terror” act.

Everyone wants to get into this revenge thing.

Pravin bhai, wot is this? Some Purohit coming and taking away your whirr-whirr thunder and you left everything in Amrika, your doctori, to sit and look at beemar mans and womans? I am also Gujarat ni shaan (haan, haan, why we must be mo-dust?), we should jeevaanu shaan thi, marvaanu shaan thi…you better get up. You should be in national committee for making undhiyon, our Gujju speciality where all vegetable mixing with big balls of bajra, everyone chaatoing finger like it is french fry. Finger baba.

I know, I know, you look surprise why I taking your side suddenly. Inside actually I understand you deeply. I know you are making mark with stains but you must not look like Modi bhai’s chamcha. You are big fat NRI. Put foot down…why peepuls say that…foot will be down only no? Haha…must laugh, otherwise all khunnas will remain inside and eat intestine.

You said, "No Hindu can be a terrorist."

Why? Not all Hindus eating daal-dhokla, sitting on khaat with thaat. I am not doing anymore rhyming or khaali-pilli I will get into trouble with Hajmola manufacturer.

You said, "I do not know Pragnya Singh at all.”

You want introduction? She will take you on ride on her bike. She is strong woman. Good choice. Not like Uma Bharti. No shame this sadhvi having. She slapped some party worker. Who knows Anil Rai, Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS) Chhindwara general secretary? Where is this Chhindwara firstly?

Reports said:

“She slapped him in full public view, then kissed him on the forehead for cameras and later gave up food to atone for her loss of control.”

What was loss of control no one explaining – the slap or the kiss? Now she is feeling bad and making stomach suffer. How Hindutva will fight Islamic terrorists on empty stomach? Once she also sat on Murli Manohar Joshi’s lap. I am telling you there is need to save Hindutva otherwise all this tamasha will make it look like some Ekta Kapoor serial: Sadhvi Bhi Kabhi Aurat Thi.

You take care, Pravin bhai, like Amrikanese say. You are like local James Bond martini – little shaken but not stirred.

Here, gift for your wall…

Muaah-muaah, Uma

Dis n Dat

Bal-bal dekho

Bal Thackeray has asked the legal community to defend the accused in the Malegaon blasts. The BJP says it is all right to get private funds. Agreed. There is no need for Balasaheb to make this announcement because criminals always get legal aid and no one questions their lawyers about where they got the fees from. This is a right given to them in the Constitution.

If he is seeking donations, then there has to be a legal edict issued against Mr. Thackeray because that is not on. Woh zamaana gaya when the SS goons would go and knock on doors to demand donations to celebrate festivals, not to speak about getting money from illegal slums. Precious irony here considering most of these slumdwellers were the outsiders, and not Marathi maanus. That was ‘protection money’.

If he regretted the loss of life in Malegaon his boys should have provided relief, so he can cut out the drama as prefix to his real intent. As he stated:

“But if the pseudo secularists in the country are supportive of Afzal Guru [Parliament attack case convict], why should we not love and be proud of Sadhvi Pragya, Ramesh Upadhyay and Samir Kulkarni?”

Pseudo-secularists support Afzal Guru because the death sentence cannot be applicable to him. Simple. They do not love him nor are they proud of him.

“Every day Islamic terrorists are planting bombs to kill Hindus in India. The latest blasts in Assam too were engineered by Bangladeshi migrants. If a Sadhvi Pragya or a Ramesh Upadhyay or a Samir Kulkarni is born in the present milieu, they cannot be blamed.”

Can Mr. Thackeray give us clear figures that state only Hindus are killed in these bomb blasts? If he is trying to convey that young people are impressionable – although these three hardly qualify – then he should justify the terrorism that started in Kashmir and Punjab, and has moved to other places.

Instead he comes up with his usual inanities:

“The arrest of cultured and educated individuals in connection with the Malegaon blasts is an effort to crush Hindus to please Muslim fanatics.”

Haw…if I understand right, Balasaheb is an educated and cultured man and the head of the first goon party in India. Muslim fanatics don’t give a damn whether these three individuals have got their degrees or are cultured, but it bothers me that a leader thinks you can arrest some poor unlettered people and that does not matter.

Psst: all those Muslim jihadis are cultured and educated, too.

Curious: Can someone tell me why some professionals are called software engineers when they also deal with hardware?

Kundali rising

Priyanka Chopra gave four flops and asked director Madhur Bhandarkar to give her his horoscope which she showed her astrologer before the release of the film Fashion. Fashion has been pronounced a hit. Does she therefore believe that her director is supreme and will give him full credit? Will she refuse to take any awards and accolades and direct it all to his birth-chart?

Halal

Some Malaysian maulvis have said that yoga is haraam. I am quite happy. Why is everyone so upset? Anything that expects you to turn and twist like Michael Jackson and hold one nostril and breathe out from the other and make panting sounds is all haraam.

Islam tells you to get straight to the point. Yeah, go for shunya…

Oh my goat!

Saudi women may be behind veils, but boy, their sheep do a real neat strut.

They had this beauty contest for sheep (rams and ewes get their chance as well). The event organiser, Faisal al-Saadoun, said, “Just like humans, sheep shouldn’t have fat in unwanted places.”

I don’t know what unwanted places mean in sheep lingo, but whatever it is, go for it. The winner becomes the prize catch and instead of a modelling contract or a Bollywood film in the pocket is bought at the highest rate. This time Sana won. Sana is a ram, and no gender bias here so stop badmouthing the Saudis. The buyer was ecstatic: “I loved his cheeks, his long neck and how his creamy yellow hair falls down his body.”

As the Arabs would say, marha-baal…

What a headline

“Gwen Stefani unveils baby Zuma”

Like it is an art show or a fashion line?

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If you want to check it out, another review of AJI

The goddesses of small links

Maverick: The goddesses of small links
By Farzana Versey
Covert, November 1-15

India’s first woman saint. Jain women take diksha. Muslim woman leads prayers. Impressed? Does it mean that women are breaking through the male preserve? Are we hypocrites when we applaud those who reach the top in careers because of their commitment to their calling and smirk when it comes to the call of god?

No. As a woman I find this sainthood business designed to keep women in their places; it isn’t a simple ladder they have climbed. They are transformed into puppets of a god that is clearly male. What message do we get from Saint Alphonsa’s statement that she put her foot on burning embers when there was a marriage proposal because, “If my body were a little disfigured no one would want me! I offered all for my great intention’’?

The great intention was that at age seven she had declared, “Jesus is my only spouse, and none other.’’

This sentiment echoes in Meera’s bold assertion to her husband, “I am no more Queen than you are King. There is only one King and my life belongs to him.”

Does upholding the existence of only one man-god convey an assertion of choice? She married Rana Bhojraj because he understood her piety. She had developed an instant loving attachment to the idol and began spending most of her time in bathing, dressing and worshipping the image as though it were real. She danced about the image in ecstasy. She sang beautiful songs to it. She talked to the idol. She slept with it.

She was using one patriarchal structure against another. Although trained in warfare, as was the royal custom, and adept at archery, fencing, horseback riding and driving chariots, she chose the protection of the male. Would she have been able to go it alone without the name of Krishna attached to her?

Lord Krishna once intervened in her dream to advise her, “If the gopikas could do their duty to their husbands, tend their families and above all be totally devoted to me all the time, you can do the same thing. Do your duty. I shall not leave you any time.”

It is true there are male saints and men who abjure worldly desires, but the dynamics differ. Even where worldlier aspects are concerned that have to do with religion there is a toeing of the line that women wilfully adhere to. What is there to applaud about a mother doing the kanyadaan of her daughter when it means ‘giving away the girl’? How progressive is it? How progressive is it that a woman leads a bunch of men to a public namaaz when she is the mere medium? Would a Muslim woman be able to assert her rights in matters of divorce or property, rights that are in fact enshrined in the Quran?

Pope Benedict XVI said, “Sister Alphonsa’s heroic virtues of patience, fortitude and perseverance in the midst of deep suffering remind us that God always provides the strength we need to overcome every trial.’’ That is not why she was sainted. The Vatican canonises only those who have performed miracles, and a committee is set up to ascertain these. Patience and fortitude are experienced by ordinary people too. The Indian government plans to bring out a coin to commemorate the saint. It would do well to visit the refugee camps in Orissa; the miracle is that many are surviving there.

Ordinary people are not on ordinary people’s agenda. It surprises me that liberals get excited about religious gimmicks. Kerala was known as a matriarchal society; today it has given us a female saint.

This keeps men happy because they are seeking a higher cause like god. Every woman outside this fold reveals their basic instincts. To avoid guilt that comes as a package deal with all belief systems they want to feel ‘desexualised’ and for those few minutes be ‘connected’. I find this dangerous. The male, having experienced saintly unobtrusiveness, would expect the living woman in his life to be as sublime.

Television soaps work on this. The best-selling woman is called Tulsi, imprisoned in a metaphorical planter-pedestal. The lords of the house make occasional trips to the courtyard to court the goddesses of small links.

For Rahul Gandhi

My dear Rahul:

I understand that you are a very sweet boy (in India we call people boys and girls if they are not married or if they are married but act in television serials or films). Now, sweetness has its limits. The reason some of us like Laloo Prasad Yadav is because he minces no words. He did not like what Raj Thackeray was doing, so he called him “mental”.

You, on the other hand, said this: “What Raj Thackeray is doing is wrong; this will divide the country.”

No. If you look long and hard you will see that the country has been divided for many years. If it isn’t the migrant problem there are separatist movements; there are problems of divisions among the rich and poor, rural and urban. How can Raj divide the country when his uncle did not manage to do so? If the northies are prevented from working in Mumbai, the first people who will complain will be the Marathi maanus. They are so accustomed to sitting in Mantralaya and sipping tea from saucers that they will miss the auto rickshaw, taxi wallahs and paan wallahs. The hawaldars will miss their hafta!

You say, “The more walls you raise the more divisions are created; either India or no India.”

This is almost a Bushism. These walls are only curtains set on fire. Just make sure that mummyji does something with Shivrajji and gets him to move some motion, as they say in Parliament speak.

You said, “There’s nothing like North India or West India or South India—it’s only India and this you should remember.”

If you stand for elections will you dump the family constituency and contest from the South or Gujarat? It is easy to mouth these homilies and ask others to follow such honourable ideas. Besides, I do not think identifying yourself with an area is wrong; we have professions and ideologies we identity with. I feel very strongly about being a Mumbaikar. But I relish other places as well. These add to our repertoire. We are fortunate to have so many cultures.

By the way, by your logic there should not be coalition politics too.

Finally, you end, “If you start identifying yourself as a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, the differences will only grow and a Bal Thackeray will exploit it and someone else in another state.”

These exploiters brand you. That is different from identification. Incidentally, do ask your boys in the Congress, and girls too, to stop playing with that Imam Bukhari and other useless people for vote bank reasons.

Does it strike you that you gave this speech in Uttarakhand, which separated from its own due to identity reasons?

Otherwise, all is well that bends well, na?

On and off - 5

Not on…

The Kerala government confirmed two Muslim police drivers were removed from BJP leader L K Advani’s convoy during his visit to the state but the state’s home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan clarified,. “No one was kept out intentionally. There were also four Hindus who were taken off.’’

Slamming a statement made by external affairs E Ahamed criticizing the removal of the Muslim drivers, Balakrishnan said the Muslim League leader’s view was in contrast to the country’s secular values.

Wow. Look who is talking about secular values. If we are so darn secular, then please whenever there is a bomb blast do not mention the religion of the ‘alleged suspect’, okay? Don’t say things like Muslim ghetto or Christian locality. Don’t talk about how Muslims are like this and like that. If you can’t, then stuff your holier-than-thou moral stance.

It seems hundreds of cops were deployed. How many Muslims were in that group? One is compelled to ask only because of what has happened. Otherwise, who cares who protects these politicians? If Mr. Advani is going around giving lectures on secularism, then the right signal would have been to retain those two Muslim policemen.

On…

A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator’s lawsuit against god, saying the Almighty wasn’t properly served due to his unlisted home address. State senator Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against god.

He said god has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants”.

I love this guy Chambers. In one smart move, and I don’t care whether it was intentional or not, he has made god answerable. A god with no fixed address. A god that can reside anywhere in anyone and therefore can cause all the ills he accuses the respondent of.

In a sense it is a most democratic suit. No individual based on specific affiliation can be blamed. Even the god is non-generic.

Chambers conveys that if a country refuses to call itself atheistic, then he has a case. As he stated, “The court itself acknowledges the existence of god. A consequence of that acknowledgment is recognition of god’s omniscience. Since god knows everything, god has notice of this lawsuit.”

Touche.

Faith and the Marketplace

Maverick: Faith and the Marketplace
By Farzana Versey
Covert, September 16-30

Every time I hear about someone spotting the image of an idol in a potato or other benign vegetable or fruit, envy churns in my stomach. The only thing I seem to spot is insects crawling out. That gives me no scope for a scoop. The others will pose with their benediction.

God and faith have become the fastest selling items. There is an ad being aired on television these days. A young man clicks a hip young woman on his cellphone camera. He shows the image to his friends. One of them says, “Dude, yeh paap hai.” Courtesy and civilised behaviour can now be judged only through a moral prism and that we get through epics. This is an ad for just such a channel, one among many that have sprouted offering devotion in a dish TV.

No one sulks about interpretation or abuse. Images of Ganesha have always lent themselves to artistic whimsy, but the idols meant for worship and immersion had a well-defined look that included a pot-belly. This year’s Ganpathy has washboard abs, apparently dictated by the trend of the worshippers who want god in their own image rather than the other way round. One sculptor in Ahmedabad even said he had brought in a new avatar.

In one of the largest pandals in Mumbai devotees got insured against terrorist attacks. This might sound like a pre-emptive strategy. It is, in fact, one more gimmick. Play on fear, challenge the worshippers, make them feel like they are worth it while they pay and pray for a gym-toned prosperity in a set designed by a Bollywood art director.

One Durga Puja pandal has been outsourced this year to an American company. The New York-based Media Morphosis has appointed actor Mithun Chakrabarty as its brand ambassador. “This is an effort to marry creativity with commerce on a corporate platform,” said an official. No mention of religion.

Some Muslims returning from Haj could well be part of a racket that sold fake Zam Zam water for 25 Saudi riyals per bottle to European and Southeast Asian countries with an ‘imported from Mecca’ label. This water is considered pure, both in its properties as well as for its spiritual value, and is never sold for profit. When it was found in the market there was an alarm and, on being tested, was found to be spurious.

Whenever I drive past the Mahim mosque stretch in Mumbai, I see tens of people on their haunches waiting for food from restaurants. The leftovers of the rich? No. The boys from the eatery bang on the passing cars and ask you to pay. Here poverty and faith are both on sale.

Is there any need for a place of worship then?

None other than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran instructed that the 70,000 mosques in the country should promote tourism to “copy” what the Christians had done with churches.

Wonder what his reaction would be to the 30-metre long inflatable church on the beaches of Italy. Nuns relocate to beach cabins in the holiday months; an altar is set up in a tent, vacationers join in the prayers, priests are ready to take confession.

If this isn’t enough, there is news from an ancient Armenian manuscript that Jesus played cricket as a child. No one seems to have cashed in on it as yet. Perhaps an IPL match on the seas?

India is the land of saints and charlatans. Naked sadhus with mobile phones have been photo-shopped far too often. Now we need more. Just like that corporate guy in the sponsored ad for a money-raking devotional channel who tells his boss, “Karam kar, phal ki chinta mat kar.” Don’t worry about the fruits of labour, he says, sitting in an air-conditioned cabin ensuring that his salary gains momentum in the stock market. He reads the fine print. As the graph shows an upward trend so does his faith. The boxes in temples, churches and mosques depend on how far you have got in life.

Your values depend on how large your plasma screen is and how true-to-life are the colours of your mythology.

Surveying the Indian woman? Rubbish!

Last night I was watching a ‘serious’ discussion as part of the ‘State of the Nation’ surveys conducted by CNN-IBN on women across the country regarding different issues. The topic was ‘Morality and the Indian woman's mind’.

Let me quote one of the participants:

“This agenda of liberation that women have—which has come with financial freedom and changing roles—has made them prisoners of war in confines of morality. They want to free out of that. A prisoner of war is good only when he is free. I am not sure if the survey indicates that (women believe) marriage is a freer of women and live-in relationship enslaves them.”

Good. Except for that huh comment…like when a POW is free s/he ceases to be a POW. And how smart is it to call women prisoners of war…who is at war? No one knows. It just sounded so smashing tough that it made the grade.

This is a so-called ‘modern’ woman. Now let me get to the bottom of it. The survey showed that 48 % of Indians women want a ban on inter-caste marriages and 50 % want a ban on inter-religious marriages.

I would like to know how anyone can ask such a question in a survey at all. Who has given the media groups the right to butt their noses in what would amount to a legal provision? You might say this is hypothetical. Fine. Then, hypothetically the query ought to have been: do you believe in such and such marriages? We are not living in a dictatorship where we can have banning on certain kinds of alliances.

Now comes the ‘let us scrape the surface’ scenario. The above-mentioned modern woman, wearing two strings of pearls with a black outfit, who spoke openly about live-in relationships, about pre-marital sex, said that she would not be comfortable as a Hindu to be married to…uh-huh…a Muslim. Yes, she said it. She also added that she was being politically incorrect, which immediately made her feel veryyyy brave. This is not political incorrectness; it is prejudice. Her reason: The two religions are completely different ideologically. Yeah, sure. Like Hindusim is ideologically the same as Catholicism and Zoroastrianism. Come on now, we can see through this…

So would a Hindu be comfy marrying a Hindu from a ‘backward’ community? Or with less education? Or whose financial status was not good? Or who did not socially fit into one’s idea of an asset? All this because the gods are pretty much in agreement?

Worse, the anchor, known to be liberal who usually baits right-wing politicians, did not counter-question the lady. She just accepted it.

And this sort of nonsensical acceptance is what is passing for debate on television and numbing people’s thoughts.

Can mourning be a celebration?

I have never claimed expert knowledge of Islam or any religion, but I do think I have a fair idea about how faith affects worshippers and vice versa.

Having stated several times that in my family different versions of Islam are practised even within nuclear groups, my experience of Muharram is the tenth day of Ashura, the first month of the Islamic calendar.

What I remember as a child is that in one particular lane they would take out the Tazia. We would go to Maama’s (my mother’s maternal uncle) house. It was an elaborate procession, and I recall the colours of silver and green. There would be dancing. The Tazia became an object of worship and, although I have not witnessed it, I am told that in some parts of the world they also put up petitions on these tableaux.

I have only one question: Does Islam, as practised today (if you forget the paganism of the early Arabs), believe in idol worship? Does this not amount to such idolatry, and this issue has been raised in the Quran: "Worship ye that which ye have (yourselves) carved?" (Quran: Saffat, 3)

This topic has become of some added interest to me these past few days because I hear that a Hindu on a website wished some people “Happy Muharram”; someone also talked about “celebrating Muharram”. This was considered unpalatable. It is another matter that during this solemn period some Muslims were using foul language and addressing people as “Haramzaadon (bastards)” and “achhoot (untouchable)” and far worse. This is the language being used to defend religion. I think Islam can do without it. Anger when it arises out of genuine hurt (as in someone posting pictures of the Quran being flushed down the loo) has a reason.

But do those who are berating ‘outsiders’ for ignorance not realise that their own do in fact celebrate Muharram, and it is considered a “celebration of martyrdom”. Just as Christ’s death on the Cross is a period of mourning, but it returns as a celebration on Easter.

Does one imagine that today, in January of 2008, people are weeping real tears for the martyrdom of Imam Husain, grandson of Prophet Muhammad, who was killed during the battle of Karbala? Mourning is catharsis, and in that it does serve a purpose. Though, it is often that the mourners too become glorified. A young relative would join in the maatam (ritual mourning, often violent) and beat himself with zanjeers (chains). I know him well, and many young men like him had wanted to become a part of something larger. It is a question of identity.

I would say every version of Islam or any religion has a right to exist and how ‘true’ it is is not for believers to decide because belief too is personal. I have said critical things about Hindu gods, as in questioned the role of say Lord Rama versus Sita, and it was done as a purely academic exercise and to question how the faithful could use what happened years ago to justify the aggressiveness of today. By the same token, I do not understand how someone referring to Muharram as a celebration makes it a topic to discuss the “Hindu bhindi”, which isn’t okra but a derogatory reference to a more intimate part of the male anatomy. What Islam are these people talking about? What Muharram? What mourning?

If one needs to fight someone who has hurt your religion, then fight her/him with facts. And there are facts, which may be disputed, but they do have some currency.

Before pointing fingers at others, Muslims need to look at their own brothers and sisters. Were the Shia Iranians not fighting the Sunni Iraqis with the slogan, “Every day is Ashura, every place is Karbala, every month is Muharram”?

At that time there was turmoil and they felt they could relate to events that took place centuries ago.

Muslims who are always critical about polytheists end up doing things that are prohibited in Islam, including how they embellish graves…and this is true in Islamic societies too. No walls are supposed to enclose the grave, no cement or concrete over it, no marble or decorative material, no inscriptions, even from the Quran, no flowers…

How many Muslims adhere to these?

And have not many made the Prophet into a god-like figure? Let me end with the Prophet’s own words:

"Do not utter such exaggerated words of praise for me as the Christians do for the Prophet Jesus, the son of Mary. I am nothing more than a servant of Allah and His Apostle. So, call me only that."