The angry Hindu will read Hinduism in a particular way. He will quote selectively from the Bhagwad Gita, the Vedas and the Upanishadas. He will breathe technology into shlokas and “prove” that India was a super-advanced nation millennia ago. Read more

Clearly one of the best films I’ve seen this year, Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf — the brilliant cinematic adaptation of Ruskin Bond’s short story Susanna’s Seven Husbands — is a gripping story of one woman’s tragic black humour sojourn with seven men. Read more

It is getting increasingly clear that God has nothing to do with religion. And that the perpetuation of a particular kind of exclusive belief — this is god and none else — through evangelising and setting up and managing schools and hospitals is a sort of imperialist quest for more minds to sacrifice at the alter of influence, power and money. Read more

On my shopping list for tomorrow: a skull cap.

Although it will be the rebel in me who will buy — and don — the cap, this action has been forced upon me by an unthinking society whose nerves have been battered by a media barrage that has, in one quick and constantly-amplifying stroke of 911, labelled all Muslims as terrorists. Read more

Killing neighbours who until yesterday shared curds and broke bread together. Allowing dogmatism to overrule reason by following fatwas of Islamic clerics or Hindu extremists. Allowing ourselves to be misled by people whose moral credentials are at best suspect. Taking a minor traffic brush as a religious attack and turning rage into a serial killer on roads. Read more