Hindustan Times
She Baba is off to be a She Babu
Yes, it’s true. God moves in mysterious ways His wonders (blunders?) to perform. I’ve just quit HT after almost-four intense years, to take up a new assignment for the MEA as Director of a new India Cultural Centre in Bangkok. My new boss there will be our Ambassador to Thailand. So if you’re in Bangkok, do swing by the India Cultural Centre, will post coordinates after I join, which, Inshallah, is next month.
It’s a new learning curve for me, so please wish me luck, dear HT readers and bloggers, who have enriched my life so much these past few years with your feedback - including the sticks and stones!
Being in HT has been a terrific learning experience, I’ll miss the work and the people very much. To be Editor, Religion and Culture, was like being a super chef, cooking with the best ingredients, because Religion has attracted some of the best minds in the history of thought. To read them and try and understand them was - is - like going to a luxury spa for the mind. As for the music part of Culture, well, anyone who relates to this blog knows they have to face the music. (Dreadful pun, couldn’t resist).
By way of ta-ta thoughts, I’d like to share a few favourite songs.
Here’s Numero Uno, an abiding, moving joy. The lyrics are by Kaifi Azmi. I am usually in tears by the end of it and it was great to hear the Warsi Bothers sing it one magical evening in Delhi’s Hailey Road, at the house of senior journalist Nalini Singh (the Warsis’ father had set the lyrics to tune originally for MS Sathyu’s film, Garam Hawa).
And here’s my favorite raga, which is represented in miniature paintings as a pale ash-smeared ascetic: Raag Kedar, whose prahaar or ‘appropriate time’ is early night. The song here is a naat (prayer in praise of the Prophet, beseeching him for aid) and you don’t need me to tell you which film it’s from or who composed the music…
And here’s Kedar as a ‘Ragini’ if you please, at the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay. It’s like a mystic picnic by moonlight, a frolic with Shiva and music, isn’t it? I wonder if it’s actually the variation called ‘Chandni Kedar’. This one’s in the Bundi style and if you want to know more, Jiwan Sodhi’s Study on the Bundi School of Indian Miniature Painting is a useful guide. Btw, Bundi paintings are the only ones with shaded cheeks on the faces, a quaint ’spot the difference’ point.
If you, like me, sometimes wonder if there’s life outside office, there is. I mean, there’s gotta be. As the old Citi ad went, ‘No one ever worked so hard that milk squirted out of their nose’. Just another way of saying, stop chewing cud, get a life. It took me a while to figure that this ‘life’ is not outside, it’s basically in our own heads.
So I praise Vaak (Saraswati), whose grace sustains me and gives me ‘life’.
And yet, and yet…
How can we hide from the fact that mythology is ‘a peg to secure the tents of the status quo’? (Found this sharp phrase in UK lawyer Helena Kennedy’s amazing book on how British law treats women criminals, called Eve Was Framed).
The tents of the what?
The patriarchy, what else?
To rape and kill a woman does NOT deserve a death sentence, according to the Delhi High Court’s judgment yesterday, in the case of 59-year-old Dawn Emilie Griggs, a trusting tourist who landed in Delhi in 2004 and took a pre-paid taxi from Palam airport. Her body was found in a deserted field later. Besides having been raped and throttled, she was stabbed with a screwdriver by the two cabbies in the taxi.
This seems like such a male judgment to let these men off for their ‘natural’ urges.
Almost all the cruelty in the world comes from hetero men (you know I don’t mean you good fellows out there, but, alas, is this not true?).
Yet Baba Ramdev wants to litigate against gays?
Are gays ‘perverted’ and ‘unnatural’ or are old men with little girls perverted and unnatural?
How can we fool ourselves that it’s ‘natural’ to pay money to a man’s family as dowry?
The hetero world is the most callously transactional system in operation. And lakhs of women suffer because of mythology and the way it pressures hetero society’s behaviour, builds expectations, conditions the gaze, plants a microchip in minds.
We can pray all we like to Saraswati, the rakshasas run free.
But we have to pray anyway to Saraswati, to illumine the minds of people like the judges who saved these rapists from execution.
They had the opportunity to send out a strong retributory signal to our society that rakshasas can’t run free in India, that we are a zero-tolerance society for bad behaviour that hurts others. They didn’t take it.
Will anyone, like say Baba Ramdev, file a petition against this judgment that gives Dawn Emilie’s killers a lifetime of roti,kapra and makaan at our expense, with probably an early release for ‘good behaviour’?
How come THIS judgment hasn’t got Baba out sermonizing on turbo? Is raping and killing a woman in tune with our sanskriti?
I respect Baba for making yoga popular.
I cannot however admire his mytho-enforced worldview that perverts Saraswati herself with all that sturm und drang about gays…
She Baba says a fond Namaste to all, with a how-can-we-forget song…
(8 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Renuka Narayanan on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Filed under Religion · Tagged Ambassador to Thailand, Bangkok, India Cultural Centre, Kaifi Azmi, Thailand
It has been a pleasure reading your blog. Wish you all the best for the future!
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renuka Reply:
September 1st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Hi, saw something on CNN about water being ’sunlight-disinfected’ to make it potable: you just leave bottles of drinking water out in the sunlight to kill the bugs! And it connected bigtime in my head with ye olde Gangetic Vastu principle of having the well sunk in the northeast of your compound: got it a load of sunlight, kept the water clean of algae, bugs, the lot. Clever fellas! Also, this story about the American girl kidnapped at 11 and kept complaisant for 18 years? The mind control expert on CNN was talking about ‘reward and punishment’ as a process to brainwash someone. Chuckled grimly about that because what else have the patriarchal religions been doing all these years to control women? Stuff like, ‘you don’t do this, you go to hell, your parents go to hell, etc’ and ‘you do this, you’ll win eternal reward, blahblahblah’. Tell us about mind control, whole populations for millennia, by the Boys’ Club acting in the Name of God. Yaah, makes me sick.
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Thank you, D10!
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Dear Renuka,
While I wish you all the best. I am going to badly miss your blogs. You won’t believe it, just today I wrote a stinging mail to Sumana Ramanan (pl say sorry on my behalf) for not having your Saturday columns on a regular basis. Reading your columns and interacting on your blog was a break from my routine of work and the nitty gritty of living. So will your new assignments allow you to write, if you start your own website, please let us know.
Once again all the best in everything you do.
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renuka Reply:
July 11th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Dear Latha,
Thanks a ton. If I can, I certainly will try and write sometimes by and by. Going to first focus on learning the ropes of my new job, since it will be a different learning experience. Will post a gmail id here so whoever from our blog community wants, can keep in touch.
Thank you so much for your good wishes! Sumana is a lovely colleague and I will certainly tell her what you said ..it’s deeply touching for a writer to be told she’ll be missed, thank YOU.
Bestest to you, Siddharth and family! I will miss you and all the lovely people in our blog community dreadfully. You brought so much good energy and shared such interesting things.
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I will miss your blogs, Renuka, and the thoughts that they provoked. This is not the end - for we shall meet somewhere, on other forums, another time, perhaps in Bangkok!
Its the start of a new journey for you. Here’s wishing you all the best.
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Congratulations for your assignment and wish you all the best. That’s bad for readers of your blog. Will be missing the weekly dose of spiritualism. Will miss words of wisdom. Will miss exchange of extremes. Will miss your short hand, long leg, wooden chest. Wait a minute. I am not writing an obituary. You are leaving HT, not writing, or are you ??
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A parting song for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ZVmwquAdk
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Thanks, D10, Partho and Anil, (what a super song!) and wish you all the best, too.
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Hey hi,well i have been following ur column for almost 3 yrs now.People around me always felt strange wen they found that 21 yr old like me was interested in things like god,spirituality and religion.But ur write ups gave me courage to pursue my interests vigorously.Trust me i have learned a lot from ur column and would every week look forward to the new piece of information u would share.
Ur column has contributed a lot towards the study of sufism that i have been doing for the past few years.
Wishing u all the luck and success for ur new job ,am sure u gonna do extremely well.Will miss u in HT every saturday….hope u start ur own blog asap.
Thanks,
Sushant
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renuka Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
This is great to hear, Sushant! Thanx for writing and hope we’ll catch up in the ether again some day. Best wishes to you.
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Congratulations Renuka. Good luck and Godspeed.
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Nirguna! will miss you tons. Thanks and bestest. Radhey-Radhey…
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Nirguna Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Radhe Radhe
am sure the journo in you will leap out eventually . May babudoom in the kingdom of Siam not be the same as in swadesh. Hope to read more from you here in cyber space
Thailand is my next fav. place in the world after swadesh.
On a family holiday in Phuket where we had rented a bungalow ,the housekeeper offered a little vignette of Thailand.
She spoke the same sentence in Thai but in three or four different inflections/ renditions
The guttural ,raspy, rough sounding one would be as a person from Bangkok spoke it, a gentler lilting version would reveal a resident of Phuket or Chaing Mai and so on.She did such a good demo I regret not recording it. Of course she was implying people from Bangkok were not so nice or not as nice!
Have fun.
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Nirguna Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
oops i should have said I am sure it won’t be babudom in Thailand as it may be here in Swadesh.
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renuka Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Goodness, what a lot to learn..yumyum…and look what a reaction you provoked from Raji! You two amazing shloka, history and insight champs…you rock!
Congratulations .Wishing you all the success in your new assignment.If you will blog elsewhere,pls let us know.Always a pleasure reading reading you.Cheers.
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renuka Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Thank you, Raj. Best to you.
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Dear Renuka,
I will certainly miss you and the whiff of nostalgia for things past and almost out of mind your writings on your travels in the South evoked. And what a coincidence! My younger brother sent me “Maula Salim Chisti” just a couple of days back and we had shared a quite moment of ecstasy over the phone listening to it together. As usual, you have made me want to cry.
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renuka Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Saar, neenga romba yemoshional yenne maariye…mikka nanri, ungal nal-vaazhthukalukku.. ungalukkum nal-vaazhthukal..
(Faar the sake of otherss, simply translating from the Tamil: Saar, yoo are very yemoshional, chust like mee…many thankss faar yor gudwishhes…gudwishhes tto yoottoo…)
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Vishwanathan Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Sarcasm, yet! But what to do, born egotist. Belated Good wishes !!!!
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renuka Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
No sarcasm, saar…you didn’t have to spell it out then, for me to thank you! But thanks again!
Congratulations Renuka, and all the very best for your new career.
I will certainly miss you and your writing - but surely you can take She Baba with you - or another avtaar of She Baba ! Perhaps you can still be a blogger and continue to enlighten and illuminate our minds with your wonderful thoughts and experiences. There would be so much to do in Thailand - look for the forgotten coordinates of Indian culture and contribute to the idea of India in the process - for instance.
Loved Nirguna’s inadvertant Babudoom - must remember to mention it to my friends from that profession. There was once a debate on what a female Babu should be called. Entries ranged from Babi to Babuain to Babu to Bibi. There is a tendency among lay speakers to have a female version of every occupational category - Teacher - Teacherani, Master - Masterani, Daktar- Daktarani…so Babuain seemed linguistically faithful, until someone who had apparently had a bad experience at the hands of one, came up with Baboon ! You can take your pick !
Here’s wishing you all the best - now and always.
Raji
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Baboon…?
At present I feel more like a langur in a frock, riding pillion on the bunderwala’s cycle (and making faces at passers-by)…. because the grey tide is advancing around my face …and I took a policy decision not to nuke my hair with chemicals but to see how the grey ‘comes out’. Yaah!
It’s a 3 year assignment, btw
I will treasure the fabulous shlokas that you shared and your sharp, funny comments, Raji…
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Dear Renuka,
Thank you very much for your column - I’ve read you for years now. Hope I see your by-line in cyberspace soon. You have created an unique niche - don’t abandon it just yet! I’m sure Thailand will add new dimensions to your work. Just keep us in the loop…
Wishing you all of the very best.
Savita
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renuka Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Hey Savita, if you happen to see this, since I’m writing after so long, didn’t realise you’re THAT Savita who co-authored that lovely book on the Navagraha shrines in the Kaveri Delta….until I got a call from your co-author, Mrs Padma Raghavan from Pune…the reader who became a friend, like some other super people!
‘Padma Mami’ has been an affectionate long-distance presence in my life for several years now since my IndExpress days. She frequently gratified me by calling from Pune on Saturday mornings to react to that week’s Faithscape and told me lots of interesting things. We got to meet up just once when we were both in Madras and it was so nice.
Some years ago Padma Mami very kindly sent me a lovely picture of Renukambika Devi when she visited her temple in North Arcot. I was named after her by my Daadi - who died way before my father even married! Not been there yet, so I was very touched when I got that picture. I put it in a silver frame that another friend’s mother gave me, so it’s been like concentrated ‘Mother-power’ in my prayer corner.
Your book on the (mysteriously thrilling!) Navagraha was rich reading and well-illustrated. My copy’s packed away, so how about posting the details here?
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Hearty Congratulations Renuka,
Enjoyed reading your blog over last few months as it is heady mix of spirituality and modernity, funny and thought provoking!
Hope you bring a whiff of fresh air in India Babudom in Siam as I myself had worked in Indian embassy in South East Asia for a year or so and work culture is unlike anything you will have faced in HT, learning experience indeed!
Cheers
Ram
Singapore
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Thanks Ram! But lots of babus are very nice and do sincere work. My mother and father were babus, too, and gave a good account of themselves at work…every profession has its good and bad side…journalism has its share of horror stories!
Thanks for the good wishes!
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Hi Renuka,
It was nice knowing you thru your column!!!
I feel like abandoned!!!!
So hurry and post your website link , where we can read your thoughts and musings as it has become an addiction for me now!!!!
i always wait for Saturday edition of HT to read your columns!!!! now, I the saturdays will never be the same again!!!
But since you cannot stop a tide, here is wishing you all the success for your future!!!!
Keep writing and illuminating the world!!!!!
Love,
Jaya
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renuka Reply:
July 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thank you so much, Savita…best to you…and your daughter!
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renuka Reply:
July 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Jaya, I am really touched…thank you and best to you!
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Congratulations Renuka! for both - your new assignment and your this post. Didn’t expect anything lesser for a last post.
I will surely miss your column and this blog, which I dare say amongst all the HT blogs, was most insightful and thought provoking.
I do hope that you continue to write, even if its not on such a regular basis.
All the best for the future! Cheers!
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Thanks Diwakar and cheers to you too. Glad you liked my bye-bye blog
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Hi renuka di,
All the best for your future endeavours!!!
I will mis u!!
I have started my own blog, inspired by you.
You rock!
Thanks…
Snigdha
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Thank you, Snigdha…why not post your link here so we can see your blog? All the best to you!
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Hey Renuka
What about an India Cultural Centre for India (which was your column). where are we going to get our own dose of our own culture.
I wish you all the best for your new assignment and I am sure you will be an excellent cultural ambassador for India. I just wish that you do return soon and get engaged in a similar capacity for our own people. We sorely need to get in touch with our own culture our own religion and you were the perfect medium for it. The love, respect and sheer affection for our culture and traditions which oozed out of your writing overwhelmed me everytime I read your blog. And i am sure it did so for many others too. I do hope that you start blogging soon.
Regards
and best wishes
Vikram
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Vikram, you overwhelme me. Thank you so much, so happy you liked my burblings…regards and best wishes to you!
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Hope to read your blogs on some other platform if not this.. the blog name She Baba also goes well…
Ramdev: Babaji has become an icon reg yoga but surely he is now taking it too far when commenting on Bhartiya Sanskriti as he calls it. After all, if something doesn’t go along with his concept of Bhartiya Sanskriti, it doesn’t mean that it is an illness. I read his views on HT City and was amused reading his comments questioning Celina Jaitley’s character as she opposed to his views. He just has dissuaded from proper debate while attempting to demean the competitor.
Gay or not, it is better to accept things/people as they are — even if it is Ramdev!
After all, we live in a world where they burn rail bogies at Godhra or shirk from giving a death sentence to men who raped and killed at 60-year old woman … acceptance of these issues is there.. so why not gay? At least it lets people live as they are.
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
absolutely. baba r’s rudeness to celina reminds me of the late jama masjid imam’s badtameezi with shabana azmi just because her views differed…these religious men may be ‘good’ in a couple of things but their intolerance and anger is horrible and limits them as ‘God’s (self-appointed) agents’..
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congrats Renuka. You were made for greater stuff! Allthe best on your next assignment!will miss SHE BABA though!see you when in B’KOK.
Ragini
Press Enclave
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Hi Ragini, how nice to hear from you! Thanks so much and hope to c u!
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Congratulations and All the very best in your new role, Renuka. I’m sure just as you’ve brought a whiff of fresh air to the occasional staleness of everyday journalism, you’d bring laurels to the culture wing of the Indian embassy in Thailand. Would look forward to your (occasional?) columns here as well.
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thank you, Deb, best wishes to you!
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Hi Renuka
Good luck to you. You will be sorely missed. I visited HT Blogs for ‘She Baba’ only. All good things come to an end..perhaps.
Where is your gmail id as you had indicated?
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renuka Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thank you, Sunny, I am deeply honoured. Will post id
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dont know what to say…except that am hopeful that i would be able to meet you someday. Thank you so much for all that you have shared over the years…words will not be able to thank you for the wise words you have written over time…
hope you will not stop writing Renukaji….do not want this learning curve to end here
All the best for your new job…hope you have fun! (Am reminded of a fav quote here: What would you pack to pursue your dreams and what would you leave behind? )
And here is a goodbye….hoping you will continue writing and keep us updated in the virtual world…
Just like forgive, forget and try again
Goodbye is just another word…
Hope to read you soon enough…
Rab rakha!
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Diva my dear thanks a ton for your good wishes and wish you all good things!
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congrats on your new job.
will miss you..and your blog….
you should keep writing though…create a blog of your own…a website perhaps…..i used to come to htblogs.com only for you…….HT will find it dificult to find somebody to fill your shoes….
I dont want to loose touch with you…your writings…..dont leave without giving us your web address.
Plus who better than you to tell us the similarities between thai culture and India….Which era in India corresponds to the current thai culture…? I want to know all this only from you..
Best of luck……
Leave a web address (HT dont let Renuka go….till she leaves behind her contact details for us):):)
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renuka Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Hey, thanks so much,Richa and best to you! You just handed me a Soul Pill
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Hi Renukaji,
This is not fair! Readers of your blog deserve better… I do hope that you find the time to create a new blog.
Thanks for the wonderful ideas you have propounded! Thanks also to the other readers who posted comments. It was truly wonderful while it lasted!
I guess I will have to switch back to TOI as have no reason to read HT now!
Pankaj
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renuka Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Hi Pankaj, as Vishwanathan would say, you and the others in our blog community are making me want to cry. Thanks for your affection and good wishes. I am going to miss you all to bits when I morph into Ms Mufflemouth, a hard personal price to pay for this new phase, after years of gabbling freely to the public..
Best to you
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I love you Renukaji. I feel enriched both as a human and Indian after each of your articles. I am sure you will do the madre-watan proud in Bangkok. But please do not stop writing for the Hindustan Times.
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renuka Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
It’s very mutual, Algebrao. Thanks for enlivening my blog so much and for the great scraps we had. Best wishes to you.
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your blogs made a huge impact in my life.wanted to learn more from u. have’nt lost the hope yet i mean we’ll keep on interacting wo’nt we????
personally, i’m so happy for you ma’am. you really deserve this. i truly mean it.
though we never met physically, you and your blogs became intrinsic to my lifestyle.
all phases reach a logical conclusion and i guess, this has ended in good taste.
congratulations on becoming a “student” once again.
wishing you all the love and goodluck for your endeavours.
ma’am please pray for my +2 as well!!!!
FOR WE’LL KEEP ON MEETING OF WHICH I’M ABSOLUTELY SURE.
until we meet again,
vidhi
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renuka Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Vidhi dear, thank you…you’re on the button about being a student once again…guess that’s what keeps life burnished and fresh. God Bless and very best of luck for your Boards. Blog Family, here’s to Vidhi’s success! May our girl do well!
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vidhi Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
thank you ma’am!!!!!
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Hi!!
This is the first time I am mailing a comment. I was surprised and happy (for u) on your new assignment.
Have been a Delhi-ite for 34yrs …and a die hard HT fan especially so for the past 5 yrs…But unfortunately had to leave my favourite city for “better-halfdom” (if u kow what I mean). Have been to different cities for the past 4yrs and read umpteen newspapers but nothing like HT!!
AND YOUR COLUMNS MA’M!!!! I used to wonder whethr u were a prof. or something….or an authority on religious research teachings…I used to make sure that my mother cut out articles of my favourite columnists (yours included) so that I could read them when I touched base at Delhi..sometimes once in a year! So I would read a whole bunch of your columns together!!
Will really miss reading your columns.. but I am sure you are going to author a book soon…(:))
Cheers to someone who has talent and who knows how to use it with humility..
All the best..
Regards
Sunita
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Sunita, it’s so nice of you to mail. Thank you so much and best to you, hope you n family have a wonderful time in your adventurings!
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Dear Renuka,
Heartiest congrats for being asked to take up a post that seems to enthuse you no end. Also, my warmest good wishes, for a brilliant tenure, full of achievements,as our cultural Ambassador to Bangkok.
On a more personal level, we of the tribe of she-baba blogees ( is there a word like that?) are devastated. I have long been an addict of your weekly columns, first in the Indian express, then in the HT. It was a sheer delight when Penguin brought out “Faith” a collection of your articles in the Indian express. Equally enjoyable was your compilation “Book of Prayer” ( Penguin), with your explanatory notes and comments, resulting in a gripping read. Well into my eighties, I find it a relaxing bedside companion.
As if to cap it all was your assignment at HT. I must indeed congratulate the HT management, who, as always, take inspired decisions and who boldly set up a page for Faith all by itself and then handed it over to you. The result was a bonanza of the spirit for us HT readers. A thousand pities that Saturday mornings hereafter will not carry that anticipatory thrill of getting to read another exploration of the spirit from your pen. Well, at my stage in life one is inclined to ponder those famous lines from Browning’s Rabbi Ben Erza: “What I aspired to be / And was not, comforts me” But there is one aspiration of mine which I hope will materialise. That is to see your column on once again, to savour the delights of your labours in print on Religon and Culture. God bless you:
Auf wiedehrsen
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koundinya Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
My illiterate son has keyed in typos, Renuka dear, a thousand pardons. It’s Rabbi Ben Ezra, not Erza. And Auf Wiedersehn!
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Thank you so much, dear Sir, for your kind mail and blessings. I need them.
For my last Faith page in HT, I dropped my column to give the space totally to A. Faizur Rehman of Chennai, who wrote a bold, honest article on the burqa. I request you all to watch out for his articles and suport him, he is one young Indian Muslim writer in my ken who has both scholarship, true reformist zeal in a modern sense and a deep, sincere love of Islam and India. I have never read anything like his writings; with full credit and honour to all the other Indian Muslims who do write boldly, pro-reform and pro-peace.
This Indian Muslim, like them, wants corrective surgery, not verbal bandaids. He takes on his own orthodoxy with scriptural and interpretative acumen. He wrote a great piece for the HT Faith page: ‘Hazrat Aisha was 19, not 9,’ among others. His articles were picked up on many international websites and is sparking much debate and discussion in Islamic circles. He is a builder by profession, 40 years old, and does not need to stick his neck out.
But because he loves the Prophet and Islam, because he is anguished by many things happening in our world at present, he studies his subject closely and is unafraid to challenge the status quo. He makes me think of Ram Mohun Roy and the 200-year-old legacy of modern Hindu reformers.
Whenever a Hindu critiques something in Hinduism, some people still think he or she is badmouthing the whole religion. That is not so, it is out of love, concern and a desire for perspective and to update old practices to make them more just and inclusive that we write. It does not help anyone to be defensive or in denial.
It is like that now with Faizur Rehman and he deserves the affection and support of all positive people in Indian society in his mission. Please stand by him, we will all benefit as a multi-faith, multi-cultural society if more people are persuaded to take a similar stand.
With love to all,
Renuka
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Are you not blogging any more?
How will faith and it’s tales be spread if you don’t share your set of gyan.. for word of mouth gyan still carries more weightage doesn’t it?
Do share where your blogs are going to be on.. or as part of babudom, you won’t have access to the world of the Net?
pray share
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renuka Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Hi, thanks so much Shrikant, it’s been such good fun being able to talk with you all…
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Hi renuka,
Was anticipating your reply to my question on the Thiruvananthapuram article!!!
Many thanks in advance!!!!
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Hi Ron, just saw that…I don’t know why they told you that “men in lungis” couldn’t enter the Kamakshi temple in Kanchipuram. Normally, men have to wear a dhoti/lungi to temple, not trousers, in South India, that’s the dress code. And women wear long skirts, mundus or saris.
What’s common between North and South at temples is that you must go in barefoot and “present” yourself to the deity. Even if it’s a one rupee coin, one fruit or one flower or just a tulsi leaf, you take something by way of “manners”, as an offering.
The best “seva” or service, according to tradition in both North and South, is to give to the poor…and to sing and dance!
Annadaan, Sangeet Seva and Nritya Seva are supposed to be especially pleasing to God.
The big difference between North and South at temples is: the North, borrowing an Islamic practice, covers its head at temples and gurdwaras.
In the South, it is just the opposite, you must go bareheaded before God, and if you are a girl or woman, you must ideally wear flowers in your hair as a sign of thanksgiving and appreciation for the beauty of Creation.
And really, I must say it’s so lovely when you’re waiting for Aarti in a South Indian temple, the scent of flowers from the women’s heads - usually varieties of jasmine and of course, roses - really perfumes the air! I wonder if those smart old ancients figured this out as a bring-your-own deo and room freshener device, back then?!
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Ron Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Thanks so much Renuka, I now have a clearer picture.
I am truly intrigued by the temples of the south, out of whichTirupati left be dumbfounded!! What an ambience and indeed so much peace……..I feel like going back again and again!!
Your writings continue to be a wealth of knowledge!!
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Dear Renuka,
I logged on to HT Blogs and almost feared that your site would not be accessible and when I saw the count of posts 64 to your parting article. I was really happy, that there are so many people out there who like to read about religion and culture . It goes without saying that like me there is a vast majority of us who will miss our dose of spiritualism vide your blogs. For me there will be no reason to go to the faith page of HT on Saturdays while juggling with the breakfast on one hand.
After settling in your new assignment please write in your spare time. All the best from Siddharth and me.
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Thank you so much, dear Latha. Big hug to Siddu
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The day wrapped more colors around
its cooling shoulders
and we turned back to put some light
in your cottage windows,
bringing more logs for the fire and
joking about the masculine virtue of
making it burn soon and well
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Louise Rill?! thank you, Just to Say.
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renuka Reply:
July 18th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Folks, I looked this up on Googleshwar and the poems are pretty good!
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GoodLuck She-Babu !! I am sure you will make India proud in your new job !
Too many sweeping statements in your last post, but hey ……..its your last one so I wouldnt get into details.
This was one of the only blogs I read regularly and the credit for that goes to you. Good job !!
Cheers,
Kaushal
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Hey K, thanks…but don’t spare me, what’s all this last-shmast stuff?! You wouldn’t be ‘K’ otherwise and it’s been good fun jousting with you
Renuka
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Hi Renuka - I’ve always followed your columns on HT, so obviously I’ll miss them. In case you plan to continue writing, do you blog elsewhere? Are you on Twitter?
Ironic. I was searching for your Naadi Shastra article and landed here to get this news. I’ve resisted Naadi for so many years, but after reading your article I’m actualy thinking about it now.
Thanks for all your writing (in particular what you wrote for HT’s brilliant IndiaYatra) and wish you all the very best in the feature. What a dream job to have. And leave behind.
Best of luck,
Anupam
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renuka Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
thank you so much, Anupam…bestest to you! Naadi was seriously spooky!
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Diva Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Hi renukaji,
Was intrigued by the Naadi article…care to share the address? Would love to get spooked!!
Thanks,
Diva
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renuka Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Hi Diva, here’s the number: 011-29817280, if you’d like to call and make an appointment. It’s Rs 500 for the visit. And if they find your leaf and if, by their lights, they prescribe a ‘parihaaram’, it’s up to you if you’d like to buy into it. Happy hunting!
renuka Reply:
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 am
E 1/209 near Krishna Nagar Mkt, second floor, Lajpat Nagar 1…just located address at home, only had phone no in my cell this afternoon
Dear Renuka,
Hi. Just finished my late Sunday lunch and was going through the TOI. Ghulab Nabi Azad seems to have made a comment that the country should have adequate electricity so that people can watch TV . His presumption is that after watching TV the men would be to sleep tight and that would be a good birth control method. We should thank ourselves for making leaders with such great intellectual skills!.
Anyway, talking of intellectuals Mahesh Bhatt on the same page has written an article about how sex seems to be a great time-pass for Indians and so much a part of our culture that we celebrate the union of the male organ with the female by having the Shivling in the inner sanctum sanctorum of the temple. Creative freedom to hell, why can’t people express their creativity without touching our gods is there nothing sacred in this country.
What is the concept of the Lingam ? Is it the extension of the Ardhanariswara concept. He being the Supreme Brahman and She the Shakti. One the Cause and the other the movement. Such a beautiful concept and people trivialize it. It reminds me of the blind men and the elephant.
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renuka Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Hehe..don’t know what to say about Mr Azad’s remarks, since I’ve lived happily sans TV for years and am not a man! As for Mr Bhatt, he gives me a headache with his yelling and screaming on TV and in print. Guess Shiva-Shakti is a concept too strong and startling to be left alone by the sensationalist dial-a-quote folks. But S&S are bigger and stronger than any attempt to trivialise or decry them, as history is witness, so let’s not bother with the Mr Bhatts.
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renuka Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Oops shld hv explained: I’ve heard him go at full throttle in the NDTV studio in a few programmes that I took part in. Fencing can be fun, clobbering is so not.
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What a lovely, lovely blog.. Typical of me to discover it just when it is winding up.. Just spent an extremely nostalgic evening going through your wonderful posts.. I hope you will find time to continue writing when in Bangkok.. And heartiest congratulations on the new assignment… Sounds very exciting..
If you DO start another blog (or in case you already have one) I hope you will post the link here in the comments section ..
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Hi Karan, happy to discover you! Thanks so much and best wishes.
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Renuka,
Maybe late to react……….but seven years of reading your columns has come to an end. It’s been a pleasure reading your pearls of wisdom right from your IE days.
Have fun and COME BACK!
Regards,
RamG
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renuka Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
RamG, this is so nice of you. Not late at all, though I wouldn’t call it ‘pearls of wisdom’ myself, just muddling about trying to make modern sense of our awesome shared inheritance. Thanks so much and best regards.
Renuka
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RamG Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I quite like the word “shared inheritance”, the richness is so evident.
Btw, do you intend to blog? A weekend without RN’s columns is so incomplete!
Cheers.
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renuka Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Tks, not just yet…but a week without you all is weird. Thursday is - was - my blog upload day and here I am by sheer habit, between jobs and in the process of uprootment but missing the sheer mad joy of writing. Looked in y’day too.
Thanks a lot Renukaji!!!
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renuka Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Hey, did you go, Diva (if you happen to read this)?
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Diva Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 11:29 am
yes i did, but they do not have my leaf yet..
Will keep poking them till they find it though
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renuka Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 9:41 pm
You go, girl!
Hello Renukaji,
Congratulations and best wishes for your new assignment. Your blog as also comments from readers (nirguna for one) were very informative. Hope you get the time to keep blogging on hinduism, religion and sundry issues.
I recall reading a mail about a statue of samudra manthan at the new airport in Bangkok; I assume it is for real and not one of those internet hoaxes. A statue based on hindu mythology in a predominantly Buddhist country; very intriguing, this. Maybe u can blog about that!
Regards,
Ramesh
PS - Hope u got a chance to visit the link, to the Divine life society web site for some hinduim related articles, I had posted a while ago
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Hi Ramesh, thanks. Best to you too. This statue sounds really interesting, will look out for it. Yes indeed, the Divine Life link has lots of good stuff. Curious that you should have mailed that because a great-aunt of mine (we referred to her as ‘Mattha Paati’), whom I met just once, long ago in Madras, actually took sanyas. She lived for years (and died) at Swami Sivananda’s ashram up in the hills. Seems she was called ‘Mataji’ locally and poems about the deities would pour spontaneously from her in Tamil and Sanskrit. Lost touch with that branch of the family, but always been intrigued by Mattha Paati’s story and been tempted many times these last many years to go away like her into vairaagya. It is a very alluring path and sings a most beguiling song: to be free of all attachment and yet engage affectionately with one’s fellow beings with no personal agenda at stake! But being too chicken-livered to handle the security issues that trouble women, I figured I’d wait till I was too hagged out to be bothered by ‘the world’ and if the call comes then, so be it.
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Renuka,
While on traces of Hinduism around the world, the “Ashthadik palakas” in the Siem Reap, Cambodia airport blew me away. And alighting in Bali was like a homecoming with a twist. These predominantly Muslim and Buddhist countries display their ancestral links so proudly and with such delicacy! For an Indian, South-East Asia is a home away from home but sufficiently different to ensure that you know you are abroad!
Savita
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Wow! Hope you’ll visit the India Cultural Centre when in Bangkok next and I’ll get to meet you, as indeed I hope our other bloggers will. How about posting the name and publishing details of your Navagraha book here?
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I am returning to this blog after almost twenty days. I would like to share this trivia with you. On an island in Kauai, Hawai there is this Hindu temple sprawling over an area of 450 acres. It has all the scenic beauty of river, canyon, and natural forest. Besides champak and frangipani it has rudraksha trees which were planted in mid seventies. Besides thedieties of Kartikeyan, Ganesha and Nataraj it has a 17 tonne Nandi. But that is not all. It was built by a white Danish Monk who was denied diksha to become a hindu in India in1920s. He subsequently went to Sri Lanka where he got his hindu monkhood. The founder monk finally took samadhi in early Y2K. This is a sketchy information shared by a friend who visited there. Ny next pilgrimage will be Hawai. Please take a detour and write in detail about this temple. Can Parvati have hawaian links ? God still must be leaking his vital drops. It sounds fit enough to become ‘13th Jyotirlinga’ !!
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Fascinating! I think the biggest flaw in HInduism is the fact that you couldn’t ‘convert’ to it if not born into the fold. The Kashi pundits have a lot to answer for, denying a longago ruler of Kashmir access to Hinduism when he wanted to convert to it. NO longterm vision, but that’s the patriarchy’s control freak clique for you. They quite forgot how they provided ‘Aryan’ lineage to the Gurjaras and Pratiharas, if I recall my history books right, who invaded North India in the political vacuum after Harsha Vardhana’s death.
We should have a great HIndu Council and put it to vote in the entire HIndu community: to allow ‘conversion’. The automatic question will be: “But what caste will they belong to?” I submit that the Constitution is our Upanishad today and it tells us to move beyond caste. So you need not have ‘gotra’, you need only your real or stand-in parents’ names and your birth star for your rites of passage, that’s what they do anyway when Indians marry foreigners in a traditional ‘maangalya-dhaaranam’ wedding. Then our religion will truly practice the fabulous mental freedom and inclusion that we cherish in its philosophy.
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kudos to you ma’m!I by chance stumbled to your blog today….i well know you & is one of the greatest fans Ht can think of!But frankly speaking,I have seen your columns but didnt bother to read it .You can well understand the weird 18 yr old chap like me!!sorry!!
But when i read your blog today,I have only one phrase I can ever think of -’NO WORDS’.
Hope we all join in the pursuit to create a spirtiual world where WHEN One goes to God shouldn;t pray -let my blessings be fulfilled rather ‘SABKI MURAADEIN POORI HO”1
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hi,
I live in Bangkok now so welcome you Renuka. But dont stop writing…..and if you start your own blog please send us a link.
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renuka Reply:
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Hi all! HAD to check my blog. Today (Saturday) was the first chance I got to chk net after landing in B’kok early on Monday morning and having the most hectically interesting week. Vijay Jang Thapa, the Htnet boss said I could post a mail id here for those bloggers who want to keep in touch with me ‘ex officio’ so here it is:
shebaba09@gmail.com.
Gina, it is lovely to find a post from B’kok! Hv u been here long? Hope to meet you!
Today I read a lovely book by a Mrs Hollinger called ‘Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind’. It’s from 1965 but has had 4 reprints, the last in 2001. It’s a book about Thais for non-Thais by an American housewife whose husband was posted to B’kok by the US Foreign Service. She took up teaching English at Chulalangkorn University and fell totally in love with the Thai people. Just five days here and I have kind of fallen in love with them myself, they are an example to the world in patience, good manners and smiling faces. After the bullying and road rage in Delhi, you can imagine how wonderful I find it, much as I love my India.
‘Mai Pen Rai’ is written so wittily and with such self-deprecating honesty that I couldn’t stop chuckling…and at times I had tears in my eyes, it was so moving.
Missing you all…
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So long! Farewell! Auf……… Goodbye!!!!
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renuka Reply:
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
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Its good to have text in my reading routine.I sometime have opinion anti to that of yours but always find strong base of your each and every statement.If u start your own blog kindly send me the link.gud luck.
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renuka Reply:
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hey, I’d like to hear your anti-views, Pooja!
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Hello,
Thank you for your words over the years. It has been so refreshing to hear a voice of reason talking about religion. I hope you will blog again, and that I will find it: the first is almost a certainty, the latter dicey! Best wishes for the new job.
Regards
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Hi Renuka,
I am sure you don’t remember me, but we met at HT when I was working there. I still remember we used to greet each other whenever we spotted each other. I was with HT Jaipur Live and knew you as one of the most friendliest person on that floor. And, of course I remember your beautiful saris too. I left HT long back and I am now with The Times Group as Principal Correspondent for special features. Many congratulations for the new assignment and all the very best!
Anu Bhambhani
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And, yes I would love to read you if you start writing again or have your blog.
Anu Bhambhani
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Nice to know you arrived safely (such an Indian expression, no ?) and couldn’t resist peeping into your blog. Nor could I ! Sounds exciting and promising, don’t forget your Usha, Khaitan, Ortem fans - they go whirr whirr right here under your nose even when you aren’t writing !
All the very best !
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This is not a comment on your work which I find both pertinent and insightful but a complaint. I know this does not concern you directly but I still addressed it to you because you seem to me like an intelligent and liberal woman who will understand my anguish.
I moved to India two years ago and found that of all the English news dailies in the country, Hindustan Times was the undisputable best. Having subscribed to the paper two years in a row, I’ve enjoyed great consistency and crisp news. This is why I was extremely shocked and disappointed to find a blog as crass as Vinod Nair’s ‘Tailor Talk’ featured on your website.
I grew up in the West, on the writings of famous and influential fashion journalists like Diana Vreeland and Suzy Menkes. That is why the crudely worded, explicit and completely politically incorrect contents of this blog were shocking to me. It’s more of a vent to the carnal side of an obviously sexually frustrated author- absolute objectification and disrespect of woman, cheap comments, disgusting metaphor and similes- than a respectable fashion blog from an authoritative source.
Fashion as an art is completely neglected and instead attention is paid to the minutes details of whose dress reveals what, which is described in unnecessarily graphic detail. Pathetic imagery of a grossly sexual nature combined with women being shown in a completely disrespectful light sex objects makes it nauseating, as well as inappropriate for younger readers. This is a transperant case of pandering to the lowest common denominator in this country.
This reminds me more of the drunken louts I see on Indian road sides, who pass comments on women (or ‘eve tease’ as it is called here) than any of the articles I have come across in any good fashion magazine.
If an established writer in the west maintained such a blog it would definitely spell an end to their career. For a publication that claims to be forward minded and global (the open your mind adverts, for instance) this is utter blasphemy.
I strongly suggest you either ban this chauvinistic, regressive and crude blog or moderate its contents for the sake of your public image.
Best of luck in Bangkok!!
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renuka Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Vivi, thank you for your good wishes. I remember Vinod as a very polite colleague whom I sometimes borrowed a foreign fashion magazine from. I have not seen the article you mention. You could tell him your views on his blog and give him a chance to answer you directly… if you haven’t done so already.
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Well it took me till now to figure out that I should search for you through an engine and hail to Google for that (the present graphic on the search page is particularly good). But that’s what it took - almost four months. Thought all sorts of things, wondered why there wasn’t any mention or threat of the returning columnist or whatever. Just an unmysterious change of jobs; a kind of kick upstairs but from stairway to escalator, complete with picturesque vault….
Thailand eh? Good place for culture and devotion I hear, particularly if you are able to leave the paedophilic, drag and special massage preferential places behind; and move up river and try and understand what makes the river people tick.
You have my email address. If you permit, we can continue to be in touch. You are perhaps the only contemporary Indian writer I have ever read, and been left wondering, about how much you know in such wealth, and how brilliantly and sensitively you communicate - especially with someone like me, who gapes more than reads - with just the right amount of irreverence to make the reverential worth the pursuit.
Please accept warm congratulations for your new assignment. I hope this gets to you. Stay well and strong and continue to explain the universe to me. kabir.
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renuka Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Hi Kabir! Here I was drawing a deep breath before plunging into accounts (never a favourite activity) and thought I’d refresh myself first with a quick peep at my blog, which HT has so indulgently, kindly and miraculously (for me) kept alive. What a great boost to my spirits to find such a nice mail from you!
My email id is shebaba09@gmail.com. Please will you mail me there so we can stay in touch?
Partho, Savita, Nirguna and few others have mailed off and on while Gina in Bangkok called soon after I got here and we had a few nice chats.
Take care and thank you so much.
Renuka
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