Ruminations

There was a time, when I was in school and the Ramayana and Mahabharat formed part of course material. Thus it was that I knew even the complex Mahabharat with its many characters fairly well and could predict which episode would come next in the tackily produced Mahabharat that was aired on Doordarshan then. I took great pride in it too. It never occurred to me as unusual that a religious text was part of school course material. Many years later, and for many years now I have felt miserable about my dismal knowledge of other texts and cultures that form part of my country. I am quick to proclaim myself a secularist, but I’m never sure I even understand what that truly means. I now have friends from different faiths, and several of them have cross married. I’m always delighted when I see them celebrating each others’ festivals and explaining to the children their respective significance. So it is that Tanvi is as excited about making rangolis on Diwali as she is about picking out the perfect Christmas tree. And so it is that I almost faced a language barrier when I first met Sanaa, for I started to chat with her in Hindi while she blabbered away in Bengali and Malyalam with equal ease.

I’m equally distressed when I see youngsters so enamoured by foreign cultures, their concept of Diwali is more about playing cards and bursting noisy crackers than about the victory of good over evil. And of course I’m distressed by my own lack of understanding about my religion which is being misrepresented by the fundamentalist Hindu right on the one hand and simplistic and distorted depictions in films and television on the other.