In the Dying Light

This was not written yesterday.

Yesterday, I put up a report so that people here could have a forum to express their views. There was not a single sensational statement in that report.

I wrote this today. Did I rush to do so? Yes, as much as I rush to hold on to someone who I feel deeply for...in this case, it was memories...

Is there a connection with what happened? I have spelled it out.

To say that talking about dead bodies floating in the Ganga is bad timing reduces everything else I have said...what about the mystical experiences? the seeking? the sense of calm?

If I had wanted to `politicise` the issue, it would be easy. I call my pieces political when they are political. I do not hide behind skirts.

I have not used sensationalism; I could have put up a picture of carcasses, but I chose this one from my album.

If you want to accuse people of insensitivity, then you will find them here and on the other board. In fact, I urge you to post political posts there. I do not want hits. This is a ``boring`` piece.

So, please leave the popcorn and Coke...

this deserves a Pulitzer or maybe even an Oscar. So alien a place to FV..that she refuses to believe that she belongs to the same people or country. Wowzers!!! I got the feeling that FV is floating up above as the bombs are exploding below. She knows something ain`t kosher but the sari looks fucking great. I mean, the shehnai is so cool..plus dead hindus are reincarnated anyway, or do they go to hell? Tricky that one...

Re: # 30
you dont find her anti-hindu?
I am surprised, every Chowkie thinks otherwise.

Re: # 32
Very thought provoking blog.

There is some truth in the fact that Islam/Shariat/Hadith do make people into believing that Islam is everything and rest is evil. Unlike other Religions Islam never had any moderate version and since Muslims hold Islam as highest, majority of them turn into what we see here.

Surprisingly, they demand secularism from Western world when in their own homelands their is no room for the same.

.....

The Buddha denied that we exist, denied that we do not exist, denied that we both exist and do not exist, and denied that we neither exist nor do not exist. The Fourfold Negation.

Farzana`s piece and dost-mittar`s recollection of a bizarre place where a sect of sadhus live who eat human caracasses, reminds me of what Kerry Packer had said when asked after he had been clinically dead for seven minutes. He said ``I have been to the other side, but there was nothing there``.

I can believe that.

http://powerlineblog.com/ >>

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In the post below John asks in connection with yesterday`s bombings in India what Islamist terrorists have against the Hindus. Professor Dilip Balamore explains:

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I found this a slightly amusing rhetorical question. My Pakistani students, here in New York, are not averse to telling me (a presumptive Hindu) that the reason for all the attacks on the Hindus, in India, is because India really belongs to them. India would, they say, have become a model Islamic country had ``those British bastards`` not restored it to the Hindus. Then, there is always the never ending Kashmir question which seems to be at the heart of Pakistani identity, but it is not clear whether Indian Muslims (as opposed to Pakistani Muslims) want Kashmir to be turned over to Pakistan. It is however sufficient reason to set off bombs, in Hindu temples, while they are deciding on the exact course of action. If these are not sufficient reasons, it is always possible to find others.

A decade ago, on one of my very rare visits to the Motherland, I stayed with my Muslim uncle-by-marriage, in Madras. Not only was the food better in his house, he was also the Noblest Indian of them all, with an intellectual honesty and a charity towards all that I have not met in any other. I had a number of long discussions with him regarding the differences in the legal doctrines of India and the US, since he had been the Advocate General of Tamilnadu for some time, and, of course, we talked about the Hindu - Muslim problem. He told me of his ongoing efforts within his community to persuade radicals that Indian Muslims ought regard themselves as Indians first. He remarked that when dispirited by the slowness of progress, he had often had to recapitulate and reiterate his vision of India as a wise nation tolerating various religions, and with a multitude of languages and literatures. That vision had been inspired by having met Gandhi, as a boy, and had been shaped by the great man`s ideas. My uncle`s son, on the other hand, was quite a Muslim firebrand, and was eager to indulge in religiously divisive talk and actions. He was horrified that I had spent a day walking the streets of Madras (now Chennai) and told me sternly that he could have given me a car with a driver, to keep me off the crowded sidewalks. ``You actually walked amongst the people?`` he asked, ``Amongst all those Hindus who worship idols? You don`t know this place—you coming from New York!`` I told him that I had only been walking in the familiar streets of my hometown, and, for that matter, I was a Hindu myself, as had his mother been before she had married his father. ``But do you worship idols like these idiots?`` he kept asking. I had to tell him that that was not my personal predilection, and in my Long Island neighborhood there was nary an idol in sight. This reassured him somewhat, but he kept muttering that ``those bastards are worshiping idols right outside the house. Don`t they have any shame? They should be shot!`` (This was an allusion to some Hindu festival or the other that was being noisily and colorfully celebrated in the streets near his walled house.)

Well, there you have another reason to bomb Hindu temples. It is just a reasoned protest against idolatry! Bombings may seem unpleasant, to the onlooker, but it is all for the good of India, really!

I must say that I agree with Glenn Reynolds that it seems to be poor tactics on the part of the radical Islamists to have the whole world hating Muslims at the same time. Let`s hope they do not soon wise up.

Best wishes,

Dilip Balamore

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Re: # 30
In all honesty did not like her timing of this article and mockry about dead people floating in Ganga?????

I dont know why, but I really felt that way, and if there is something I need to learn to sober up then I will. She has always been attacking India(which is ok sometimes), but there is nothing positive about her other articles. They are always single track Semi-Secular but attacking Hindus indirectly.

Perhaps, she is right about India or it is pseudo Seculars of India who have made otherwise an accomplished person into what she has become.

delhiwalla:

I do like FV`s writing style. I do not agree with everything she says - and I would probably go down in her esteem if I did - but she defies simple labels such as anti-hindu or anti-Indian. She may have a strong IndianMuslim identity but it is nevertheless an Indian identity.

This is an evocative piece. If you want a context, she has already provided it by comparing her feelings after this blast with those after the demolition of the babri masjid, which is probably the single event which has disillusioned many Indian Muslims about their place in their country.

Re: # 23

You sound like counting potatoes, 22 here 3000 there

Re: # 27
DM Sir,
You are so easy to please. really...

I liked her other pieces better than this one.

Dear Farzana:

It is pieces like this that makes me your ``bhagat``. I went to Benaras during my last trip to India and went to some of the same places that you mention: the saree shops, the ghaats, the boat trip down the ghats with their burning pyres and the Kaashi Mandir. I also visited Saarnath and a bizaare place where a sects of sadhus live who eat human caracass. But I would be darned if I could write even a paragraph capturing the sights, sounds and smells the way you have. Did you go to Ganga to see the famous ``suboh-Benaras`` or the evening aartis? You probably did not, otherwise you would have written about them.

More power to your writing.

#23 by parthaab

I say its time for religion to go. Now.

Yes do it. Religion has done nothing but been divisive. Tell Gabby to resurrect Timothy O` Leary. Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out.

And while on Gujarat, while hardly anyone has been convicted over a rape, riot or even murder, here is a teenaged muslim, sent to prison by a joke of a judicial system.

http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Gujaratviolence&slug=Zaheera+sentenced+to+one+year+in+prison&id=18918&callid=0&category=National

#22 by jang

Because they`re all either lobotomised or simply from the `kanjar` gharana.

How, I wonder, are these 22 dead any different from the 3000 who were killed in Gujarat, many of them in some of the most inhumane manner describable?

This carnage is already being blamed on `muslims`, when it is obvious that it is a political fall-out of the Kashmiri problem at best.

In fact, it was Gujarat which was a purely religious carnage.

Where were the Hindu pracharaks on this board, when thousands of the fellow-human beings were being thrown from their homes on to the streets?

Or when Modi announced, without proof, that muslims were responsible for the Godhra attacks and the `reaction` was just an unfortunate consequence - and when the central BJP government too supported him to the hilt?

Where were these hypocrites when fellow - country women were being raped and then butchered in the most horrific manner imaginable?

Its a sad day, not just for India, but for human kind, when humane kindness is itself rationed on the basis of religious lines of hatred.

I say its time for religion to go. Now.

What is this about Sindhis and Snakes?

There are some who come to my Gurudwara, they seems to be nice.

But I have heard that from mySindhi friend Mr Mirchandani of Malad, Bombay.