The Summer of ’69

hey.....its a fabulous one! funny and subtle! liked reading it!

an element of honesty comes through from within the story. as if written in a moment of grown-upness by a child. touching...

tipu:
``tumhara khoon khoon hamara khoon paani ! ``
Arre yaar, yeh dialogue film ke liye rehne dau!
I was merely contrasting an emotional change with an intellectual change.

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dost mittar #193 So, on that happy note you and I can say good bye to this board.

tahmed32#192
I appreciate your reassurance:-)
Yes, there are converts to judaism, although the orthodoxy, like in hinduism does not permit conversions. And the motivation there may also be more than a change of heart. I dont think that jews are more religious than christians but they do have a stronger jewish identity.

dost mittar #190 In the US, there is also I think a large number of christians, particularly catholics, converting to judaism. One major reason is marriage: half the jewish weddings are with nonjews. According to the USA Today, there about 200,000 converts to judaism per year plus a few hundred thousand more ``undocumented converts`` to judaism, i.e. individuals who raise their children as jews. I think this reflects the fact that most jews tend to take their religion more seriously than christians (as do Greek Orthodox Christians, per the example I gave from the movie in my earlier post). Also, the two religions are closely related anyway.
Among muslims and hindus in the US, I know of a few intermarriages. In one, the hindu girl converted to Islam. In the other, the muslim girl technically stayed muslim, but in their house there have both hindu gods as well as Quranic calligraphy. That should be enough to give a heart attack to any hindu or muslim extremist!! But for ordinary people, I dont think it is a big deal. While they are merely acquaintances (I went only once to their house), I dont think they have lost even one muslim or hindu friend because the two got married and no one gave second thought to the interesting symbolism of both religions existing peacefully side by side.

As for the fire and brimstone part in the Quran, the visions of hell are indeed a bit scary in not just Islam but in the Christian tradition as well - Dante did not write the ``Inferno`` for nothing. But you can relax. The verse I always refer to is in Surah Baqarah which makes it crystal clear that you can be of any religion and still have no fear. As long as you (a) do good deeds on earth, (b) believe in the Judgement Day and (c) believe in the Creator. I have no doubt you are OK on (a). And (b) is essentially a metaphysical concept and to my mind it translate in real life terms into distinguishing between right and wrong. On (c), since the nature of God cannot be understood by man (per the Quran), it follows that in actionable terms it implies appreciating the manner he manifests himself: in other words, appreciating the immense universe and the incredible complexity at every level (stellar, planetary, molecular, atomic and particulate) that we as humans have been able to unravel so far. So, if I was born a hindu, I think I would feel quite comfortable being one as long as I did not do bad stuff, did not differentiate between right and wrong, and/or did not appreciate or express any interest in the marvellous creation within which we live. Being born a muslim, I am only sorry my fellow muslims dont do what you did: read the Quran not for gaining points with God but with an interest in understanding what it has to say.

dost-mittar #189
In Canada you donot have Hindutva-vadis.

ali87 #187

`` they can be easily brushed off``
How easy has it been to brush YOU off? First you go from board to board demanding that I accept my religion as false now you are demanding that I accept my life is false. And why don`t you abuse me some more? chowk is the place to do it. You can be sure another Muslim man or dost-mittar will come and defend you. And you preach `empathy`, hypocrite.

And I am not a ``poor little hindu girl``, but I am certainly worried about the risks incurred by proselytizing groups. I have have had Christian friends all my life(including evangelists) and I can personally put these things in perspective - but thats not the case with many others. I personally have a hard time defending such practices as I described, because finally how can I make a case to other Hindus for respecting a particular group`s religious rights if that group doesnot respect theirs.

Thanks anyway for proving the last paragraph of my post #185 right.

sadna, ali87:
In Bangalore at least they accost you outside your home; here in Canada, they bug you even in your house. The safest way to get rid of them is to tell them that you are a muslim and they wont waste their time. This is probably what ali87 did:-).
Re. tableeghis, I have not read any report of them actively converting anyone in India. I think the hindu-to-muslim conversions in India are now largely through the marriage route.

tahmed32:
There are several reasons for the growth of islam, including those mentioned by you. Ostracisation is a big deterrent even among hindus, without that there might have been many more voluntary conversions, as was the case with the hindu-to-sikh conversions which were 100% voluntary in Panjab and which carried no threat of ostracisation. On the other hand, right or wrong, the hindu perception is that most of the conversions to islam from hinduism were the result of persecution. My own guess is that there were both voluntary and involuntary conversions but the magnitude of each is not known.
But I have no doubt about why muslims do not leave islam. While reading quran, even an agnostic like me began to worry the fate that awaits me in the afterlife. In an islamic society, as sadna points out, any muslim wanting to change his religion needs to get his head examined. In the west, too, the threat is not totally absent. The law might protect you but the family of the convert may not care for the law as is the case with honour killings, even when they have nothing to do with islam.
There is another difference between the ostracisation faced by a hindu and a muslim convert in India. A hindu convert may lose his family and friends but they will soon be replaced by a new group which will heartily embrace him or her. No such luck for any hypothetical muslim who may convert to hinudism; the poor convert will be shunned by both sides.
There is no denying the fact that islam is the fastest growing religion in America and that all conversions are voluntary. These conversions are mostly among the poor blacks and convicts who are converting to islam for the same reason that hindu dalits in India are converting to christianity, namely to rebel against the religion of their oppressors; in the case of dalits, that religion is hindu and in the case of blacks that religion is christianity.
But the qualitatively more significant conversions in America are from christians and jews to buddhism. These conversions are taking place at the high end of the society among people who are generally well educated and are quite successful in their lives. They are becoming buddhist not because they have been badly treated by the society but because they find the philosophy more attractive. Also, unlike islam, conversion to buddhism is not a one-way street and their conversion does not irrevocably commit them and their children and grandchildren to the new religion. Lately, however, I suspect that some of these nouveau buddhists are simply joining the bandwagon of the ``in religion``.

185 by sadna on June 14, 2003 11:46am PT

I already do sadna, I wear the hijab prescribed for males. Ie cover whole body with garments. You will typically not find muslim men going around in shorts. Muslim men are also covered fully from neck downwards. I even a couple of decades back many muslims regarded wearing thight jeans as not an acceptable wear especially for the prayers.

Looks like your sympathy for muslim women has vanished pretty fast.

your real intentions are here for every one to see. You shed false crocodile tears when ever you get a chance. Your pose yourself as a very reasonable person and then jump to make statements about women in islam with a standard canned paragaph that you have been using every time. However you steadfastly refuse to analyse what you are claiming. Your real intention is to keep hammering that Islam is not been good to women without any analaysis. Well except for some peverse satisfaction you will not achive much. It is unlikely to have any affect on any muslim. At the most you may be playing to the gallery of like minded hindus who hate muslims.
Perhaps you want to feel better by accusing muslims because you feel that they look down on your religon. You and your likes actually use these unsubsaintiated claims to justify your inherrent voilence against muslims.
Well I dont think that anything you do will have any affect on muslims nor will they feel that they can change your mind if they accknowledge your demands. For that is not what you are looking for. You are only looking for reasons to justify your hate.
You stand exposed and your cheap stratagies and thinking is there for every one to see.
Next time before you make any accusations on Islams treatment of women first try out the Hijab and then bother to post.

Another of your silly exaggerations about christians is now a story of the poor little hindu girl all reasonable while the wily prolythesiors are trying every trick in the book. I belong to Bangalore probably have lived there more than you have. I have never been bugged in the way you are exxagarting.
Yes I have had people attempting to talk to me. but they can be easily brushed off. Most of the times without any rancour by simply saying that you are not intrested. These christian prolythesiors are nothing compared to the Time share resort salesmen.
All the tearjerking stories about deciding to wear bindi or not are stories that only a delerious person like you can think people will belive in.
Muslims prolythesing in bangalore or in India is a joke. Except for the Tabliquis there is no group which prolethyies and even the tabliquis do it to mulsims ie those who they consider are not regular in their prayers etc. they have a tough time with muslims itself. They do go to villages where they try to revivie attandance in sparsely attended masjids and often Iliterate muslims who have very little knowledge of Islam except for a vauge Idea about paraying ocasionaly and partonisning graves of local seers.

and dont even start telling that because you are a girl they accost you this is joke apparently you have only visited bangalore once in a while. These christian groups work on the real poor people in the who live inhuts etc and that to never with accostion they suppourt them for months or years with money, charitiable activites and then include them in activities which seem to be secular but have a vauge chirstian content. Only when they feel that the people are open to them on a personal basis they start the real work. Of course there are people who give out pampleth invite you to gettogehers etc it is pretty easy sidestepping them by saying that you are not intrested or making vauge promises to look into the Idea.

Anyone wanting to become a nonMuslim in Pakistan will certainly need to have his head examined.

ali87#182
``like I said this kind of topic is a difficult topic to develve in form of discussion rarther it is suited for individual study with perionds of questioning etc. Nothing can be proved or disproved in this kind of forums.``
I agree.

ali87 #183
Please show some empathy and wear a hijab/burqa yourself.

dost-mittar #181
I read that statement in a book review where demagogues of both sides (nothing to choose between them!)are quoted from the 1990s:

http://www.indolink.com/Book/book27.html

To add to the point I was making earlier - I lived in Bangalore for a number of years, and during this time, I had the experience of repeatedly being accosted on the road, while walking or waiting for bus/auto. What would happen was a woman/girl who would approach smilingly and make polite conversation and then invite me to join some `friends` for `discussion and debate`.

When I refused, she would insist on telling me how I was missing out on something great, how I should just `try it` once, it would change my life, etc etc. These were members of a Christian proselytizing group - and they never took no for an answer, they never took 3-4 steady nos for answer. Even when I was laden down with shopping bags, they would not let me walk past, they would keep insisting for 5-10 minutes, as if I owed it to them to go to their meeting. Obviously I never went, and I kept refusing politely, always saying I was not interested or that I had no time, with only meant that they would then question me for personal details so that they could point out to me that I should be interested or judge for me whether I did have time or not.

I was never impolite, I never got into a discussion, I never got angry - these things didnot occur to me then. But it got so that involuntarily while getting ready in the morning I would calculate whether wearing a bindi or not wearing a bindi would decrease the chances of being thus accosted that day. If I wore a bindi perhaps they would understand I am happy in my religious identity as Hindu and leave me alone, or perhaps if I didnot wear a bindi perhaps they would think I am already a Christian and wouldnot accost me. (Neither device worked). In all the years in Bangalore, this happened not a few but many times, this was not just my experience but that of many others too.


The point of this is - IMO, those girls (and their Muslim counterparts) are making a BIG mistake. The tragedy of this situation (given that IMO disaster looms on us Indians) is that using their customary circular logic, both proselytizing groups are just too arrogant to give any weight to anything I say to them without heat and anger(much less that they are making a big mistake) precisely because I am a Hindu and they have NO value for what a Hindu tells them, esp without heat or anger.

dost mittar #180 Actually it is interesting to consider why hardly any muslim leaves the islamic fold, as you say, while hindus seem to have been doing it in droves (at least in past centuries). You think it is out of fear of social ostracization. But then: hindus converting to Islam were similarly ostracized in traditional society at least, I would think. (Happens within hinduism too - my brahmin friend told me his mother still refuses to talk to him because his wife is of some other caste). So, I dont think that social ostracization is an adequate explanation.

My own view is as follows: In past centuries, Islam did offer something positive to people: namely the chance to be seen as equal human beings. Indeed, in many places (e.g. in north africa in the first couple of centuries after muslim conquest) muslim rulers strongly DISCOURAGED conversion to Islam since this meant the converts would no longer pay jaziya tax. Nowadays, many of the conversions to Islam that take place are among US blacks. Clearly there is no fear of being put to the sword if they dont convert to Islam on the part of the American blacks. Clearly people like Malcolm X and other blacks saw this as a chance to be seen as equals (Malcolm X even wrote as much, I understand, when he said his experience on the hajj when he saw the concept of race become irrelevant as white and black skinned individuals stood shoulder to shoulder).

There were no doubt many people who converted simply to jump on to what we may call the Islamic Bandwagon as muslims became politically powerful over the last millenium. But clearly, as the Bandwagon steadily disappeared over the past three centuries, we would have seen individuals jumping off this Bandwagon. After all, what is to prevent me or any other pakistani living in the west from converting to christianity (for example)? Indeed, there could well be economic advantages for the poorer immigrants in converting and joining a church - e.g. free private schooling for kids in catholic schools (as latino immigrants often enjoy).

This brings me back to the point I was making: people living in urban settings (where social ostracization is not a big deal, given that social groups are not as strongly knit as in viallages) dont change religions for the same reason they dont change names: while possible, it is not worth the hassle. If one truly believes that all religions are basically saying the same thing (and this is what I understand from everything I have read and discussed), then conversion into or out of a religion really should not be such a big deal. While some white people convert (e.g. islam or to buddhism or to hinduism or between judaism and christianity), it is often for different reasons. As an illustration of this point: If you have seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and seen how the traditional Greek family feels very strongly about having the wedding in the Greek Orthodox Church, while the WASP groom easily undergoes conversion by getting baptized as a Greek Orthodox and his parents have no problem with it all.

tahmed#178
``I differ here - I dont think changing religions is such a big deal.`` That is, I consider a religion to be like your name: you are given a name at birth, and so you are declared a muslim or hindu at birth. You can can change your name no doubt at any time in your life. And you can change your religion too.``
Change in religion ought not to be a big deal and it isn`t in countries like Japan and China, but it is a Very Big deal on the subcontinent. And I am talking here of what religions are in practice, not in ideal situations.
If you are a muslim and you leave Islam, you become a murteed and, as you are well aware, muslims don`t take kindly to blasphemists or murteeds. This is one of the reasons why a muslim will hardly ever leave the islamic fold.
Among hindus, there is no problem if you become a sikh, buddhist, kabirpanthi, jain, or start following a sufi peer ; the religion, indeed, lets you do that without leaving its fold. However, it is a different matter if you become a Muslim. It would mean, in most cases, complete ostracisation by your family and friends and will be a lifelong trauma for you. And as I said once earlier, change to Islam, in reality, means a complete transformation in one`s life which goes far beyond a mere change in faith.
In India, change in religion has always been a one-way street, from hinduism to other religions. Whatever the reasons for this one-way traffic, this has become a cause for concern among hindus. And if you want to know if this concern is legitimate or not, think of two names, Iqbal and Jinnah: Both of them had Hindu grandfathers and both ended up carving up our country and our province. As Jinnah famously said, the foundation of Pakistan was laid the day the first hindu converted to Islam.
So, religious conversion does mean more than a name change. If you are a hindu, it means that the rose becomes a thorn.