Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Heart of Giving


One of the most annoying things about being absent-minded is that you look for something in a place where you are absolutely sure you will find it. And it’s not there.

What’s even more annoying for the absent-minded is that this partial eclipse of memory goes with an absolute conviction that The Thing ought to be in the place where it’s not.

Which means that even though you’ve looked once, you’ll look again and again in the same place, expecting it to materialize. Meanwhile, your deepening irritation will temporarily shut down any rational thinking process that might actually help you find it.


But happily for folks like us, we often do find in the process things we were not looking for. And that can be quite a treat.

Last week I tore my basement up trying to find a critical piece of information on my daughter’s educational experience in elementary school. Half an hour rummaging through files and cupboards brought no luck. Finally, I opened a cardboard box to see if I had stashed anything there, to find it filled with neat layers of labeled manila envelopes. And I could not have been happier if I had found a rusty old treasure chest.

You have to understand that what helps me “find” something – even if it’s nothing that I was looking for – is that I do not easily throw things away, especially things that have any kind of paper content. Magazines and newspapers accumulate. Books populate almost every room. Old receipts -- some dating back to 2005 -- haunt my purse. And old letters are hoarded.

How old, you ask? Well – the envelope that I opened had the earliest letters I ever received. In it, I found the first two letters written to me by my brother when he was six years old. I was eleven. His handwriting at that age is far more legible than that of some doctors I know, even if the lines swoop downward in neat parallel diagonals across the page.

What’s funny about those letters is my brother’s directness. He wants me to bring him lots of toys and books and comics and presents when I return to Bhubaneswar from my grandparents’ home in Madras. To soften me up, he writes “how very good you are.”

The letter reminded me of the book for children titled “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. It is a simple and timeless story that speaks to adults and children alike. But like all books that tell the truth, it is controversial.

I had no idea how controversial it was until I got a link from an online friend to the philosophical journal First Things, where you can read analyses of this book’s message by distinguished academicians and theologians. If you’re philosophy-oriented, I’d suggest you print it out and read it at leisure. It's a bit overwhelming to take in the whole agglomeration of interpretations at once. Here’s the link to the journal –

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9501/articles/givingtree.html

It's both fascinating and revelatory to read those opinions after reading the book. Fascinating, because it shows that communication is so much more than a linear progression from words to meaning. A story, a word, an inflection of voice, an emailed response – each of these is subject to infinite shades of interpretation.

The old adage “seeing is believing” suggests that first –hand experience is the most reliable litmus of truth. But the light from any given source is reflected and refracted through our individual system of prisms and mirrors, leading each of us to subtly different conclusions. Most of us know this -- but we fight and argue anyway, and resent those who disagree. It keeps the old synapses firing.

For those who have not read the book and cannot easily find it, here is a synopsis from Wikipedia:

The story is a short
moral tale about a relationship between a young boy and a tree in a forest. It tells the account of how the tree loves the boy, and helps the boy with his needs throughout his life, from the boy's childhood until his golden years.


At the beginning of the story, the boy plays with the tree all the time, climbing its trunk, swinging from its branches, and eating its apples.


However, as the boy ages, he says that he can no longer play with the tree, and begins asking the tree for various things; first money, which the tree gives him its apples for; next a house for a family, which the tree gives up its branches for; then a boat, which the tree sacrifices its trunk for.


By the end of the tree's life, it has become a stump - a mere fraction of what it was physically; even in this state, the boy and the tree can enjoy each other's company. When the tree says that it has nothing left to give, the boy (now an old man) says that he now only wants a place to rest, and so sits for a while on the tree's stump, making the tree happy.


The synopsis will tell you what the story is about, but to feel its impact you have to progress through the book, dwell on its illustrations, experience the punctuations of emotion in its narrative, and become one with the tree as well as the boy.

I wrote my own little commentary after I read through some of those Symposium papers. Here it is:

THE GIVING TREE: SOME THOUGHTS

The beauty of this book is that it can be read at different levels of meaning.

In my opinion, it is one of the few books I have read in any genre that I regard as being absolutely perfect as written.

One of my best online friends said children would likely find this book very depressing. In his opinion the boy is very selfish and just takes and takes. The tree’s sacrifice, he felt, would not be understood by a small child.

I disagree. While it is true that a child is going to read this book a lot more literally than an adult, I think today’s child encounters much horror and mayhem on television as well as in real life. It is impossible to shield children from actual and anticipated violence in the news and everyday conversation. Popular culture is increasingly bankrupt of basic values.

Given the current scenario, I do not think this story is too much for a child to handle. In fact, if correctly interpreted by an adult, this book can have a lasting positive impact on kids.

Is the tree decimated by the spirit of “sacrifice” ? Not in my view. The word “sacrifice” implies an inherent attachment to the gift given, which the tree absolutely does not have. The tree is not a martyr, using self-flagellation to prove her moral superiority to the boy or anyone else. She is merely being true to her nature. She gives because making the boy happy makes her happy. In her apparent depletion lies her fullness.

The boy thinks he is made happy every time he takes from the tree, but it is never permanent, and he is forced to return time and again to the tree because she always has an answer for him that he can find nowhere else.

What emerges from the story is that this is the only way it could be. The tree and the boy are two sides of the same immanent reality.

The tree is the constant fountainhead of Being, and is therefore essentially unchangeable even if its physical nature is hacked at or denuded.

The boy is the metamorphosing wave that dances on the skin of the Deep.

The boy can be called selfish, yes, but he doesn’t know that he is. He never intends to hurt the tree, only to help himself. So he is more ignorant and undeveloped than selfish. He really doesn’t think beyond the immediate expediency of a solution. He takes what is available for granted time and time again. He never thinks of planting another tree so that another child may have the same pleasure and friendship he enjoyed.

But that is precisely what a child who reads this story will likely think of doing.

We are all takers in this life, because the reality is that much of our giving is conditional. We expect that it will be returned -- if not materially, then at least in the form of gratitude, or greater affection in return, or a reward in heaven.

This simple story teaches, among other things, that giving is reward enough -- provided it is done with the right attitude.

I am always amazed by the Giving Trees among us – people who respond spontaneously, without reserve, with tenacity and determination to fulfill a dire need. People who place the well-being of those they help beyond accolades or recognition for themselves. It is those few -- who shine in relative obscurity -- who keep the rest of the world from disintegrating.

I’d like to acknowledge three such initiatives here. I’ve never met the “initiators” in person, but – and this is true of the good friends I’ve made online -- I feel like I have always known them.

The first is a project to provide computer instruction to the children of sex workers in Chennai. It will help children marginalized for no fault of theirs, unable to get vocational education from established schools because of the social stigma they bear, The project is called ASSET, and you can read about it at

http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1600/proj1564a.html

The second is a nonprofit started by women for women, which provides counseling and medical advice with sensitivity and respect for confidentiality. It operates in the US as well as in India, and you can explore the organization’s ventures in detail, as well as its refreshing online magazine at
www.serenelight.org

Finally, I would like to applaud the long, arduous, and often thankless journey taken on by the founder of India in Classrooms, a venture that aims to correct shallow, negative, and just plain wrong perspectives of India and Indians in American school textbooks. The website can be accessed at
http://www.indiainclassrooms.org/

With so many worthwhile causes out there competing for one’s attention, it is hard sometimes to figure out what to support and where to begin.

But I think I know how to get next year off to a good start. Come spring, I’m going to plant a tree.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

The International Enquirer


I noted Mr. Neelakantan’s wry speculations on "why" some ancient temples were decorated with sexual motifs (See the comment section of my last post).


I also read comments on other forums pointing out that only a "small" percentage of all the temples in India have such motifs.

Somehow, I’m left feeling that there seems to be more pressure on the Hindu community to justify the appearance of their temples -- than there is on senior academicians to not ask unintelligent questions.

Dr. Kealey’s question "How can a religion be so pornographic?" is an embarrassingly illiterate question undeserving of a literate answer.

But his type of question has been asked before. And it has been answered before -- among others, by essayist Mulk Raj Anand and Shri Aurobindo, the passionate and lyrical visionary.

“To bring into the artistic look on an Indian temple Occidental memories or a comparison with the Greek Parthenon or Italian church … or even the great Gothic cathedrals of medieval France…is to intrude a fatally foreign or disturbing element or standard in the mind. But this consciously or else subconsciously is what almost every European mind does to a greater or lesser degree – and it is here a pernicious immixture, for it subjects the work of a vision that saw the immeasurable to the tests of an eye that dwells only on measure.”

Shri Aurobindo, Essays on Indian Art and Architecture; A response to British drama critic William Archer’s book “India and the Future” (1917) ; excerpted from the anthology “The Foundations of Indian Culture”, Birth Centenary Edition (1972), Pondicherry

“ To be sure, the mental imperialism of the West seems to have succeeded in corrupting and perverting the outlook of the conquered more than the physical empire, now luckily overthrown. It is necessary, therefore, to restate the fundamental postulates behind Hindu erotic art, so that the sexual principles which inform some of the most vital sculptures of Bhuvaneshwar, Konarak and Puri are made explicit, and the return is made towards an internal criticism, in terms of the intentions of the builders, rather than in terms of biased westerners, whether they are Christian missionaries or their conscious and unconscious disciples among the fanatical puritans in our midst. “

Mulk Raj Anand, “Kama Kala” 1963, Nagel Publishers, Geneva, Switzerland


I would not be surprised if the very same Kealey-an questions resurfaced 25, 50, or 100 years from now.

Do narrowly judgmental perspectives spring from a puritanical Judaeo-Christian mindset, as many -- including the luminaries quoted above -- concluded?

In my view, that’s only part of it.

The way I see it, cultural chauvinism is not really about morality. It is about the serpent in the human psyche that feels its way around with the forked tongue of double standards.

We know the words “Greek” and “Civilization” are held to be synonymous in the West, as evident from numerous worshipful made-for-TV documentaries. Well, let’s look at some deities from the Greek pantheon, shall we?

Let’s begin with the grotesquely endowed Priapus, a protective fertility deity who supposedly threatens transgressors with sodomy. Here’s a link for you to check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus

The Greeks’ supreme deity, Zeus, or Jupiter, was given to committing adultery with members of both sexes. He is said to have lusted after and pursued a young maiden called Io while his jealous wife Hera did everything in her power to stop him. He fell in love with a beautiful young boy named Ganymede, who became an inseparable companion.

The Greeks (not women, but men!) admired the ideal male form. Their Olympian athletes ran in the nude for the viewing pleasure of an all-male audience.

As for the status of Greek women, just check this link to see what the great philosophers Plato and Aristotle had to say about women:

http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp

But are these the cultural attributes disproportionately played up to the extent that they eclipse our appreciation of Greek art, architecture, literature, drama, philosophy, scientific and mathematical inquiry?

Are ancient Greeks described by conservative scholars as misogynistic sexual perverts?

Hardly. Ancient Greece is termed the “crucible” of civilization, and the “fountainhead” of philosophy!

As I sat writing, I had this flashback to a scene from Blake Edwards’ hilarious farce “The Party” (1968) in which Peter Sellers plays a bumbling Indian actor.
Sellers has an unforgettable line in the movie, when a furious Englishman shouts “Who do you think you are?” inches away from his face.

And Sellers’s character spontaneously replies “Mr. So-and-So, we Indians don’t have to think about who we are, we know who we are.”

Brilliant ... If only it were true!

But then again, conviction brings its own dangers. Here is an observation by the great Greek intellectual, Epictetus, which all scholars ought to heed:

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

The Obtuse Angle

In response to my last posting, a reader mentioned an English author who wrote about India without ever having been there.

I was reminded of a letter I wrote years ago in response a New York Times book review. Here it is for your amusement.


February 3, 2001

Dear Editor,

Peggy Payne’s novel “Sister India” evidently has captured the fascination of your critics. I notice it has been reviewed twice by this newspaper.

Whatever be the merits of the novel, reviewers Mason and Bernstein missed one laughable flaw that would be obvious to any Indian.

Payne names her central character, a woman, “Nataraja.” This, in the West, is like naming a female character “Andrew” or “Thomas.” Payne could not have picked a more unambiguously masculine name. Perhaps she was confident enough of capturing readers with her word-images of all the filth and the pollution of the city of Varanasi and the river Ganges – in the novel your critics call “powerful” -- to bother about such trivialities as research.


By now you are probably wondering how Dr. Kealey responded to my email. Take a look!


October 18, 2006

Dear Chitra Raman,

Thank you for your e mail. You haven't offended me. My article has attracted about 60 responses from Hindus, either directly to the Times or to me, and with only one or two exceptions each took your ad hominem line.

There's an article in that, actually, namely why do Hindus not discuss issues but simply attack ad hominen?

So let me ask you a question. You state that attitudes to sex were different in the past, as proved by the fact that the external - but not internal - parts of temples were carved with sexual figures.

So how does that differ from Soho today, where phone booths etc are covered in erotic imagery but where the actual act of sex takes place privately?


If you are going to answer this question, please avoid any ad hominem insults. Please answer the question in a dispassionate way, or I shall not reply.

yrs

Terence Kealey
_______________________________


I responded to him the same day, as follows.


Dear Dr. Kealey,

Thank you for your response. I have to tell you that it's extremely rare that I lob ad hominems to score points in a discussion, and certainly my tone would have been much different if this had been a direct conversation with you. As I mentioned in my email, I sent you my commentary directly because I thought it only fair to do so before it came to you via some other channel. I prefer face-to-face disagreement.

Having said that, here is my response to your note :

“There's an article in that, actually, namely why do Hindus not discuss issues but simply attack ad hominen?”

But you are the issue, sir. You and others of your ilk willing to make a public display of your abysmal ignorance just for the adolescent pleasure of riling people up. Sorry if you think this is ad hominem, but there's no other way to state how I see your motives -- except to state them.

I do not think, for instance, that the Times would publish an article in which you called a Church a "House of B****ry" even if it had been proven beyond doubt that their staff had covered up pedophilia for years. I don't think it would even remotely cross your mind to write an equally shallow and insulting piece having to do with either Judaism or Islam, for obvious reasons.

“ So let me ask you a question. You state that attitudes to sex were different in the past, as proved by the fact that the external - but not internal - parts of temples were carved with sexual figures. So how does that differ from Soho today, where phone booths etc are covered in erotic imagery but where the actual act of sex takes place privately?”

I will defer to your evident intimate knowledge of Soho phone booths.

In my commentary, I had specifically addressed two perceptions of yours -- that the Hindu religion itself was "pornographic" -- and that the answer to why it was so could be mined from the works of a completely arbitrary selection of anthropologists.

One can engage only with "controversial" ideas that have at least an angstrom of substance. If there is none, if it is evident that the writer is out of his depth, I consider it an act of kindness to tap him on the shoulder and point out that he is committing what Indians delicately refer to as "public nuisance."

If your intention was to write about temple Devadasis, you should have taken the trouble to get your facts straight first before referring to temples as brothels and erotic carvings as advertisements for them.

“ If you are going to answer this question, please avoid any ad hominem insults. Please answer the question in a dispassionate way, or I shall not reply. “

Dr. Kealey, from your website you appear to be someone with a solid career record and publishing history. I have no idea why you would want to put a blot on that by publishing an offensively silly, outrageously ignorant concatenation of your subjective biases -- and then not even have the grace to apologize for it.

I have no interest at all in insulting you any more than you have insulted yourself. But in the remote chance that you are genuinely interested in answers, I suggest you consult genuine scholars -- with open-mindedness and respect. As I wrote earlier, I will send your article to one such scholar in the School of Oriental and African Studies. If he responds to me rather than directly to you, I will certainly let you know what he said.


As a follow-up to that email, I sent Dr. Kealey the following links.

Devadasis of India

http://www.samarthbharat.com/devadasis.htm

WIKIPEDIA on Devadasis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devadasi

from which I highlighted these excepts:

Originally, devadasis were celibate all their life… Some scholars are of the opinion that probably the custom of dedicating girls to temples became quite common in the 6th century CE, as most of the Puranas containing reference to it have been written during this period…

By the end of 10th century, the total number of devadasis in many temples was in direct proportion to the wealth and prestige of the temple. During the medieval period, they were regarded as a part of the normal establishment of temples; they occupied a rank next only to
priests and their number often reached high proportions. For example, there were 400 devadasis attached to the temples at Tanjore and Travancore.

Local kings often invited temple dancers to dance in their courts, the occurrence of which created a new category of dancers,
rajadasis, and modified the technique and themes of the recitals. A devadasi had to satisfy her own soul while she danced unwatched and offered herself to the god, but the rajadasi's dance was meant to be an entertainment.

The rise and fall in the status of devadasis can be seen to be running parallel to the rise and fall of
Hindu temples… The destruction of temples by invaders started from the northwestern borders of the country and spread through the whole of the country… As the temples became poorer and lost their patron kings, and in some cases were destroyed, the devadasis were forced into a life of poverty, misery, and, in some cases, prostitution.

Reformists and Abolitionists, under the pressure of the European Christian priests and missionaries, conceived of the devadasi practice as a social evil and considered every Devadasi to be a prostitute…

…The portrayal of the devadasi system as "prostitution" sought to advertise the grotesqueness of the subject population for political ends, while the British colonial authorities officially maintained most brothels in India…

Traditionally, no stigma was attached to the devadasi or to her children, and other members of their caste received them on terms of equality. The children of a devadasi enjoyed legitimacy and devadasis themselves were outwardly indistinguishable from married women of their own community.


The following day, I heard back from Vice-Chancellor Kealey:
________________________________________

October 19, 2006

Thanks for this. If the devadasis were initially celibate, and then there was no stigma for their children ....

And if their flourishing at the millennium coincided with the elaboration of the erotic statues ....

But let me make another point. In the west, an argument is lost the moment a protagonist resorts to ad hominem. I have felt free to ignore almost every Hindu complaint over my article because they've almost all been ad hominem. But someone who writes and says "actually, Terence, you're wrong because in fact the statues mean X or Y and we know this because of Z" - then that's frightening argument. Fortunately, I haven't received an e mail like that.

yrs

Terence


Dr. Kealey,

You are welcome. Wikipedia is by no means the ultimate reference -- merely a signpost -- that there just might be something significant that you are missing.

It was sent to show you how easy it is for even someone like myself, an ordinary stay-at-home parent, to add depth and perspective to a given research topic -- if I care about accuracy, that is.

If memory serves me right, back when I researched articles I would go to a place called a Library, where I remember finding a great deal of reference material stored on more than one kind of medium. There are helpful people there willing to show you where to look. You should try it some time.

“In the west, an argument is lost the moment a protagonist resorts to ad hominem. I have felt free to ignore almost every Hindu complaint over my article because they've almost all been ad hominem. “

Ah yes, the Eternal Sunshine of Fortress Smug. A favorite destination for some western academicians, and for some a permanent vacation spot.

“But someone who writes and says "actually, Terence, you're wrong because in fact the statues mean X or Y and we know this because of Z" - then that's frightening argument. “

Actually what's rather more frightening, considering your job title, is that you expect others to put in the time and diligence to pursue your education.

“Fortunately, I haven't received an e mail like that.”

And fortunately for me, I do have a life to return to. So if you'll excuse me, I'd like to end this exchange.

I appreciate your courtesy. What I would appreciate even more is if this experience brought some awareness, whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, of the crass reductionism of your approach.

Sincerely,

Chitra Raman

_______________________



Sunday, October 22, 2006

A-Kealey's A-Heel

Back when my daughter was first diagnosed with autism at age 3.5, she used to attend a wonderful Montessori school. Since the teachers there frequently were baffled about how to deal with a child like her, I would help out for an hour or so.

She loved that school, but she also loved to do things her own way. She was warned not to touch the bell for Circle Time. If she rang it, she would be given a time out.

But she loved the sound of that bell. So she would dart over to the table to give it a good hard ring. It would startle all the other kids into dropping what they were doing -- some of them would start moving to the center of the room for Circle.


And my daughter would then walk purposefully to the corner of the room, pull out a chair -- and give herself a time-out!

I was with her once when she was doing an activity called the Number Board. Kids are given a board with a numbered grid from 1-100 and a box of numbered tiles. They have to match each tile to the appropriate square on the board.


The other kids were puzzled by my daughter. She wouldn’t answer any of their questions; she wasn’t talking yet; but -- she was able to complete the Number Board activity without a mistake before the fastest kid in that room had gotten up to 25 or 30.

That day, a couple of saucer-eyed little tykes sat watching my daughter do the Number Board. She had problems with fine-motor activities like picking up small objects like number tiles with her fingers. So she broke another rule, as the two little girls watched aghast. She picked up the box and tilted it so the tiles all cascaded down on the carpet. in a mound. Then she went to work like a busy little magpie.

“Why does she always have to be Bad?” one of the little girls asked me.

I was thinking for a good way to explain when the other child turned to her friend. “I know why,” she stated.

“You do?” I asked.

“Yup. It’s BECAUSE SHE’S FROM INDIA,” she said triumphantly.

I burst out laughing. “No, that’s not it.”

She wasn’t laughing. “You mean she’s not from India?”

“Yes she is.”

“See, I told ya,” she said turning to her friend.


We come into this world wired to make assumptions and presumptions. When normally communicating toddlers get through the phase when they seem to ask one question for every intake of breath, they often begin to creatively fabricate answers for things they don’t quite understand. They play “pretend” games. They make up preposterous stories.

I think we can all agree, however, that what is adorably cute behavior for a four-year-old becomes rather less acceptable when it comes from an adult.


Particularly when the adult in question is Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, U.K.

Consider the article by VC Terence Kealey in the Times Online

(“Why is a Hindu Temple Like a Soho Phone Booth? Must I Draw You a Picture?” available at :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html )

I stepped into this article over a month after it appeared. I knew by then that many readers from all walks of life had already responded either directly to Dr. Kealey or to the Times’ forum. I knew that though various Indian discussion forums were still seething, it was old news.

So when I assembled my little commentary of controlled fury, I sent it first to a small circle of friends and relatives. But then having unleashed it, I realized that I had no control over where and how far it might travel. So I decided to forward it directly to Dr. Kealey.

My first email to him appears below. Our subsequent correspondence will appear in my next entry.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I mean no offense to my dear friends of the Christian faith – they are not the ones to whom my words are directed.

______________________________________________

October 17, 2006

Dr. Kealey,

I wrote the following commentary in response to your recent article on Indian temples. I meant at first to share it among my friends and like-minded acquaintances -- but since it has begun traveling around the Internet like a live magnesium wire, I thought I should send it to you before someone else did.

I regret any undue personal hurt that my commentary may cause you, and I say this only because I do not know you and want to give you the benefit of doubt that you are essentially a decent person and this article was just an aberration.

I do not, however, regret writing as I did. I have only to re-read your article to be reminded that you had no compunction at all in crassly offending people you do not know.

I intend to send your article to a family friend of ours, a senior scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies. I'd be interested in his reaction to your deductive leap that ancient temples were used as brothels and that the temple carvings were meant as advertisements.

If you cannot confine yourself to writing about your area of expertise, and if you have no time to write with responsibility, integrity and respect, you should be prepared to deal with an Indian readership that will no longer lie supine and let all manner of unmitigated drivel wash over them.

sincerely,

Chitra Raman

________________________________________________________________

COMMENTARY

In response to the article "Why is a Hindu Temple Like a Soho PhoneBox? Must I Draw you a Picture? " (Times Online, Science Notebook, September 18, 2006) by Terence Kealey, I would suggest that Dr.Kealey expand his reading to include the works of Mark Twain.

Here's a quote by Twain to get him started:

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt."

In a truly riveting display of scientific acumen, Dr. Kealey poses two central questions about Hinduism in his essay, reflecting the depth of his inquiring mind:

1. How can a religion be so pornographic?
2. How would anthropologists explain pornographic temples?

In response to question one, I think Hindus should react with compassion rather than anger, only because anger is an inappropriate response to feeble-mindedness.

Besides, anger in response to offensive stupidity is too often misconstrued as defensiveness, or conservatism, or fundamentalism.

The point is that one should not have to explain to an academician --much less a vice-chancellor of an institution of learning -- that attitudes toward sex and the human body in ancient times were far different -- before a certain fascist morality introduced the Original Oppression of Original Sin to the world. And with it, a legacy of anxiety, guilt, hypocrisy, violence and secretive sexual perversions running rampant through their priesthood.

It is evident from the frankness of the erotic sculptures at Khajuraho, Konarak, and Bhubaneswar, as indeed the great tenderness reflected in the expressions of those depicted -- that the blissful union of man and woman was seen in those times as not something dirty and shameful, but a natural part of existence. It was viewed as part of the divine force that is inseparable from every inch of creation. In contrast, the inner sanctum of a temple is much different, reflecting that the journey to inner spirituality is always made through external temporality.

I would answer Dr. Kealey's second question with one of my own: "How would chimpanzees explain the roof of the Sistine Chapel?"

And if he cannot see how the two questions relate, well -- "Quod Erat Demonstrandum."

It is a peculiar attribute of western "rational" and "scientific" thinking with respect to matters concerning Hindu philosophy and culture, that completely speculative analyses by total outsiders to the tradition – are often considered to be the most plausible and reliable. The same towering intellects would have no trouble agreeing, I would hope, that it would be -- umm, somewhat inappropriate -- to have a gynaecologist perform brain surgery.

Hindus everywhere are quick to note that certain other religious groups seem to command greater immunity from disrespect and public mockery by simply threatening widespread economic or physical retribution. In the face of such a collective threat, anyone from the President of the United States to the Pope in the Vatican can be quickly brought to heel.

I happen to believe however, that retaliatory violence – besides being barbaric -- simply drives ignorance underground. I favor the more mature response pioneered by British educators, which is to hand the dunce a cap, seat him in plain view of the class, and make him write multiple times about the error of his methodology.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Prejudice most Pernicious

In 1927, an American author named Katherine Mayo published a book titled “Mother India.”

Translated into several languages, it served as the definitive sourcebook on India right up to the 1970’s, when it reportedly was required reading for Peace Corps volunteers. The book attributes all the prevalent social evils of the time, including child marriage and lack of proper hygiene – to Hinduism!

Mrinalini Sinha’s new book “Specters of Mother India – the Global Restructuring of an Empire”

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047206715X/yahoo-books-20/ref=nosim–

reminds us that Mayo summed up India as a nation with
an oversexed Hindu culture, manifest in practices such as early marriage, masturbation and homosexuality.”

Mayo’s grotesque accounts of alleged “Hindu” sexual practices kept her book on the bestseller lists for almost three decades after it was published.

When I read a review of Sinha’s book by Arthur J. Pais (India Abroad, August 18, 2006) I wondered what good would it would do to exhume Memories of Racists past, except to kindle the fire of unresolved injury among Indians..

That is, until I happened upon an essay on Hindu temple erotica in the Times Online, mystifyingly published under the section “Science Notebook.” And I realized instantly that Mayo's relevance is timeless.

The essay, titled “Why is a Hindu Temple Like a Soho Phone Booth? Must I Draw You a Picture?” is by Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, U.K.
A frequent contributor to the Times’ Science Notebook column ( though mercifully, not a frequent commentator on matters Indian) Dr. Kealey is a clinical biochemist. His areas of expertise are stated as "hair, skin, acne" and "the economics of science and higher education" on his personal webpage accessible through University of Buckingham's "Directory of Experts." He has authored four books.

Access the full article here :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html


Pithy and Pertinent Sayings:
Education … has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) British historian

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.
George Saville, Marquis of Hallifax (1633-1695) English statesman and essayist.

I wrote a scathing commentary on the Times article which I subsequently sent directly to Dr. Kealey. I will post excerpts from my email exchanges with him in my next blog entry, but first, here are some general thoughts.

The first thing that will hit you when you read Dr. Kealey’s imaginative essay, is that though Katherine Mayo’s name and presence are long gone, her spirit never did depart. Eight decades have dissolved since her book was written. And yet, the attitude she epitomized lives on by assimilation and self-replication -- much like the Voldemort character from the Harry Potter series.

What makes this essay particularly striking is the social context in which it appears. According to the 2001 census in U.K., ethnic minorities constituted approximately 8 percent of the nation’s total population of 58.8 million. Of those, Indians were the largest minority community at 985,000. The U.K. census points out that Indians are the most religiously diverse among minority communities. This is how their religious identities break down: Christians, 5 percent; Muslim, 13 percent; Sikh, 29 percent ; and Hindu, 45 percent.

See:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/SearchRes.asp?term=Minority+groups&x=38&y=13

This means is that at last count there were around 443,250 Hindus in the United Kingdom.


Not only has there been a sizeable increase in the Indian presence, but academically, socially and professionally, Indians are for the most part a visible and well respected community, frequently recognized for some noteworthy contribution or the other.
But neither increased visibility nor prestige empowers Indians to reverse the macular degeneration of certain academics with respect to Hinduism.

As a community, it seems to me that we oscillate between extremes of apathetic inaction and destructive self-criticism. Apathy ought not to be confused with detachment, because a commitment to action can be made with detachment: That, in fact is a core Hindu ideal.

Collective identity begins with the individual. One can stand up for one’s community whether or not one is religious. For that matter I sometimes find myself standing up for other religions, depending on the issue -- as I did when the controversy over Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” photograph first broke in 1989.

I saw the same empathy and reproach in some of the published online responses from non-Indians to Dr. Kealey's non-erudite expectorations. It's good to know that basic decency can override tribal affiliation – if one allows it to. It wouldn't hurt more Indians to keep that in mind.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Greeting


I know what you are thinking. Who needs another blog?

Not you.


As you read this, your mind is a scrolling marquee of things to do next, truncated conversation fragments, leapfrogging ideas, an obsessively recurrent tune. With a slight movement of your finger, you can launch yourself back into the noiseless din of intersecting URLs.

Perhaps what we all need is a space where we can take a break from listening to what we hear, and start listening to what we know.

This is my place to do just that.


We are a noisy species. We crave validation and agreement. And so, we prefer the company of like-minded people. I am no different; but as I prepare to pour my ideas into the void, I prepare myself also to welcome all fellow travelers, whether kind or critical.

So get up and pour yourself your favorite beverage, and stay awhile. I cannot promise to always deliver a spa experience; but I do promise to try not to bore you.