tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363050292024-03-13T09:18:59.697-07:00In QuestChitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-68652104348653667032013-07-04T09:48:00.000-07:002013-07-04T09:48:28.827-07:00Of Textbooks and Hindu Culture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_755" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f; font-weight: bold;">AN OPEN LETTER TO DR. KOENRAAD ELST</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_757" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">Dear Dr. Elst, </span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_785" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_64" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_60" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_753" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">A friend sent me your<a href="http://www.hinduhumanrights.info/hindu-month-in-california-and-the-lessons-from-the-textbook-controversy/"> <b>article</b></a> of June 29, 2013 that exhumes the California textbook controversy in an apparent bid to warn Hindus against getting too happy about being granted a "Hindu awareness month" in California. </span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_799" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">In your introduction, you point out </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_70" /></span></div>
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<b class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_63" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_1_1372917332582_2252" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><span id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_1_1372917332582_3975" style="color: red;">"Hindus are not good at selling Hinduism</span>, <span id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_1_1372917332582_5440" style="color: red;">both because they misjudge their audience and because they don’t know their own tradition very well.</span> The California textbook affair was a painful case in point."</b></div>
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<b class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_65" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_76" style="background-color: white; color: #454545;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_83" /></b></div>
<div id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_67" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_80" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">I read your article carefully, and while I can completely agree with you that some of the edits presented were weakly or inaccurately worded, I am disturbed now as I was then, at the sheer animus and transparent contempt with which authorities on Hindu culture -- whether they be western academics or Indian intellectuals -- present their critiques of those with whom they disagree.</span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_69" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_254" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_256" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_70" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_71" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_249" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">In your article, for instance, you use the terms "silly" "gullible" given to "weasel expressions" in connection with Hindus -- without specifying whether you extend that to apply to ALL Hindus or just the few engaged in the textbook confrontation.</span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_71" id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_773" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_70" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_71" id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_713" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">You excoriate the "NRI community" and ask if they have</span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_73" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_101" style="background-color: white;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_103" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_74" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_115" style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold;"><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_76" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_96">" </span><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_77" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_235" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">in all their years in the West somehow managed not to learn that caste is the one thing that most Westerners know and </span><i class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_78" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_1_1372917332582_6249" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">hate</i><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_79" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_109" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> about Hinduism?"</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_114" style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_122" /></span></div>
<div id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_84" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_135" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">And you make the scathing observation that </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_86" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_87" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_140" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif;"><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_88" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_148" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">"Hindus have achieved more than just a defeat. They have established for a long time to come the impression that Hindus are untrustworthy, wily schemers with a reactionary and obscurantist agenda."</span></span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_90" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_172"><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_91" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_169" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_179" /></span></span></div>
<div id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_93" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_189" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">That, Sir, is quite a staggering catch-all dumpster to consign the entire community of Hindus to -- you do refer to "Hindus," over and over again, not just the members of the editorial team or those who sought a legal settlement. </span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_93" id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_195" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br /></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_775" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">I see the California textbook case as emblematic of a lot more things than the "defeat" of Hindu activism. There is a lot more at play in the theater of public perceptions than Hindu ineptness and naivete. I'll give you an instance from a recent program I overheard on a recent Sunday religious broadcast on public television.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_210" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">A young modern-looking Muslim woman environmentalist was talking about the inspiration for her work. She said her inspiration was the Prophet himself. "A lot of people don't know that Prophet Muhammed was the original tree-hugging environmentalist," I heard her say. How so, the interviewer asked. She said there was a story in the Koran about the time the Prophet hugged a tree and spoke to it as though it were a living entity. Her passion to convey this positive aspect of her faith was evident. I have no opinion on this matter since I have not read the passage in question -- but it is not unreasonable to assume that this might have struck some viewers as a slightly preposterous representation of the Prophet's priorities.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_779" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_219">Now, if she had been a young </span><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_214" style="font-style: italic;">Hindu</span><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_722"> woman offering a creative i</span>nterpretation of her scriptural tradition, one can almost guarantee she would have been the butt of much scornful public and private derision in academic circles. Which is why it seems to me that blaming or despising Hindus for the hateful mindsets of certain worthies at the Universities of Harvard and Chicago -- is somewhat like blaming African Americans for being black. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_225">I am taking the liberty of copying below an excerpt from my online comments on Outlook in response to the Witzel / Thapar article -- and following that, an oped I wrote at the time that was never accepted for publication. ( No surprises there).</span></span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_103" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_198" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_200" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_104" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_105" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_193" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">Please know that I hold you in great respect and esteem for your scholarship, your integrity, and your intensity. But I don't think I have ever read a piece by you quite like this one, in which the points of substance that you do make are embedded in such a crackling cumulus of anger and scorn. </span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_107" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_270" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_272" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_108" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_109" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_265" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">Please do me the honor of reading my views below, bearing in mind that I stand outside the fray of intellectual supremacy and scholarly absolutes. I speak merely as a parent. </span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_111" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_278" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_280" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_112" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_113" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_273" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">In terms of the actual impact of those textbooks however, I represent the perspective from Ground Zero. I have observed firsthand what passes for cultural education in public schools. "Defeat" is for those who choose ignorance. Parents like myself will always find a way to educate those who choose differently -- textbook or no textbook. </span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_115" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_215" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_221" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_116" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_117" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_218" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">With sincere regards, </span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_119" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_228" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;"><br id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_230" /></span></div>
<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_120" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_121" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_223" style="background-color: white; color: #00007f;">Chitra Raman</span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_127" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_296" style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold;">MY POSTED RESPONSE TO THE WITZEL/THAPAR <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?230381">ARTICLE ON OUTLOOK</a></span></div>
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<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_131" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_350" style="background-color: white;">February 2006</span></div>
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<div class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_134" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_39" style="font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_135" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_303" style="background-color: white;"><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_136" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_329" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The first question I had after reading this article was-- What exactly is meant by "Hindutva?" To me, the word suggests knowledge, consciousness and pride in what it means to be Hindu. As a parent, my hope is to convey that sentiment to my child. Is that evil?</span><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_137" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_138" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_139" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_326" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">On St. Patrick's Day at school my daughter is asked to wear green clothes, eat green apples, green doughnuts, read about the tradition, make artwork with that theme. Does this amount to inculcating " Irish ism ?" Or, in order to participate in performances onstage with her class choir, when she is made to sing selections from the Catholic Mass and many other works with an overtly religious motif, should I do a Paul Revere among my fellow Hindus warning of a hidden conversion agenda in schools? Let's shelve the paranoia, shall we?</span><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_140" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_141" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_142" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_322" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Professors Witzel, Thapar and their supporters have selectively picked on and repeatedly rehashed for ridicule just a few elements from many changes proposed by HEF and VF. Fine, if certain edits are not entirely acceptable as proposed, let there be further dialogue and investigation of mutually acceptable resolutions; let the theater of debate be opened to more experts with impeccable credentials. And let those who cry "politics" and "hindutva" at every excuse cooperate in keeping unilateralism out of education. </span><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_143" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #454545;" /><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_145" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_319" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">By harping on politics as being the driving agenda of HEF and VF, and expending much verbiage on "exposing" their "hindutva" affiliations, Professors Thapar and Witzel transparently reveal their own priorities to be political. If it were not so, their article would have focused more upon the specifics of those textbooks, and less on character assassination of the opposition.</span><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_146" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_147" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_148" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_315" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I think of the climate in the US after 9/11, when airwaves and print were overtaken by apologists for Islam, when spokespersons for that faith were given a fair opportunity to proclaim Islam a religion of peace, to interpret the Koran in the proper light. Despite all the seething in private, I don't remember anyone from Harvard or anywhere else jumping in with their own selective and subjective excerpts from the Koran.<span id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_332" style="font-weight: bold;"> It seems only we Hindus need external help to fathom our own faith and culture, and to tell us who we really are. </span></span><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_150" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><br class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_151" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" /><span class="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_152" id="yiv3494054283yui_3_7_2_31_1372917332582_311" style="color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This is not a video game, where a participant can walk off with a higher score and gloat about how many "hindutva" phantoms he slew. These are our kids, and this is our culture. We will not vanish at the flick of a switch. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>UNPUBLISHED COMMENTARY</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_507" style="text-align: justify;">February 23, 2006 </span><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_728" style="text-align: justify;"> </span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_514" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;">Tempest in a Textbook<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="background-color: white;">What exactly is the point of studying history? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:</span></div>
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<i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_540" style="background-color: white;">"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br />The current controversy engulfing <st1:state id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_731">California</st1:state>’s six-year review of its school textbooks is a classic study in history-induced hysterical blindness. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups had long been providing input under the <st1:state id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_555">California</st1:state> Department of Education (<st1:stockticker>CDE</st1:stockticker>)’s provision for public comment. In 2005, two Hindu groups participated for the first time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Procedurally, the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF) and the Vedic Foundation (VF) did nothing different from the other groups. But the sandstorm of debate over changes proposed by HEF and VF make some wonder if they were attempting something uniquely insidious. Why else would Harvard Professor Michael Witzel leap out of the super stratum of Sanskrit Studies to save the status quo for sixth-graders?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">My perspective on these dueling agendas comes from an awareness of ground realities. As the parent of a middle school student with autism, I know what it means for a child to be different from the mainstream; and how real and imagined differences can affect interactions with the peer group. I know how hard it can be to change a school culture rooted in ignorance – a culture that subtly or overtly designates certain children for condescension, ostracism, and neglect. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">People wrangling over this issue ought to drop to their knees and see eye to eye with a sixth-grade student. Childhood happens once in a lifetime. It should be a time for the formation of ideals, not the fomenting of ideology. Middle school is when children establish self-worth and find their unique place in the social tapestry. A child from a spiritual tradition intrinsically different from the mainstream is doubly vulnerable to attitudes that might leave her isolated, silenced and adrift. It is therefore essential for the course of study to reflect a thoughtful and non-judgmental approach.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A non-judgmental approach by <st1:stockticker>CDE</st1:stockticker> was very much on display in their calm acceptance of edits submitted by the Jewish, Christian and Muslim review panels. No outcries of “political motivation” or “whitewashing” impeded the finessing and hairsplitting of text supplied by those groups. No Harvard scholars were summoned to vet the universal acceptability of those edits.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In sharp contrast, a spokesperson for HEF and VF was obliged to defend the edits relating to Indian history and Hinduism -- for several hours behind closed doors -- before an arbitrarily appointed panel led by Professor Witzel. HEF and VF were subsequently pilloried for their apparent affiliation with “Hindutva” organizations. Some of their edits were derided and rejected in articles, letters and statements to the press by fellow Indians. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Given the diversity of the Indian Diaspora, differences with the edits were only to be expected. But the scornful, adversarial and defamatory manner in which they were expressed is unfortunate. It makes what should be a constructive dialogue toward enriching educational content into a mean-spirited offensive. In the process, participants often lose all sense of proportion about the fact that this is, ultimately, a conversation about the minds of children.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In a letter to <i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_803">India</i> <i>Abroad</i>, Vijay Prashad (<i>Letters</i>, <i>January 13</i>) sneered at the “banalities of stereotypical greatness” that he believed underlie the proposed changes and stated “Scholars are not in the business of marketing and public relations.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I wonder if Dr. Prashad watches television programs on PBS and the History Channel on the tireless quest for archaeological substantiation of Biblical narrative. I would like to know when he last sat in on a Social Studies class in middle school where the teacher poured reverent unction upon the endless glories of Greek Civilization. Why must Hindus be singled out as oddly deviant for wanting acknowledgment of the positive aspects of their cultural heritage? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One recalls George Orwell’s <i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_738">Animal Farm</i>: “All animals are equal…but some are more equal than others.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_329">I would urge Indian American parents and conspiracy theorists alike – to actually take the time to examine materials and curricula in American elementary and middle schools. I looked at a textbook on </span><st1:place id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_633">Asia</st1:place><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_332"> with a two-page photo spread of the city of “</span><st1:city>Bombay</st1:city><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_335">.” The picture shows an unpaved street with an autorikshaw emerging from a tangled nest of bicycles and pedestrians; shops are crammed together on either side, there is garbage on the streets, and a cow in the foreground. The following pages have not a single picture of urban development, nor any visual evidence of cultural, ethnic and artistic diversity. And we wonder why some Americans continue to ask stupid questions about </span><st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region><b id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_739">.</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">More recently, I sat in on a parent orientation by a 7<sup>th</sup>-grade social studies teacher greatly popular for his cache of slides and personal travelers tales from the many countries he has visited. This teacher showed slides from <st1:place id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_742">Europe</st1:place>, <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>, the <st1:place>Middle East</st1:place>, and <st1:place>Asia</st1:place>. When it came to <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>, he showed exactly three slides: <st1:place id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_643">Mount Everest</st1:place>, the Taj Mahal, and a fetid slum behind the Taj Mahal. His comments on <st1:country-region id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_373">India</st1:country-region> were limited to overpopulation, squalor and poverty. It was not so much his brevity, but his choice of slides that spoke volumes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is reasonable to demand that history not be “sanitized” or cosmetically “fixed” in a manner that is dishonest. On the other hand, what if supposedly “objective” teaching involved pouring young minds into the concrete molds of long-held stereotypes? What if negative aspects were selectively presented as the defining attributes of an ancient civilization to the exclusion of other significant information? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Where the Semitic faiths are involved, schools have no difficulty in separating social evil and religion. A conscious attempt is made to balance the negative with a instances of something redeeming. Narratives of slavery and segregation are tempered by accounts of courageous activists and social reformers, both Black and White. The “facts” of western history involve repetitive patterns of misappropriation, genocide, enslavement, and other irreversible tragedies visited upon native populations by European explorers. How much of that truth is presented to children? In fact, the image evoked by the word “pioneer” is one of heroism and self-denial. School texts do not connect certain dots to suggest that exploitation and subjugation of foreign nations for economic gain is the “Christian” way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In contrast, the caste system often is presented as a central and prescribed tenet of Hinduism, rather than a social injustice perpetrated by Hindus. While it may be dishonest to pretend that caste discrimination was solved by language in the Indian Constitution, it is not wrong for children to know that the Indian Constitution takes a stand against it. After all, American children do learn that the 13<sup>th</sup> and 14<sup>th</sup> amendments abolished slavery and gave blacks the right to vote. In reality, long after those noble intentions were committed to paper<b>,</b>African Americans continued to suffer psychological enslavement and abuse at the hands of whites. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One of the central limitations of the review process is that no new content may be added in the process of review. This means that even if the original material is shallow and simplistic to begin with, the best that reviewers can do is to change or omit -- not add. And so, rather than condemning the HEF and VF outright on the basis of selectively extracted edits, we might consider the possibility that their goal was not to<i>deny</i> certain realities, but to <i>achieve</i> <i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_403">parity of treatment</i> for Hinduism with texts on other faiths.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_483" style="font-size: 12pt;">While on the topic of parity, one of the edits that was criticized relates to the treatment of Hindu women in ancient times. We are reminded of irrefutable proof that women in ancient </span><st1:country-region id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_435">India</st1:country-region><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_427" style="font-size: 12pt;">were indeed inferior in status to men. The question is, why should this appear as a particular attribute of Hindu culture when it was – and continues to be -- universally true of almost all societies till date? What would account for the peculiar absence of any mention of the status of women in Islam?</span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_437" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_678" style="font-size: 12pt;">The fact is that every religious tradition has a template for the obedient and righteous woman. But anyone who contends that women were not </span><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_681" style="font-size: 12pt;">valued in ancient </span><st1:country-region id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_455"><st1:place id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_452"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_454" style="font-size: 12pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_445" style="font-size: 12pt;"> may as well admit to illiteracy. Ample evidence to the contrary exists for anyone able to read original texts. To cite just one example, the ancient work "Tripura Rahasya" attributed to the sage HaritAyanA concerns the worship of the Supreme Being as Goddess. It has as its centerpiece a brilliant dialogue between an ignorant man and his wise wife, who schools him in some of the most abstract concepts of philosophy.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_460" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_686" style="font-size: 12pt;">Finally, we come to the problem of the peripatetic “Aryans.” Did they or did they not invade </span><st1:country-region id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_479"><st1:place id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_476"><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_478" style="font-size: 12pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_689" style="font-size: 12pt;">? The question is not what you or I believe, but whether this matters to sixth-graders. Why not introduce them to opposing views on the subject while we await conclusive evidence and / or a truce among scholars? It hardly matters, since science has formally declared the perception of “race” to be a fiction. The </span><st1:stockticker><span style="font-size: 12pt;">DNA</span></st1:stockticker><span id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_467" style="font-size: 12pt;"> of individuals who look unmistakably African American may reveal up to 80 per cent European ancestry, while others who consider themselves “white” may, in the biological sense, be less than 90 percent European (<i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_694">Scientific American, December 2003</i>)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The late Martin Luther King Jr. remarked in an open letter to clergymen -- “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” (<i id="yui_3_7_2_30_1372943399816_698">Letter from Birmingham Jail, Apr. 16, 1963, “Why We Can’t Wait” </i>). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Fifty academicians filled with the utmost good will signed their support of Professor Witzel’s obsessive intrusion upon matters far removed from his realm; some later admitted they had not actually read the edits that they were supposed to be protesting. When all the finger pointing subsides, one fact will still stand: If our children lose, nobody wins. </span></div>
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Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-49855020196734511132010-03-15T06:03:00.001-07:002010-03-17T13:01:20.772-07:00CALLING HER BLUFF<div align="center"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Sx6fcOY38Kk/S54wkcYF45I/AAAAAAAAAps/PXJ4KbFDMJk/s1600-h/POKER+DOGS.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448846001815544722" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Sx6fcOY38Kk/S54wkcYF45I/AAAAAAAAAps/PXJ4KbFDMJk/s400/POKER+DOGS.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">From the</span> <span style="font-size:78%;"><em>Dogs Playing Poker </em>Series <em></em>by C.M. Coolidge, 1903<br /></span></div><br /><p></p><br /><p align="center">An appraisal of Wendy Doniger's</p><p align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">ALTERNATIVES TO HISTORY</span></strong></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>Everywhere I go I'm asked if the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. </em></strong></span></p><strong><em><span style="font-size:78%;color:#660000;"></span></em></strong><p align="right"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;color:#000000;"><strong><em>-- Mary Flannery O'Connor ( 1925-1964) American novelist, short-story writer and essayist</em></strong></span></p><p align="justify"></p><br /><br /><p align="justify">There is an old story involving French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It is said the artist once noticed a woman staring at one of his paintings with a particularly disdainful expression. The painting in question showed a woman with her coat partly off her shoulders; and a man standing behind looking fondly at her, holding the coat in both hands.</p><p align="justify">"How vulgar!" this visitor is said to have exclaimed.</p><p align="justify">The artist asked "Why is it vulgar, madame?"</p><p align="justify">The woman said it was quite obvious from the painting that the woman in it was a prostitute, since the well-dressed man was shown taking her coat off.</p><p align="justify">"What if I told you madame, that the man in the picture is the woman's husband; that he is putting her coat on, not taking it off; that his wife has just recovered from a long illness, and he is tenderly helping her get dressed so that he can take her out?"</p><p align="justify">And as the woman, now mute, looked at the painting again, Toulouse-Lautrec added:</p><p align="justify">"The only thing that is vulgar, madame, is your mind."</p><p align="justify">It is exactly such a mind that the celebrated Wendy Doniger applies to her observations in her latest work titled "The Hindus, An Alternative History." The book contributes little, if anything, to a proper understanding of Hindus or Hinduism. But it does contribute greatly to Hindus' understanding of the cultural biases and effortless bigotry of Doniger's class of "scholarship."</p><p align="justify">Doniger wears her much-vaunted double PhDs in Sanskrit and Indian studies like a <em>pince-nez,</em> turning her gaze to details circumscribed and informed by her prejudices. Her inquiring mind seeks out sources that corroborate her preferred paradigms. Her attention to detail ignores the forest and focuses on fungi. Her creativity prompts her to read between lines, metaphorically speaking, that do not exist.</p><p align="justify">What explains the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Professor's stature and pervasive influence in the field of Hinduism Studies? How can ordinary Hindus who feel that her book caricatures and misrepresents their history and faith, challenge someone with her credentials and hope to be taken seriously?</p><p align="justify">An ancient Sanskrit <em>subhaashitam</em> (teaching) gives us a hint. It is particularly apt in this context, given Doniger's preoccupation with animals in Hindu scriptures.</p><p align="justify"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong>Ushtraanam cha vivaaheshu geetham gaayanthi gardabhaah I</strong></span></em></p><p align="left"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong>Parasparam prashamsanthi "aho roopam!" "aho dhwanih!" II</strong></span></span></em></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong>At the wedding of camels, the donkeys perform songs.</strong></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong>Each praises the other: "What beauty!" "What melody!"</strong></span></span></p><br /><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;"></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">Camels and donkeys may well bask in mutual self-admiration. But this should not hold the rest of us back from seeing them as they are.</span><em><span style="color:#000000;"> </span></em></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><em></em></span></p><br /><p align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><em></em></span><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#660000;"><strong>********************************</strong></span></em></p><p align="left"><strong><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><em>Click </em></span><a href="http://chitraraman.voiceofdharma.org/book-reviews/wendy-doniger/review-of-the-hindus-an-alternative-history-chapter-10.html"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><em>here </em></span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><em>to read my review of Chapter 10 from "The Hindus..." </em></span></span></strong></p><p align="left"><strong><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><em>Also check out </em></span><a href="http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/articles/thaah/"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;color:#6600cc;"><em><span style="color:#330099;">Vishal Agarwal's</span> </em></span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><em><span style="color:#000000;">chapter-by-chapter analysis of the book</span> </em></span></strong><br /></p><br /><p align="justify"><br /><br /></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"></div>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-41028000119608965472007-10-07T10:35:00.000-07:002007-10-07T11:13:55.421-07:00See No Evil<div align="center"><a href="http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2312484470015852115abOpqh"><img alt="" src="http://inlinethumb41.webshots.com/19048/2312484470015852115S425x425Q85.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="color:#000066;">Writers Block is like Arctic Winter…Just when it seems one may never emerge from that long night, a light breaks through and starts the electricity flowing from frontal lobe to finger.<br /><br />The recent events in Myanmar did it for me. Or rather, it was India’s response to the events in Myanmar.<br /><br />When one looks retrospectively at state-sanctioned violence worldwide, one thing is strikingly evident: The word “humanity” is possibly the most superfluous in the English language -- besides being an elusive quality in any language.<br /><br />Because our “humanity” is typically reserved for those who look, behave and believe as we do.<br /><br />Upon the rest, we bestow the favor of tolerance. Inflict the curse of hatred. Or consign them to the wastebasket of indifference.<br /><br />The standards that classify a certain type of violence as “an act of terror” are equally subjective. You might think that pursuing and shooting unarmed monks in the back would qualify for that description. But if the perpetrators are members of the state military authority of Myanmar, you refer to them as a “repressive regime.”<br /><br />The recent 10,000-strong march of Buddhist monks, the state authorities’ temporary show of restraint, followed by their vicious and complete shutdown of dissent – might all have been no more than scrolling headlines to me. It could have been just another of those stories that is received with a twinge of sympathy -- that is easily erased by the memory of clothes to be rescued from the dryer, or the beep of a microwave.<br /><br />But I had insight into realities largely invisible to the western media and most lay Indians. And for that I can thank the book “From the Land of Green Ghosts; A Burmese Odyssey” by Pascal Khoo Thwe.<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#330033;"></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-8398409-0393560?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Land+of+Green+Ghosts"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-8398409-0393560?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Land+of+Green+Ghosts</span></a><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><br />Originally from the Padaung tribe, Thwe converted a chance meeting with a British academician in Mandalay into an opportunity to escape his fugitive existence as a rebel fighter in the forests of Myanmar. Reading about his incredible experiences and eventual transformation into a graduate of Cambridge was an equally transformative experience for me. </span></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br />I was awestruck by Thwe’s resilience and tenacity. And I realized that had this book never been written, Thwe would still have been Thwe -- but my idea of the Padaung people would never have progressed beyond a sort of generic species perspective. It would have remained limited to images of forest-dwelling tribals and women wearing tightly stacked rings to support their giraffe-like necks.<br /><br />I recently posted a news item on an e-group about Myanmar’s children abandoned by their parents in a Thai border town. Do you remember ever waking up as a child in a railway compartment or an unfamiliar home, and not finding your parents by your side? Do you remember ever feeling a fleeting cold clasp of inarticulate dread when your parents left you in the company of relatives or close friends for a length of time, almost like a premonition of abandonment? If you do, you will understand what is happening to these children:<br /><br /></span><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070930/lf_afp/myanmarthailandunrestchildrenpoverty_070930222200"><span style="color:#330033;">http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070930/lf_afp/myanmarthailandunrestchildrenpoverty_070930222200</span></a><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><br />In that same post, I said that India’s reluctance to speak out against Myanmar amounts to abject political cowardice and misguided opportunism. ( I remember when I wrote about the United States behaving “like a blindfolded rhinoceros” in Iraq, a friend wrote back with good-humored sarcasm “Hey, why don’t you tell us what you <em>really </em>think?” )<br /><br />In response to my post a friend on that forum referred me to an opinion piece by T.P. Sreenivasan, former Ambassador to the United Nations, ostensibly to present a point of view that is pragmatic rather than emotional.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/02tps.htm"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/02tps.htm</span></a><span style="color:#000066;"><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;"><br />The thing that struck me about this piece was that it reflects a worldview from behind the safe harbor of a desk. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">This is not personal – I discuss Sreenivasan’s views here as emblematic of a general mindset. A mindset that reflects bureaucratic fatalism, the vision of a future crafted and fates sealed by the ceremonial exchange of signed files, and very little acknowledgement of deeper realities beneath the rhetoric.<br /><br />For instance, he says:</span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"><em>"...Myanmar's history of the last 47 years or more makes it extremely unlikely that change will come to that hapless country through a popular uprising. The military is so well entrenched in Myanmar and the people are so patient that the change has to come through a process of reconciliation between them."</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;"><em><br /></div></em></span><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">Now, most people who are forced to function with a gun to their head find "patience" -- if they didn’t have it in the first place. The people of Myanmar are not “patient” -- they are in anguish! They cannot speak their minds freely to tourists. They have been betrayed and abandoned by an international community that ducks behind the umbrella of “realpolitik.” Furthermore, to say that change has to come through a "process of reconciliation" is meaningless. What is the incentive for the military to "reconcile" with utterly powerless people -- to voluntarily relinquish or even dilute power -- without being strong-armed in that direction by allies and observers alike?</span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br />Sreenivasan then says: </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><div align="left"><em>“Militarisation of the country and the absence of a civil society insulate the country against igniting ideas. The international community can, at best, provide the incentives and disincentives for change.”</em></div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left">Yes, but how is that “militarization” financed and abetted? Does anyone dare question China’s role in that process, or for that matter India’s judgment in entering into a Faustian deal to supply armaments to the military? The reason given is that the junta’s cooperation is required in “flushing out” ULFA and UNLF terrorists who launch attacks on Indian citizens from across the border in Myanmar. </div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left">I’m willing to be corrected on this, but I believe any sense of fellowship that the Indian administration might feel with the military rulers of Myanmar -- based on equating the ULFA terrorist with the tribal Karen or Padaung rebel -- is seriously misplaced. The roots, raison d’etre and ultimate requirements of Indian rebel organizations are quite different from that of the Burmese. The two administrations differ also in their counter-insurgency strategies. I hope I am not being too naïve when I say that Indian military is still, in my view, held more accountable to a code of conduct that targets terrorists and spares innocent villagers. As far as we know, Myanmar’s military does not burden itself with such niceties when carrying out their operations. Their methods of persuasion include </div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#330033;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;">1. Torture and rape:</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;"><br /></span></span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7029957.stm"><span style="color:#330033;">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7029957.stm</span></a></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#330033;">2. The use of land mines to maim, not kill</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;"></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;"></span></div><div align="left"><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/video/vs?id=RTGAM.20071005.wvmyanmar1005&ids=RTGAM.20071005.wvmyanmar1005,RTGAM.20071003.wvmyanmarchina1003"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/video/vs?id=RTGAM.20071005.wvmyanmar1005&ids=RTGAM.20071005.wvmyanmar1005,RTGAM.20071003.wvmyanmarchina1003</span></a><br /></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;">3. And shooting at peacefully protesting monks:</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;"></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="color:#330033;"></span></div><div align="left"><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071004.wmyanmarmonks1005/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071004.wmyanmarmonks1005"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071004.wmyanmarmonks1005/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071004.wmyanmarmonks1005</span></a></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#330033;"><br /></span>According to the following in-depth account of India’s wooing of Myanmar, General Than Shwe has asked for helicopters, helicopter gunships, heavy rockets, navigation equipment and global positioning system devices from the Indian government. The report states India is willing to supply the equipment, but concerned that Myanmar's security forces are not trained to use it. The greater worry should be the sheer scale of indiscriminate destruction that Myanmar’s security forces could inflict with such equipment.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;"></span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br /></span><a href="http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/2865.cfm#down"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/2865.cfm#down</span></a> </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><span style="color:#000066;"></span><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">Returning now to Sreenivasan’s piece, he suggests that the “absence of civil society” is the reason for the insular nature of Myanmar today. But the demise of that civil society was engineered in the first place by the present rulers of Myanmar -- along with a whole sordid interlinked web of vested interests that may not be visible to the lay observer.</span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br />He then says: </div><div align="left"><br /><em>“India, after supporting the democratic movement in the beginning, has begun to engage the regime for mutually beneficial ties. India's quest for security on the borders and for energy drives its Myanmar policy. Myanmar is a part of India's "Look East" policy.”</em></div><div align="left"><br />A more appropriate name for it would be India’s “Look East and See Nothing” policy.</div><div align="left"><br />Sreenivasan rightfully bristles at criticism of Indian policy by the United States: </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><div align="left"><em>“… US ambassador in Bangkok openly criticised External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee for India's Myanmar policy recently. But India has many American examples to show that national interests often take precedence over ideology. India does not have to prove its democratic credentials.”<br /></em></div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">Certainly, the United States is hardly in a position to criticize India for moral turpitude when America’s business – driven foreign policy remains resolutely deaf and blind to the nature and scale of human rights violations in China. </div><div align="left"><br />But let’s set aside the defensive squabbling about who’s the bigger hypocrite for a moment. If we want to talk about a policy that places <em>India’s national interests first,</em> then it is my contention that a miltarised Myanmar does absolutely nothing for India’s security. All it provides is yet another captive resource for China’s grand scheme of aggrandizement. Myanmar is bled of timber, gems and mineral resources for the sole enrichment of political and corporate Power Piranhas in China and the West …while India sits on the fence, ready to pick up any crumbs that might escape that feeding frenzy. </div><div align="left"><br />A democratic and open Myanmar would be a far better counterweight to China’s expansionism in the region. China already has used its ties with Myanmar to set up an electronic intelligence system at the Great Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal to monitor Indian naval activity in the Andaman Islands. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">Do I think the Indian government ought to abandon its policy of engagement with the Myanmar? Actually, no. I do see merit in the strategy of influence through mutual engagement. I am just concerned that in India’s case the outcome of cooperation appears to be all engagement and no influence. </div><div align="left"><br />India should not need to adopt an invertebrate posture with respect to what is happening within Myanmar in the name of cooperation and non-interference. There are rather more nuanced ways to communicate disapproval than another “Axis of Evil” speech. </div><div align="left"><br />Granted, India must tread gingerly because of its shared border with Myanmar. But consider this. </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><div align="left">The Statue of Liberty remains the beacon of choice for “the poor, the weary, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” of this world. But through the ages, the Indian subcontinent has been the final sanctuary of people who have few choices left. That has included Jews, Parsis, Bahais, Chinese, Tibetans, Bangladeshis, -- and now Burmese refugees.</div><div align="left"><br />From this perspective, India is directly affected by repressive regimes outside its borders and as such has every right to express an opinion on those regimes. The country cannot just drift about like a battered sponge in a sea of turmoil, taking in wave upon wave of brutalized and destitute refugees. The repercussions of that influx are weathered not by the politician or the bureaucrat with opinions on what’s expedient or what’s possible – but by the people of besieged border states and the desperate immigrants whom they are forced to host.</div><div align="left"><br />Sreenivasan advises: </div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>“ (India) has to work quietly behind the scenes to bring about change in Myanmar. No purpose will be served by discarding its gains of recent years in enhancing India's security by open condemnation.”<br /></div></em><div align="left">Realistically speaking, only China has the power to influence Myanmar. And China in turn can be persuaded to do that only if it stands to suffer economic consequences of its own. There is already some indication that China’s influence might have had some dampening effect on the military’s knee-jerk reprisals in Myanmar. The Chinese are concerned about their image abroad as they prepare to host the Olympics in Beijing. There must be some concern that the murmur of voices that advocate boycotting those Olympics might swell into a roar: </div><div align="left"><br /></span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001036_pf.htm"><span style="color:#330033;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001036_pf.htm</span></a> </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><span style="color:#000066;"></span><div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">What India can do is to apply some limits of decency and principle in bilateral trade with Myanmar and continue to support the forces working to restore democracy there. The seething rage of the populace beneath the surface is a very real factor in the long-term viability of developmental projects such as the proposed oil pipelines running through that region into northeastern India. India should not maneuver herself into becoming even more deeply invested in preserving stability in Myanmar by any means necessary. At least thus far India’s moral morasses have been confined to her borders. </span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br />Sreenivasan warns: </div><div align="left"><br /><em>“ Stray incidents of protest only result in futile bloodshed as long as they do not snowball into a mass movement. Long years of military rule have numbed the population into a sense of resignation.” </em></div><div align="left"><em><br /> </div></em><div align="left">Then again, perhaps it is the clinical indifference, academic detachment, and attempts to rationalize the indefensible by some external observers -- that help the junta in Myanmar to flourish with impunity. </div><div align="left"><br />If the populace has been “numbed into a sense of resignation” surely it is because of their being trapped in an endless tunnel of violence and repression. </div><div align="left"><br />What’s <strong><em>our excuse</em></strong> for numbness and resignation? </div><div align="left"><br />(To Be Continued)</span></span></div>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-38307994440632347942006-11-08T18:12:00.000-08:002007-09-12T16:58:14.688-07:00The Beauty of Clouds<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/1600/Arc%20De%20Triomphe.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/400/Arc%20De%20Triomphe.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>When people meet socially for the first time, the conversation inevitably turns to one’s kids. I found myself thinking the other day about how people react when I first tell them that my daughter has autism.<br /><br />Most people maintain as cautious and neutral an expression as possible. And now that autism is so horrifyingly common in the United States, many respond with “Oh I see, I know so-and-so whose child also has autism.”<br /><br />Some click their tongues and react with genuine sympathy -- “I’m so sorry.” </strong></div><br /><div><strong>When they say that, I sense that it’s not my daughter who has their sympathy. It is me they commiserate with, for being dealt the “blow” of a less- than-perfect child.<br /><br />“Don’t be,” I reassure them. “We’re both fine, really, we have a lot of fun together.” At which the expression relaxes a bit, even if it retains a shadow of wary disbelief.<br /><br /></strong></div><div><strong>And then there are those who display the most unseemly curiosity. If my daughter is present, they may stare at her as though she were an object. They might ask personal questions about her as though she were deaf or had no feelings. </strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>My favorite insensitive question is -- “Will she ever be normal?”<br /><br />I’ve wished I could reply in all seriousness “I don’t know. What about you, do you think you will ever be normal?”<br /><br /></strong></div><div><strong>Jokes apart, I manage for the most part to not get the occasional verbal missteps and insensitivity get to me. After all, I didn’t always know what I do now. I was just as clueless once about how to approach and engage with people who looked and behaved differently. </strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>I understand only too well the fear of saying something wrong, the impatience with annoying behavior, and the reflexive impulse of the mainstream to avoid “depressing realities.” These are the attitudes that contribute to the ostracism of individuals with disabilities. I’ve seen it from the other side.<br /><br />I know one fellow autism parent who is so annoyed by the constant harping on “disability” that she coined the term “diffability” to emphasize “different ability!”</strong></div><div><strong><br /></strong></div><div><strong>For that matter, autism parents are not beyond being insensitive -- like when someone compares his “high-functioning” kid to your “lower-functioning” kid. It may be that it's not done out of malice or smugness, just offered as a statement of fact or to make a point. But it can irk if the parent making the point overstates the obvious.<br /><br />I prefer to dispense with subjective and hierarchical categories within categories. If someone asks me if my daughter is “high-functioning” I simply say, I don’t know. Ask me who she is -- not who she is relative to some other kid.<br /><br /></div></strong><div><strong>Here’s something else I’ve noticed. When I mention Divya’s musical talent, people who believe themselves to be well-informed say something like “That’s great! But aren’t most kids with autism supposed to be that way? You know, good at music?”</strong></div><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong><br />Now, you can’t fault lay persons for harboring stereotypes, for believing that musical talent is just a side dish served up with the main course of Autism. What irritates me more is the lack of appropriate response from professionals within the system, because it is their evaluations that set educational priorities for kids in “Special” education.<br /><br />It’s like this. A child in a regular classroom who starts singing or playing piano at an early age is called “gifted.” </strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>A child with autism showing the same potential is classified by professional jargonists as having a “splinter skill.” Which is as good as a euphemism for “aberration.”<br /><br />With that phrase comes a mindset that guarantees benign neglect. Instead of seizing upon an island of talent as something precious to be nurtured and supported, the system reduces it to a freaky quirk.<br /><br />In Divya’s case, indulgent stories about her spontaneous and willing bursts of song were often bandied about by elementary-school staff. But this did not make it any easier on me to make them implement <em>simple</em> accommodations to enable her successful participation in choir.<br /><br /><br /></strong><strong><em><span style="color:#990000;">“Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know so it goes on flying anyway.”</span></em></strong></div><strong><em><br /><div><span style="color:#990000;">-- Mary Kay Ash<br /></span></em><br /><br />I’ve often compared the Special Education system – at least, the one I have experienced – to a belt conveyor moving backward while you are trying to run forward. If you’re walking in the same place, you’re doing well. If your child manages to make progress under the system, she -- and the handful of diligent teachers working with her – are nothing short of heroic. </div><br /><div>But as I recently discovered, time and experience do nothing for teachers beyond reach.<br /><br />At a recent Choir Parents meeting at Divya's high school, I ran into my daughter’s elementary school music teacher. She looked surprised to see me there. I told her Divya’s final year in middle school had been her best, musically speaking. Divya had taken part in the qualifying Regional and subsequent State Chorale competitions with the rest of her class; and taken on a grueling three-day field trip to Chicago where she performed at the Heritage Music Festival. Her group won a Gold ranking.<br /><br />At this, the former elementary school music teacher shook her head slowly from side to side and said “Noooo… <em>way !”</em><br /><br /><em>If my child had been stuck with you as her teacher, </em>I wanted to say, <em>there would indeed have been "no way</em>." </div><div> </div><div></div><div>Instead, I managed to smile and say “She really has come a long way.”<br /><br /><br />“Old age ain’t no place for sissies,” said Bette Davis. The good thing is if you get there via parenthood, you’re already a bona fide Gladiator. </div><br /><div></div><div>I think I've hit upon the one absolutely essential advantage that parents must arm themselves with to survive the wild and weird experiences of this arena. Is it Strength, you ask? Resilience? Detachment?<br /><br />Sure, but there is one Uber-quality that feeds all of the above. I'll illustrate. </div><div><br /><br />Shortly after Divya was diagnosed, I visited an older Indian lady from whom I had learned Carnatic (South Indian Classical) vocal music for a while. I knew her to be a kind and magnanimous person. I told her the reason I hadn’t resumed lessons with her.<br /><br />“We found out a few weeks ago that my daughter is autistic.”<br /><br />Her face broke into the widest grin. She nodded her head up and down triumphantly -- and then she threw her head back and broke into an enthusiastic chuckle. </div><br /><div></div><div>"She has autism," I repeated, thinking she hadn't heard.</div><br /><div></div><div>“Goodtt, goodtt, goodtt” she said, rubbing her hands together.<br /><br />As you may well imagine, I froze at this apparently macabre display of glee.<br /><br />Her smile faded when she saw my expression. ”What is wrong?”<br /><br />“Well, I’m still trying to figure out how to cope with this tragedy,” I said in as even a voice as I could muster. Those were early days, and I was still pretty raw inside.<br /><br />She looked utterly puzzled. “Why it is a tragedy?” she replied. “You are also very artistic. Artism is goodtt, No?”<br /><br /></div><div>I experienced the most insanely hysterical upwelling of laughter, which I stifled with great effort – this poor lady wouldn’t have understood. She became utterly still and contrite after I explained.</div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>But I left her home in a far better mood than I had been in when I arrived. She had reminded me of something I had temporarily lost sight of, which is this:<br /></div><div><br /><span style="color:#333399;">Humor is the only broad-spectrum antidote to life. </span><br /><br />Being able to see the funny side of things closes the gap between a problem and its solution. Or at least, makes the journey more pleasant. It helps you hover above reality long enough so you can perceive it with your head as well as your heart.<br /><br />Laughter has been a huge ingredient in all my interactions with my daughter – including some of my most significant teaching moments. I found quite early that she had a great feel for the absurd. So I would try to achieve Chaplinesque moments whenever I could to make the learning process fun.<br /><br />When she was around age two and still pre-verbal, I made up a game in which I would demonstrate a behavior typical of an animal -- which she then had to point to in a book or on a flash card.<br /><br />To clue her to point to “Giant Panda” I would sit cross-legged on the floor chewing on something twig-like and then slowly topple over and crash sideways on the carpet with my legs still crossed. She would chuckle herself into hiccups and bound over to point to the right picture. She eventually learned to verbalize “PandaBear.”<br /><br />And no, I'm not going to demonstrate it for anyone else.<br /><br />When Divya began using single words and small phrases that she had memorized, we entered a new realm of the funnies because of her literal-minded approach to language. I remember how the spelling of new words had to make sense to her. For instance, cousin Ramani’s name became “Roman Knee.”<br /><br />When she was around six I took her to Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania to introduce her to my Guru Swami Dayananda . We sat in the waiting area for a while where she heard everyone referring to him as Swami Ji . When our turn came, she obligingly curled up in a Namaskaram. He blessed her and rewarded her with a kind smile and an apple.</div><br /><div></div><div>Later that evening, when I asked “Whom did we see this morning?” she wrote on her magna-doodle “Swami Cheese.”<br /><br /></div><div>Her bilingual adventures in language perplexed her elementary school teachers on more than one occasion. I got a call one day to pick her up early from school. “I don’t think she is feeling well,” her teacher said. </div><br /><div></div><div>When I got there, she was standing by her teacher with an innocent look. “What’s wrong?” I asked, because she looked fine to me.<br /><br />“Has she had some sort of a problem with her stomach?” her teacher asked.<br /><br />I was puzzled. “No, why?”<br /><br />“Well, all day today she’s been saying Enema There, Enema There !” said this teacher looking at me as if I were trying to hide something.<br /><br />I glanced at the beginning of a wicked smile on Divya’s face and burst out laughing. She giggled along. Her teacher was quite nonplussed.<br /><br />You see, the little rascal had been saying “Ennamma idhu ” – a Tamil phrase that conveys an edge of exasperation meaning “What are you <em>doing,</em> sweetie.” Something I used with her quite often.<br /><br />Well, when she tried it out in class with the right inflection, she found her teacher stopped academic work, looked at her with concern, asked a lot of questions she couldn’t understand, and then dispatched her to rest on the bean bag in the classroom. After a while the teacher would ask “Are you feeling okay?” Divya would say Yes, and come back to work. And then the pattern would repeat when she felt like taking a break. This evidently happened a few times before the teacher called me.<br /><br />Divya obviously didn’t understand <em>why </em>what she said was producing that effect – but she understood she could use it to get herself some extra veg-out time!<br /><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#990000;">“People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them”</span></em></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#990000;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="color:#990000;">- Epictetus<br /></span></em><br /></div><div><br />It’s not always possible to find life hilarious. I’m not invincible. Some people make me feel as though I were walking on sand with lead weights strapped to my shoes.<br /><br />But as long as Divya finds me new things to smile about, I’ll be okay.<br /><br /></div><div>I was driving her back from a bike lesson one afternoon, preoccupied with my thoughts and the traffic. We stopped at a light. There is a U-Haul center at that street corner (U-Haul is a move-it-yourself company for people changing homes or shifting out of state). It displays lettering on the side of the building advertising wagons, trailers and hitches.<br /><br />Divya said “Amma…” and pointed to the building with a grin.<br /><br />“What?” I said impatiently, not registering anything. Then I saw it. The letter “H” had fallen off. The side of the building read<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />GET YOUR WAGONS TRAILERS AND ITCHES HERE </span></strong></div>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-56115159837907653072006-10-31T13:25:00.000-08:002006-11-01T20:52:37.824-08:00The Heart of Giving<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/1600/Unfurled.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/400/Unfurled.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.</span></strong></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 –<br /><br /></span></strong><a href="http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9501/articles/givingtree.html"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9501/articles/givingtree.html</span></strong></a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />For those who have not read the book and cannot easily find it, here is a synopsis from Wikipedia:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#990000;"><em>The story is a short </em></span></span></strong><a title="Moral" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral"><strong><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"><em>moral</em></span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"><em> 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.</em></span></strong></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><div><br /><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#990000;"><strong>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.</strong></span></em></div><br /><div><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><strong><span style="color:#990000;">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.</span></strong></span></em></div><br /><div><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#990000;"><em><strong>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.</strong></em></span></div><span style="font-size:0;"></span><br /><div><br /><strong>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.<br /><br />I wrote my own little commentary after I read through some of those Symposium papers. Here it is:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;color:#330033;">THE GIVING TREE: SOME THOUGHTS</span></strong></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;color:#330033;">The beauty of this book is that it can be read at different levels of meaning.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. </span></strong></div><strong><span style="color:#330033;"><div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;">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.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The tree is the constant fountainhead of Being, and is therefore essentially unchangeable even if its physical nature is hacked at or denuded.<br /><br />The boy is the metamorphosing wave that dances on the skin of the Deep.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />But that is precisely what a child who reads this story will likely think of doing.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />This simple story teaches, among other things, that giving is reward enough -- provided it is done with the right attitude.<br /></span></span><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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<br /><br /></div></strong></span><a href="http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1600/proj1564a.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1600/proj1564a.html</strong></span></a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />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 </span></strong><a href="http://www.serenelight.org/"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">www.serenelight.org</span></strong></a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />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 </span></strong><a href="http://www.indiainclassrooms.org/"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">http://www.indiainclassrooms.org/</span></strong></a><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />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.<br /><br />But I think I know how to get next year off to a good start. Come spring, I’m going to plant a tree.<br /></div></span></strong>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-4757606707295846542006-10-26T17:17:00.000-07:002006-10-26T18:18:10.385-07:00The International Enquirer<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/1600/56047.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/6277/4431/400/56047.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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). </strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>I also read comments on other forums pointing out that only a "small" percentage of all the temples in India have such motifs.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Dr. Kealey’s question "How can a religion be so pornographic?" is an embarrassingly illiterate question undeserving of a literate answer.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="color:#993300;"><strong>“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.”<br /></strong></span><br /><em>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<br /></em><br /><strong><span style="color:#330000;">“ 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. “<br /></span></strong><br /><em>Mulk Raj Anand, “Kama Kala” 1963, Nagel Publishers, Geneva, Switzerland<br /></em><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">I would not be surprised if the very same Kealey-an questions resurfaced 25, 50, or 100 years from now.<br /><br />Do narrowly judgmental perspectives spring from a puritanical Judaeo-Christian mindset, as many -- including the luminaries quoted above -- concluded?<br /><br />In my view, that’s only part of it.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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:<br /></span></span></strong><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus"><span style="font-family:arial;color:#3333ff;"><strong>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus</strong></span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /></strong></span><br /><a href="http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp"><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp</span></strong></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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?<br /><br />Are ancient Greeks described by conservative scholars as misogynistic sexual perverts?<br /><br />Hardly. Ancient Greece is termed the “crucible” of civilization, and the “fountainhead” of philosophy!<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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.</strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Sellers has an unforgettable line in the movie, when a furious Englishman shouts “<em>Who do you think you are?</em>” inches away from his face.<br /><br />And Sellers’s character spontaneously replies “Mr. So-and-So, we Indians don’t have to <em>think</em> about who we are, we <em>know</em> who we are.”<br /><br />Brilliant ... If only it were true!<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>But then again, conviction brings its own dangers. Here is an observation by the great Greek intellectual, Epictetus, which <em>all </em>scholars ought to heed:<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="color:#006600;"><strong><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”</span><br /></div></em></strong></span>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-68104783806726793242006-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:002009-03-06T04:54:53.281-08:00The Obtuse Angle<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:verdana;" ><strong>In response to my last posting, a reader mentioned an English author who wrote about India without ever having been there. </strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:verdana;" ><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:verdana;" ><strong>I was reminded of a letter I wrote years ago in response a New York Times book review. Here it is for your amusement.<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><em><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">February 3, 2001<br /><br />Dear Editor,<br /><br />Peggy Payne’s novel “Sister India” evidently has captured the fascination of your critics. I notice it has been reviewed twice by this newspaper.<br /><br />Whatever be the merits of the novel, reviewers Mason and Bernstein missed one laughable flaw that would be obvious to any Indian.<br /><br />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.<br /></span></strong><br /></em><br /><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">By now you are probably wondering how Dr. Kealey responded to my email. Take a look!<br /></span><br /></strong><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);"><strong>October 18, 2006<br /><br />Dear Chitra Raman,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />There's an article in that, actually, namely why do Hindus not discuss issues but simply attack ad hominen?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?</strong></span></span><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);"><strong>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.<br /><br />yrs<br /><br />Terence Kealey<br />_______________________________</strong></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>I responded to him the same day, as follows.<br /><br /><br />Dear Dr. Kealey,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Having said that, here is my response to your note :<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“There's an article in that, actually, namely why do Hindus not discuss issues but simply attack ad hominen?”<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>But you</strong> <em><strong>are</strong> </em><strong>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.<br /><br />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. <br /></strong></span><strong><br /></strong> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“ 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?”<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>I will defer to your evident intimate knowledge of Soho phone booths.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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."<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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.<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“ 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. “<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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.<br /><br />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.<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;" ><strong>As a follow-up to that email, I sent Dr. Kealey the following links.<br /><br />Devadasis of India<br /></strong></span><br /><a href="http://www.samarthbharat.com/devadasis.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">http://www.samarthbharat.com/devadasis.htm</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>WIKIPEDIA on Devadasis<br /></strong></span><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devadasi" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devadasi</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>from which I highlighted these excepts:<br /></strong></span><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Originally, devadasis were celibate all their life… Some </span></strong><a title="Scholar" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">scholars</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> 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 </span></strong><a title="Puranas" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puranas" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Puranas</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> containing reference to it have been written during this period…<br /><br />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 </span></strong><a title="Priest" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">priests</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> and their number often reached high proportions. For example, there were 400 devadasis attached to the temples at </span></strong><a title="Tanjore" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanjore" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Tanjore</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> and </span></strong><a title="Travancore" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travancore" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Travancore</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">.<br /><br />Local kings often invited temple dancers to dance in their courts, the occurrence of which created a new category of dancers, </span></strong><a title="Rajadasi" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rajadasi&action=edit" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">rajadasis</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">, 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.<br /><br />The rise and fall in the status of devadasis can be seen to be running parallel to the rise and fall of </span></strong><a title="Hinduism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Hindu</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> 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 </span></strong><a title="Poverty" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty" target="_blank"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">poverty</span></strong></a><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><strong>, misery, and, in some cases, prostitution.<br /><br />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…<br /><br />…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…<br /><br />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.<br /></strong><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>The following day, I heard back from Vice-Chancellor Kealey:<br /></strong></span>________________________________________<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><strong>October 19, 2006<br /><br />Thanks for this. If the devadasis were initially celibate, and then there was no stigma for their children ....<br /><br />And if their flourishing at the millennium coincided with the elaboration of the erotic statues ....<br /><br />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.<br /><br />yrs<br /><br />Terence<br /><br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Dr. Kealey,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“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. “<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Ah yes, the Eternal Sunshine of Fortress Smug. A favorite destination for some western academicians, and for some a permanent vacation spot.<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“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. “<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Actually what's rather more frightening, considering your job title, is that you expect <em>others</em> to put in the time and diligence to pursue <em>your </em>education.<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);font-family:times new roman;" ><strong>“Fortunately, I haven't received an e mail like that.”<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />Chitra Raman</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>_______________________</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-1161533281817511132006-10-22T08:43:00.000-07:002006-10-22T18:42:55.979-07:00A-Kealey's A-Heel<span style="color:#000066;"><strong>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. </strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>And my daughter would then walk purposefully to the corner of the room, pull out a chair -- and give herself a time-out!<br /><br />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. </strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />“Why does she always have to be <em>Bad?”</em> one of the little girls asked me.<br /><br />I was thinking for a good way to explain when the other child turned to her friend. “I know why,” she stated.<br /><br />“You do?” I asked.<br /><br />“Yup. It’s BECAUSE SHE’S FROM INDIA,” she said triumphantly.<br /><br />I burst out laughing. “No, that’s not it.”<br /><br />She wasn’t laughing. “You mean she’s not from India?”<br /><br />“Yes she is.”<br /><br />“See, I told ya,” she said turning to her friend.<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. </strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>Particularly when the adult in question is Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, U.K.<br /><br />Consider the article by VC Terence Kealey in the Times Online<br /><br />(“Why is a Hindu Temple Like a Soho Phone Booth? Must I Draw You a Picture?” available at :<br /></strong></span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html" target="_blank"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff6600;">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html</span></em></strong></a><span style="color:#000066;"><strong> )<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />My first email to him appears below. Our subsequent correspondence will appear in my next entry.<br /><br />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.<br /></strong></span><br />______________________________________________<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#990000;">October 17, 2006<br /><br />Dr. Kealey,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />sincerely,<br /><br />Chitra Raman<br /><br /></span>________________________________________________________________<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">COMMENTARY</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">Here's a quote by Twain to get him started:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt."</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">1. How can a religion be so pornographic?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">2. How would anthropologists explain pornographic temples?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">Besides, anger in response to offensive stupidity is too often misconstrued as defensiveness, or conservatism, or fundamentalism.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">I would answer Dr. Kealey's second question with one of my own: "How would chimpanzees explain the roof of the Sistine Chapel?"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">And if he cannot see how the two questions relate, well -- "Quod Erat Demonstrandum."</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;color:#330000;">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.</span>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-1161367807259325082006-10-20T10:18:00.000-07:002006-10-22T18:42:55.916-07:00Prejudice most Pernicious<span style="font-family:times new roman;">In 1927, an American author named Katherine Mayo published a book titled “Mother India.”<br /><br />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 <em>all the prevalent social evils of the time, including child marriage and lack of proper hygiene – to Hinduism!<br /></em><br />Mrinalini Sinha’s new book “Specters of Mother India – the Global Restructuring of an Empire”<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047206715X/yahoo-books-20/ref=nosim–"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047206715X/yahoo-books-20/ref=nosim–</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><br />reminds us that Mayo summed up India as a nation with </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">“<em>an oversexed Hindu culture, manifest in practices such as early marriage, masturbation and homosexuality</em>.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Mayo’s grotesque accounts of alleged “Hindu” sexual practices kept her book on the bestseller lists for almost three decades after it was published.<br /><br />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..<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The essay, titled “<em>Why is a Hindu Temple Like a Soho Phone Booth? Must I Draw You a Picture?”</em> is by Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, U.K.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">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.<br /><br />Access the full article here :<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2362622,00.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">Pithy and Pertinent Sayings:</span></strong><br /><span style="color:#660000;">Education … has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.<br /></span><span style="color:#660000;"><em>G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) British historian<br /></em><br />The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.<br /><em>George Saville, Marquis of Hallifax (1633-1695) English statesman and essayist.</em><br /></span><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />See: </span><a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/SearchRes.asp?term=Minority+groups&x=38&y=13"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/SearchRes.asp?term=Minority+groups&x=38&y=13</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><span style="color:#660000;"><strong>This means is that at last count there were around 443,250 Hindus in the United Kingdom.<br /></strong></span><br /><br />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. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">But neither increased visibility nor prestige empowers Indians to reverse the macular degeneration of certain academics with respect to Hinduism.<br /><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <em>can </em>override tribal affiliation – if one allows it to. It wouldn't hurt more Indians to keep that in mind.</div></span>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36305029.post-1161288292223761552006-10-19T12:50:00.000-07:002006-10-22T18:42:55.849-07:00Greeting<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2690/4055/1600/Pollock%20Perspective.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2690/4055/400/Pollock%20Perspective.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;">I know what you are thinking. </span></strong><strong><span style="color:#333333;"><em>Who needs another blog?<br /></em><br />Not you. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;">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. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;">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.<br /><br />This is my place to do just that. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#333333;">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.<br /><br />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.</span></strong>Chitrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04298805997996531230noreply@blogger.com10