Sri Lanka, Satyam, PM…..Escapism

I think my blog is definitely escapist in nature. It never seems to dwell on the harsher things in life. I have very rarely commented on political affairs or business. At this point of time, the Indian media is focused on our PM’s heart condition, Pricewater’s auditors and the Sri Lankan Army’s military victories in the North, but reading my blog one would think it all sweetness and light air in the world. Reading my blog, you would never guess I was a journalist. And then again I never write about any of my personal troubles ; not that I have many 🙂 .

My friends say blogging is all about sharing things with people and accuse me of being close-mouthed about what’s happening in my life. Some of my friends on the blogroll are quite comfortable sharing how “horrid that b**** in office is..” and “How they wish they could beat up that m****f*****.

That way I guess I am still old-fashioned – I share only what I am comfortable with sharing. The blog is not my sound-off and neither do I want to become some kind of agony aunt.

I wonder at my fellow-bloggers. If they keep on bitching about the people in their office, will it not lower their chances of employment elsewhere? And also can they not sued by the company, since people know which company they are working for even if they don’t mention it by name? And again what if their boss happened to come across their blog and read all the horrible things they had to say about him?

And if you are going to write about your friend’s marriage or her engagement…for all you know she might not be comfortable with you sharing that news with the entire world. There was this blogger, who posted huge pictures of her boyfriend on her blog….a few months later when she broke off her engagement with him, she still had people congratulating her on her engagement on the blog. Unnecessary and embarrassing explanations had to follow with each comment. Or maybe I’m wronging the person, maybe she was quite comfortable with the world knowing everything about what happened to her on the personal front. But this level of openness somehow makes me uneasy – in India with everyone being so traditional and hypocritical – it is tough to be really open about our personal affairs and expect people to respect our decisions.

There also those who give the world wide web a minute-by-minute account of their social activities. If you want to rave about the sushi made in the city’s hottest eatery, no one is stopping you. In fact people will find your review both enjoyable and useful. Or if you donated something to a charity; feel good about yourself, blog about it. But Friday night bingeing, pubs and drunken driving should be definite No, Nos. For one – your public image will go for a toss and secondly – your chances of employability will definitely go down. And again reading about how someone puked is not everyone’s cup of tea and might actually bring down your blog readership. This last line makes me sound saintly and snooty – its not like I am part of the temperance movement, but I do wish that people would give a little more thought to what they write about.

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Sangh Parivar spews hate on feminists, atheists

Since, I’m both of the above, I was curious to click on this link on google, while checking out Vasanthi Sankaranarayan’s translation of Retelling of the Ramayana.

Apparently, someone had written something on Sita and the Sangh Parivar had to retaliate.

The Jaina and Buddhist hypocrisy is picked up by the selective scholars, researchers, bloggers etc.,
under the guise of feminism, women lib etc., throwing venom on “Sita”. Really, it is not known why she has been targeted for more than 2500 years, or 3500 years according to different estimates.

I thought feminists were influenced by Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft and the likes, but apparently we are influenced by Jains and Buddhists. The same site also states quite definitely that the Ramayana belongs to Treta Yuga and is dated as far back as 880,000 years in the past. Now how did Rama’s wife Sita get herself suddenly transported to 500 or 1,500 BC?

That such importance given to her, however shows her established status of chastity, ideal womanhood and model wife. It is unfortunate that only “Sita” is targeted – Why? Nowadays, certain women are coming out as “feminists”, but exhibiting perplexing characteristics, dispositions and expressions.

Well, patriarchy loves the three words – chastity, ideal womanhood and model wife and feminism has a lot of problem with the suppression, control and suspicion that ensures that women remain chaste, ideal and model wives. And I wonder what strange perplexing characteristics did the feminists he knew exhibit? Did they grow four heads and eight hands and attain feminine divinity?

They have also accused historian Romilla Thapar of falling for this Ramayana-bashing syndrome.

Recently, Paula Richman(editor)’s “Many Ramayanas” has been discussed in some forums, just to tarnish the image of Ramayana. Whenever Ramayana becomes popular, anti-Ramaya campaign would be triggered to counter it. It has to be pointed out that a woman-historian of stature – Romila Thapar has not been exception to this syndrome. This time, it was Karunamnidhi who initiated such activation through his famous questions of “Who is Rama? In which Engineering college he studied? And so on! Romila came out this time also, but only support Karunanidhi ideologically burying all her historical knowledge and expertise

Now if she had the xerox copy of Rama’s engineering college degree or his birth certificate, she wouldn’t have had her academic credentials questioned. And I know its hard to abuse someone coherently when ur angry, but the least they could have done was getting Karunanidhi’s name right.

But the Sangh Parivar does get some things absolutely right. The snide remarks about how our politicians have many binamies to enjoy their aggregated wealth hit the right chord with me. They seem to have taken pretty good pot-shots at the DMK, though they refer to it as the DK (must be a hangover from the last history class they attended in school).

The DK has tried its best, but it failed, because, their own leaders have only “exhibited the character” of “Ravana”. They have / had more than one wife one many wives with or without concubines. So not only Sita, Surpanaka, Mandodhari and other Ramayana or other women had / have to be afraid of them. And ironically, none of the wives or women of Black Parivar want their husbands or would-be’s to be “Ravanas”.

The article goes on to talk about how immoral feminists must feel inferior when thinking about someone as pure as Sita

Psychologically, their inferiority complex works opposite with superiority complex. They have only one agenda – attack, abuse or even blaspheme Ramayana, you get attention of all easily. But, they may or may not realize its seriousness. It is just like calling one’s own mother a prostitute (Though I am very sorry to use such expression, as otherwise, people understand only such language in some cases)

As to why feminists are so bad. They say, its because of

a) Love failure at school, college or neighbourhood levels

b) Pre-marital experiences from touching to sex levels affecting them psychologically after marriage or during intercourse with present husband

Note the word present. Its supposed to mean feminists will naturally have many husbands and they – the family moralists, are talking about the plight of the current one

c) Divorce, second marriage with children with indifference of the second husband

If the husband was indifferent, how did they get the kids in the first place? Our guru of Indian traditions and morality explains…

d) Divorce, second marriage without children, but husband living

e)Inter-caste marriage, clash of thinking, culture, etc

This is really disgusting. What do they mean? That all people are not equal? That some people have blue blood, others have red and yellow-coloured blood in their veins? How snobbish, castiest and disgusting!

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