‘The Hindus’ – 1
‘The Hindus’ by Wendy Doniger tells ‘an alternative history’ of the Hindus from c.50,000,000 BCE to 1500 BCE to the present. Considering this claim, 700 pages are rather modest. Doniger clarifies that she doesn’t believe that any one person can tell the story of Hinduism. Perhaps this is also one reason (amongst others) why she…
Spirit sans Spirits
I found myself sitting shoulders tense and raised, forefingers plugging my ears as hard as I possibly could. Damn – I’d forgotten my earplugs, even though I knew I was going to ‘The India Fair’. On stage the singer, a young man, yelled into the mike – ‘volume, volume’ and the volume rose even higher.…
Jai ‘Gobar Rashtra’!
IYD is not the same as DIY. It is a name given by the BJP, and sometimes used to keep the memory of P alive. A strong leader (otherwise called ‘the watchman’) knows how to do this. The important thing about YD is that you have the most benefit from it if you DY yourself.…
‘Speakability’ – Dutch style
A few seconds after I have been overtaken by a lady wearing impressive goggles, a memory of a couple of years ago drifts through my head. I had stopped in front of a jet of water gushing out of the swimming pool wall to get a back and neck massage as I sometimes do at…
I found my India in Amsterdam
It’s as if those feet that I bought in a shop in Amsterdam walked me into the museum quite spontaneously. I bought them because somewhere in the various layers of my brain, I knew they had some spiritual significance. I placed them on my altar at home, which consists of a motley collection of holy…