Hygiene, Quarantine, Braahman, Untouchablity, Women, Traditions

We had just seen a dance practice session at a secluded residential ashram-like dance school, and Bob had tried my patience by constantly asking questions in either loud whispers or worse. Since we were sitting just about five feet away from the dancers it was rude to say the least.


I am not sure if he is making a point - the very first time I met him, I had remarked about a woman rudely instructing me to not make a noise when I was arranging my bags so they wouldn't fall (and make far more clatter) during a western classical music concert at a venue that was quite colonial in atmosphere, but then I had done that rearranging and the sight ruffling of plastic during the break, and that woman had assumed as many do that wearing a Indian clothes amounts to being uncivil or at least unaware of codes of western behaviour. I had not protested to her, but subsequently there was not one moment of quiet - one of her own sort had brought small children to the concert and there had been constant conversation and some crying.


If it were not India such behaviour would be severely frowned upon, and they would not be allowed to perhaps enter the concert venue. But the authorities in that place were colonial in mentality and so did not protest someone bringing small children and no one had told them to go out when the last hour or so was totally disturbed by the noise of children. And in India we do not treat children as unwanted nuisance at concerts or theatre or cinema or weddings - any happy occasion in fact, so none of us thought it was anything but natural.


Bob, however, had heard my relating the story and laughing about it when I told someone, and had pompously remonstrated about how one should behave at a concert. I had been more miffed - those who introduced us must have informed him about our common background and so I had not protested - oh, I know the rules, I have attended so many concerts at Harvard and so many at Symphony Hall, and so forth. It had been clear it was colonial mindset at work - telling the natives (of India - just a thought, do they think of themselves as "natives" when we visit Europe as tourists or as higher level working visitors or even reside there as emigrants?) how to behave at the level of their (by which they usually mean higher) code.


So that conversation had been left unfinished and this time at the dance session he was being as rude and noisy as possible with not a minute left where he was not commenting or asking us to explain, and I was uncertain if he was doing it to bring us to how this behaviour is bad or if he was being his natural self and did not think an Indian dance session was important enough to override the desire of a westerner to talk incessantly. At any rate I had managed by either ignoring and not looking or at most giving a nod once in about fifteen minutes or going "Hmm" or a short gesture and so on.


But perhaps he was determined to insult, provoke, whatever, and I had simply not understood it yet. For when subsequently we sat to lunch, two of us with him and his neighbour - she being quiet, civil, understanding far more than speaking throughout our acquaintance - he went for an unforeseen attack. We were proceeding to eat and he asked - do any Braahmans take jobs cleaning toilets at IBM or would they be forbidden by their religion?


Fortunately that question was as stupid as it can get, and easy to answer in five hundred different ways even without being rude. I asked him how often he had cleaned toilets for anyone, other than possibly changing his son's diapers. He was honest - he had never changed his son's diapers.


I was a little surprised, since he lives in U.S. and is of European ancestry, as is his wife. It is usually much publicised how they "help" their wives and so on (which by definition amounts to saying that these are women's jobs, which is not so subtly keeping women yoked to the caste that does all this work) and he had never - never? - diapered his son?


I asked how he expected anyone to do it for anyone else if he could not even bring himself to do it for his one and only son, and how did he think anyone else would feel differently about such work.


It is not that women love to do it for anyone, including children - but if women don't do it for their own or any children obviously no one might; and someone has to do it for infants, so women do it. That children are part of their own bodies before birth makes a connection that might make the pull stronger and the work easier to comprehend, but that is not to say it is what anyone aspires to, much less a male priest. And women are not without caste, so a Braahman woman doing it does not have her lose caste. For that matter one might have to do it for a relative who is sick, too; and whether a man takes care of a patient or a woman does, it does not amount to loss of caste.


(Obviously what one could ask and I did not, since the answer is obvious, is if any priests of any other religion do clean toilets as just another worker in a general role, other than monks sharing work at the monastery they live in; I doubt they change diapers for orphans however much orphanages need various services, and I doubt that such work is done by higher level appointees such as cardinals or even bishops, even if to set an example, very often or publicly.)


Of course, I went on to say, today the job with toilets being western style and equipment being different might be taken by someone who does need it economically and done for such period of time until he finds another more pleasant job. But there would be no need to publicise the fact, (unless one wished to make political mileage and take advantage of that -) and no danger of his being shunned by his family or community, either, for this, since the two factors - economic need as well as the cleaner nature of work today - are understood.


That discussion ended there that day. But it is hard to get over the fact that he would choose to introduce the topic in such an unpleasant way - talking about cleaning toilets when sitting for lunch - and with such a stupid question, something so vindictive and yet so easy to answer. Which was more important - the vindictive nature of the question, and asking it at such an inappropriate time, or was he only stupid on the whole? It is difficult to say.


Several people had in past of course asked about caste and the one time someone specifically brought up the question of untouchability it was a French visitor in Pondicherry who had been sent by someone we knew specifically to talk to me about such matter. At that time we were visited by another friend of long - we had been friends since almost childhood - with family and the two children had listened to the conversation, and I don't know how much she - the visitor - had comprehended but it was the children that had benefited, or so I hope - I had talked to her but it was just as much directed at them. (They had been eager to participate and to be good kids, and so had offered her the snacks bought for them, expecting she would demur or ask them to share; later they were much surprised and dismayed she had finished the whole plate and remarked on it, and I had cautioned them against repeating that without consulting me - I had had no intention of offering food, a drink of hot coffee was what I had offered and could have added cold water or cold drink. It was the classic gap between western and Indian sensibilities.) And really that too was only the nth time for the topic being discussed, having had more than a dozen occasions in U.S. while living there.


I had had occasion to think about it explicitly even though we were not brought up with such traditions and had never asked what caste anyone was and never think of it even now, and it is not possible to know just by looking so it was not a part of our bringing up or awareness. The reason I had had to think of it was an incident that seemed casual but led to clearing much in way of perception. It had happened not too long before the visit mentioned above.


While getting into a cycle rickshaw - when you are without capital there is little other way of transport sometimes - after shopping one night I had too many bags and I had lost control of one containing tomatoes. they had not only fallen to the ground and rolled out of the bag, they had rolled a bit away into a side of the road. I was going to let them go, but before I could say anything various men working around had rushed to collect them for me and handed them over.


It would have been extremely rude to refuse, although the men did not look too clean; so I had thanked them genuinely for their courtesy (and meant it too), while thinking "I can throw them away later, at home, when no one would be hurt by doing that" and come home. But when at home I thought about it, it became clear that it was a matter of having seen it, what if that had happened before I purchased them?


Ok, so I would learn and wash them well as usual and get on with it - since I not only did not know what they went through before, but also I did and do eat out, and there is no question of asking what caste is the cook or the waiter when one eats out. So really very few have kept any caste today and most people are fine with it. They manage to be good and clean both in spite of modern life and our culture or tradition evolves to adapt and better, ever.


But it goes much further than that. One can wash tomatoes, but not even most food, and certainly not money if it is paper - that passes through all hands, and if you do touch money you don't know who else has, and have to assume everyone has done so, even if you don't see it. It is not possible to always take fresh bank notes and give them and take no change back, so there - there goes untouchability. It is gone, finished, quite some time ago.


I related all that, and whether the French visitor comprehended or not, I am glad the children were there, listening, all ears. Later recently I told the same tomato story to some other people and they agreed whole heartedly.


Bob on the other hand questioned the small wayside food stalls not using chemicals for cleaning tables - I informed him that most old traditional cleaning involved cleaning with earth for hands, with hot ashes for dishes and so forth. And that chemicals are not necessarily ultimately better. But I wonder if he understood that his concern and recoil from the stall was not far from his treating them as untouchable.


Untouchability has everything to do with hygiene, quarantine, and so forth. When we do it - did it - you see it as strange and when you do it you do not see it the same way, that difference has more to do with colonial mentality than anything else. When you do not drink ordinary water in tropics that we do, when you question sanitation at a wayside stall, that is no different than if we do so. When you stick to five star luxury and bottled coke and expect chemicals to spray-clean your table at a small wayside stall, it is you practicing a little untouchability and also environmental hazards for a land that is not yours.


It always comes as a surprise to most westerners that Braahmans are not only poor in general (- majority, as in well over seventy percent, are poor -); but are, at the very most, middle class by Indian standards, with hardly ten percent above that some forty years ago; and that latter - but in all likelihood not former - has only changed due to factors of today's world with emigration, IT, and science education leading to careers in fields other than traditional.


Not only that, traditional requirement was precisely that Braahmans cannot ask much less demand money for services of priestly or teaching, and there was little else they were allowed to do while being Braahmans. One could choose to be out of it by doing other work of course. That would be for good, though. The possibility of Braahman doing any other work and actually earning began with the social reforms initiated within the Braahman community by some people and some went on to do well, paving way for others.


But one question no one asks or points at is - why is it assumed there was two categories, high and low, with a barrier and nothing else in between? That is as far from true as to assume that people - humans - are either black or white. In case of the black and white few described as black are black and no one is white, humans can be pale but white, no, not living and healthy ones anyway. Truth is there is ever colour of skin from dark to light, with some cream or gold and some rose thrown in, and there is a whole continuous spectrum. That is true for occupations as well. And as for castes there is every possible level in between since it is really classified occupations of traditional sort, that is ancestral. And castes are not races, much less nations (- that is a ridiculous idea propagated for the sole purpose of dividing India by those who would kill, and be scavengers for the carcass of, the nation that is India -) but are an integral part of the whole society, loosely divided in four major groups along lines of ancient occupations.


People of other religions - other than European - would proudly say, we do not restrict anyone from being a preacher; but I have never understood why anyone would wish to be a Braahman with the traditional restrictions and the inevitable poverty and worry; and in the modern world who cares?


What is really important is - do you allow everyone to be rich, to be king? We did, in ancient Indian tradition. Both of those took qualification, different ones appropriate to the aspired goal, as does being a keeper of knowledge. One was required to have the qualification irrespective of genealogy to be accepted and respected in position of any of above, or of any working in any crafts.


A bad carpenter or a lousy builder can destroy your house, and a bad cook might just kill you. Few see what is disastrous with a bad teacher, or a million good teachers made unable by social restrictions to teach mathematics or physics or even language properly. Until it is a bit late, and a generation at least suffers from the consequences of such policies. As U.S. is now, with the result of policies of sixties to eighties resulting in lack of respect for academic achievements and for teachers then, and consequent lack of academic proficiencies today.


It is money and power that most people hanker after, and in fact most societies do revere those over others. So it is a bit hypocrisy, a bit fraudulous to go "in our religion anyone can be priest" because when most people look around what they would rather be is rich and powerful - and it is not clear those paths are open; while it is those who cannot do much towards the more common goals that are taken to be good enough for priesthood, and few are of true vocation, capable of knowledge, but if knowledge is not understood it is seen as freedom to not work. And that leads to resentment of a Braahman giving that privilege to his son.


But no one asks why money and power is inherited - it is taken as natural that a father leaves money to son(s) and the no one ever questions even the consequent poverty or lack of power of bereaved or otherwise wife and daughters, much less why the old man did not leave it to all orphans or all youth. It is his earning, it is reasoned, and his will to dispose it, and questions don't arise unless he does in fact disfranchise his sons; then they declare him crazy,senile, and go to court. So there is a very strong tradition of line of inheritance of money and power through sons and it is well understood, assumed, any other mode questioned and fought for.

So it seems that questions arise about Braahman tradition because either it is assumed that anyone could be just as accomplished if only given the knowledge for free, and there is nothing to priesthood (although there is violent opposition to women priests in other religions, and we assume that women might know a lot or all of what is there to know - and in fact women do teach young, and often were able to correct young students even in old days) - but what is understood generally by everyone is what is then assumed to pass from father to son. Money, power, are understood and commonly fought for all world over if an outsider aspires.


Fact is even in our oldest tradition it is far from assumed that brain is not required for most other work - but teaching anyone is at the discretion of the teacher, with no enforcing authority either way, as far as we are concerned. This applies to all teaching and apprenticeship, so that for example a carpenter could teach a son of a weaver - but this being a village system and sons inheriting father's business, as well as helping him from the son's childhood to the father's old age, it did not make much sense for a carpenter to train a weaver's son, and so the system of son inheriting father's business naturally took the direction of occupations being fixed for generations, which was not prescribed necessarily. No one protests against such examples though - it is only Braahman teaching his own sort (not just his own sons) that is questioned since it is assumed it is a matter of very little requirement of knowledge or skill and license to free livelihood - which it is very far from being true.


And for all that any individual was always free to teach anyone else, which was inherent in the old ashram system of school. Even now this is how music is taught, in the traditional way, at least it was until a half century or so ago, with the aspiring music student living with the family of the maestro and doing chores and learning at all hours until he is declared finished in the mastro's opinion as an accomplished musician, and allowed to perform solo. If someone teaching another displeased others they were as free to express their opinion as the person who was free to carry on nevertheless, but this at the most resulted in breaking social contacts if that.


Even an excommunication which is the worst that could happen would only keep one out of one caste, not out of the whole society. And long before Europe touched Indian soil there were Braahmans who did break tradition in more than one way, and opened floodgates of knowledge to society s well as consorting with others in matter of food - which is as far as it gets without changing one's own caste, while risking it.


And that is only about knowledge - as far as being spiritual goes there is no restriction on who gets to renounce the worldly life and be a monk, you can and be on your own whoever you are. You can do it too while not leaving the world behind and many, many did too.


But it is not as if western traditions are of uncontrolled access to knowledge, quite to the contrary; the whole inquisition horror was about control of knowledge and keeping it from people. Renaissance happened because Arabs and Jews and Greeks and so forth had gone on to preserve knowledge with copied and conserved manuscripts, which were sought out and burned in hundreds of thousands by inquisition in more than one place, but were not lost totally, and were in fact recovered.


If inheritance of knowledge is to be questioned why not first strike down inheritance of money, business, power of all sorts? Because most people do understand the latter, is why! Imagine demanding a share of the crown of any royal today in the world - even today - or propaganda against any wealthy person or people for not giving it all away for free.


Knowledge in Braahman tradition is seen to be but really is not free meal, it is hard work of a less understood sort - it is not about copying manuscripts and memorising alone, that is the least of it, though those are hard work too - and responsibility, with little reward to expect in life, except worry about where to find way to support to children. the one right and duty combined about giving knowledge is to choose the right one as recipient - and is that not true even in modern world with universities?


Do people get into Harvard just for asking? Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley, Stanford, ... any of them?


The question is not if our traditional knowledge is comparable - the question is if anyone teaching privately (or conducting priestly duties) does not have the same rights and privileges, of choosing whom one teaches (or serves in any capacity) and if so why has there been a persecution of Braahman tradition to the exclusion of any other? Was it only, or chiefly, colonial occupation by various powers for a millenium, using a false weapon to strike at the head of the nation?


As for untouchability, which is what we are hit with most often - we never thought to ask, how do you conduct waste disposal? Today a lot of things have changed where there is plumbing, waste disposal does not generally need human agency, and bathing is easier. When there was no plumbing what did Europe do, in towns? Empty the slop bucket straight out of the window onto the road below, or in the basement and leave it there, are a few of the answers!


In fact even churches were separate for common people and for gentry - a fact not publicised often. It is obvious if one considers how difficult it was for common people to keep clean, when cold made it all but impossible to bathe or wash clothes often. But those considerations are of hygiene, you would say. What do you think untouchability is?


When U.S., Australia and other such nations do not allow food from other countries including India, it is called rules, unquestioned, and understood it is about contamination (- although it is about official profit makers just as much, since the same objects are available from same sources for higher prices in the same countries -), and not opposed, much less attacked.


When U.K. does not allow various live objects or such within the country, it is quarantine, necessary for national health.


When one visits a sick person there are rules for health, either yours or the patients' or both. Breath or touch might conduct disease, and so they are forbidden for the duration. And it is well known and publicised that when westerners visit India they do not drink our water, even - is that not untouchability? Or is it only good sense, for hygiene? Where do you draw the line, is it about whether we do it, or you do the exact same?


Due to the prejudices (needed to protect your own false claim to superiority) west has never really tried to see with open eyes, question it without having made up mind first, and so on. If they had it would be clear that untouchability is about hygiene concerns in a tropical, pre-industrial, pre-plumbing society.


And it was not restricted to one caste versus another, which of course ought to be better understood - you cannot expect someone working with dead animals to make leather-work objects, for example, in old days, to be clean and bathed, or punish them for being unclean either; but castes whose work did not involve unclean work were expected to keep clean, bathed, wearing fresh washed cotton - white for men, almost always - and this was since early morning. Being unwashed was to lose standing - belief in or preference of one deity or another was a personal matter of level of comprehension.


Untouchability was not restricted to certain castes either, not even outside Braahman families. Since it was a matter of hygiene there were several level of temporary untouchability, and those are followed by many even though caste untouchability might have vanished. Which it has to when there is paper money - no one can refuse to touch money or to boil it for sake of rules and so there cannot be any more question of untouchable castes.


But the other, within a home or within Braahman community sort of untouchability is what makes it even more clear what it is about. For instance rules exist about touching someone performing worship, even if you have bathed and are in fact Braahman or even the priest's own son, if you are not officiating. Rules exist about what Braahman can touch within one's own home before bath and after.

Rules exist about all sorts of things, and especially about women.


Women of your own family were untouchable at certain times - obviously including certain period around childbirth and during menstruation, and other such restrictions exist involving married men or women touching some things before bathing any day. It is about hygiene and it benefits the temporarily untouchable women often - since there is very little work one is allowed to do one rests of necessity, with much needed relief. And if no other woman is present to do it, men of the family simply have to perform the normally women's duties, including cooking, and fetching water if needed as it used to be, washing clothes (not of the women) and more. Needless to say not touching women those days gave more freedom and relief to those objects of untouchability - they could not be hit for example.


My grandmother, one who brought us up until I was ten, and one more year for the little ones, was married at eight - rather late for those days - but she was educated, not merely in reading and writing which was more common even traditionally (it was and still is for families to decide on many matters, and that is why very often many do go far ahead of ambient norms) but even more.


Our grandfather, who died when my mother was less than a year old, was quite strict in traditional rules and was moreover much older, in his forties at the wedding, and quite a terror, having been an unusually different achiever. He went far from home to make his fortune at a job and returned with money to buy an orchard, and probably had to deal with cleansing for having been abroad, since who knows what unclean practices and so forth exists? He ran a household of grown up sons, their wives and children, from his first marriage; my grandmother was a mother in law as soon as she married, to young women elder to her in years; but having seniority had to conduct herself accordingly and was responsible for the household. And she carried it all admirably too. Feeding and looking after the huge household including servants at home and at the orchard was only part of it.


He disapproved of women, especially his wife, reading - since it would take her away from some housework she could do instead. (This view is far from uncommon even today when it is a must even socially to educate a daughter and have a wife who earns.) Since work is never really over in home in non industrial society, and can always be found even in modern ones, this makes it difficult for women to find time for themselves, for relaxing, or intellectual growth or whatever. My grandmother however was of sharp intelligence, and found a chink in the whole system - the chink was in fact an integral part of the old system! Today the system is not followed, and so women have no respite in most places from housework, any day, any time.


She would read, freely and openly, non stop, when she was temporarily untouchable - and there was precious little he could do other than shout, standing outside her room at those times! She ignored him, secure in the knowledge he couldn't possibly enter the room much less touch her or take away whatever it was she read. She was one of the most well read people I knew, and not the only exception to women of her sort, there were many. As for him, he was not a base, vindictive sort, so she knew he would not remember it later and beat her after three or four days, when she was no longer untouchable.


In another story involving a household with the head of the family demanding rules be complied with strictly, there was one rule that had to be bent a little - that involving washing everything that entered the house before it entered the house, and the head of the family often roared about the rule not being complied with. So one day the women decided to do exactly as he demanded, and applied the rule to groceries, including sugar, salt, and spices. Needless to say he - finally - understood and did not give them a hard time any more.


Yet, for all that, women did not and do not require a priest for every occasion, although one might be asked if the household so wished, whether every day conducting worship in the little temple in the household, or small and private or even big social ceremonies of religious nature involving welcoming a bride, inviting another woman or women for some special occasions of festive nature, celebrations of pregnancy, childbirth, naming the child, and so forth. Some occasions have more than one part, half being conducted by women and others by one or more priests. Men do not have a monopoly on our tradition even of spiritual or religious functional nature, even Braahman men. Some are rights of women.








--
JG

Gods of Others, Egypt, and Oxford

This conversation was one amongst many such in various sites on the net. What is often characteristic is the all too willingness of a certain brand of people of one religion - any branch thereof, of which there are at least a couple of dozen, belying clains of the unity - to be ever willing to offend those of other faiths or religions. In this they are only parallel to those they oppose, the atheists, whether of leftist leaning or otherwise.

Often these people fail to see that their attempts towards inflicting injuries or humiliations to faiths of others is not returned in kind not due to a weakness of those of other faiths, but due to a greater perception - atheists have no qualms inflicting similar on them and these people have a great deal of indignation fighting against them, but without success on either side. That lack of success is due to most atheists being brought up in the same religion and being disenchanted and hence atheist but unwilling to deal a death blow.

One wonders, if ever the Chinese forgot their ancient culture and were willing to offend in kind with an equal and opposite blow, how will these people take it? Will they merely complain of blasphemy or will their faith never recover from the deadly blow? Or will they finally comprehend that civility is required?
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LGBT Historical Fiction
Justine Saracen (moi) writes 'thriller' historical fiction in a variety of settings and periods, but all of them have gay or lesbian protagonists. The gay themes are secondary to the main plots which mostly address religion. In a nutshell, The 100th Generation is about the return of the Egyptian gods (polytheism anyone?); its sequel Vulture's Kiss is about the first crusade, (accept Jesus or die!) and Sistine Heresy is built around Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with creepy hints of the Italian Inquisition. Coming out in February is Mephisto Aria, about opera, but partially set in Stalingrad and the Eastern Front in WWII. Not much god-bothering there, more an obsession with the devil. since it's really a Faust story. All four are 'fast reads', the kind of books you settle in with when you've got a cold or get on a long airplane flight.
Elaine S
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Dr. J. G.

"In a nutshell, The 100th Generation is about the return of the Egyptian gods" - Elaine S or Justine Saracen, is this a notion that existed or something you thought of? Just wondering.

Return of Gods is a curious notion, Gods are not supposed to go away (from a nation or land, definitely not from the earth, and from the universe not at all) if not worshipped, as far as I know - that is, as far as any reading of mine goes.
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Elaine S
Dear Dr. J.G.
Very good question. And one that,in fact, is a theme in the novel. Specifically, the question of what is a god -- a creator or a created entity? Can gods go into hiding, or be temporarily impotent? (Where, for example, was Jahwe lurking before Abraham's' discovery of him? Or Allah, before the Angel spoke to Mohammed?)
Is there more than one hereafter? (I suppose that is another way of asking, is there more than one 'absolute truth'?) And if so, do we sustain them or do they sustain us? And on a personal note, would you prefer to dwell forever in one that includes a hell, or one that pretty much duplicates the world you already live in, except with animal-headed gods?) Obviously a story that plays with those ideas is not a religious tract, but a fantasy, but in this case, one that sticks pretty close to authentic Egyptian theology. My partner is an Oxford educated Egyptologist.
Perhaps you would enjoy reading it.
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Dr. J. G.

About the first paragraph, I think the word impotence ought to be changed - it denotes an animal level of existence and a male at that, neither appropriate for the level we are talking about. Gods by definition (even if there is a lack of perception) are above all that.

The questions above are a beginning of a questing consciousness (unless it is all just a play to drive to a specific predetermined goal? hope not - ) and if one is lucky might lead to a higher perception, beginning the level where Gods are - and Gods do not need to always care about humans or material world and what happens down here.

Reality is not a one point up there and a huge world down here, up is a far more vast existence of many many levels, many worlds, and if you have a concept of an ultimate Divine above it all, that is far beyond in existence. Everything else is a manifestation and in a rigid mindset you might take the first higher (or worse, not even higher but just a level other than material - when gravity does not guide high and low are not automatic to determine) perception for the ultimate, a danger that besets one without purity of intention and being.

If you deny existence of any higher being that is a choice one is allowed to make, but if you postulate or conceive existence of higher beings then "we sustain them" is a bad joke.

As for "animal headed gods" - that sounds like a strike at another culture, one that is now gone or another that is far away from you. Every culture is vulnerable to such strikes and thrusts and material power is not a defence, nor is numbers of adherents.

I am reminded of the "Restaurant At The End Of The Universe" series where at a dinner someone informs another that "the mice won't like it" and when the person told thus is unable to comprehend why it matters, he is informed that mice we see on earth are little representations of the actual powerful beings that rule the universe while humans are their laboratory experiment objects.

This is not to say that I personally believe this to be the ultimate reality, but another example, this time of reality, is that recent scientific research has discovered how much some animals do perceive, care, feel and are able to think and remember. An arrogant pose of superiority to all other species has led to the disaster looming before earth, while a more real perception of the planet's need of biodiversity and importance of all other species for the purpose is being understood by science and denied by only right wing profit oriented igs.

And humanity has not reached the end of evolution, for all that.

Neither Greece nor Egypt have come to terms with the loss of their heritage due to marauding outsiders, from what one reads - "Elgin marbles" are Greek heritage they keep demanding return of pretty much as Egypt is all too aware of the valuable historic antiques taken away.
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Notice the "Oxford educated Egyptologist" pointedly refered to - obviously a higher level Egyptologist might be from Egypt, although not necessarily living there, and Oxford rating higher in this is a perception biased at best.

In a final twist, the very name Oxford clearly states the original purpose of the place, it was where the river Thames could be and was forded by oxen. Yet today the name stands without change for supposedly the most prestigious university of recent centuries. So much for the derisive "animal headed Gods" thrust just above the reference to Oxford qualified Egyptologist!

Opium, Tobacco, Guns, Wars, ..... Have Mercy!

Just beginning to read Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.

One small surprise at the very outset as one begins to read this book is that this is not about the recent Afghanistan, but about India over a century ago, when opium trade was beginning and escalated by British and China was forced to accept the trade from European (and US) powers during the famous Opium wars. India, post independence, made a conscious decision not to use opium trade which could have benefited the then poor nation weighed under with debts of the legacy of the British rule, and forego the profits of the opium trade however high, since it was a substance mostly misused to get people addicted and thereafter not good for health.

It took most part of the remaining century, however, to get tobacco industry (mostly centred in US) to be contained in any way at all, and that too mostly in US and Europe - while in the rest of the world tobacco smoking is promoted aggressively nevertheless. In Thailand for example police were used to arrest anyone protesting against the tobacco promotion being held outside schools and colleges by US corporations or local subsidiaries thereof, handing over free cigarettes to teenagers, from what one read within last couple of decades at the most - so even as court battles were being fought in US and Europe was banning smoking in most places, minors in other parts of the world being inculcated into the ill practice with aggressive use of law enforcing agencies was used to make sure the profits at expense of world health would continue.

Even Bible has something about sins coming home to roost, doesn't it! Only, very unfortunately such roosting is not as accurate as it ought to be and instead of those that practice such ill practices being affected by their own sins coming home to roost, it is other innocents of their own society being affected by what is misnamed party drugs even as innocents of all ages across the world are being bombed so the weapon producers ought to not suffer losses post cold war.

Now post 2001 some parts of the unhealthy trade have not only resurfaced in countries that deal more in arms and uses thereof than in health of their own people or their needs of food, education, and a good life even at the most basic level, the trade is escalated at cost of all other farming and of course the health of those that are paying hefty amounts across the world to use the substance in a highly altered form.

Addictive substances for killing weapons trade is not new, it was exposed during the Iran - contra scandal and trials, and some rightwing publications in US published the details (during mid to late eighties) of military airplanes being used to bring such substance back in what would be otherwise empty planes returning from a run to central America to supply the favoured with weapons.

But now the scale is escalated beyond recognition and uses too, and the tales of women not remembering a day or two of rapes or men deprived of their organs are covered up under the (what ought to be confusing logically but is very well understood) name of party drugs, falsifying both the words that make up that name.

Hence the surprise at the outset about this book so recently being up for Booker prize being not about Afghanistan today but about the British empire of yore - one tends to overlook the roots of a problem in the concerns of today, of being tangled in the vines and branches we are attempting to free health of the world from.

Heaven have mercy on people of the earth under yoke of all these profit needs.

Choice and Celebration of Life

The murder of yet another doctor in US who performed medical terminations of pregnancies under medically advisable and within legally valid circumstances, sparked a huge furor on the internet with heated arguments. One side went on with emphasizing the law that the doctor worked within, as well as explaining the various circumstances that made it necessary. Risk to the life of mother, the various reasons which might render a fetus unviable, and so on. It was mostly uselesss in terms of making any difference to those who couldn't care less what happens to a woman.

The other, anti abortion and mostly misogynist side, not only completely ignored the very existence of a woman but often had more and quite horrible things to say - why doesn't she kill herself (and this is a pro life argument), rapes are inevitable, rapes are biochemical and hence scientific (this person went on major abusive offensive claiming to be a scientist, but did not stop to reflect on the fact that a biochemical disease might all too easily remedied while he thought it was inevitable, so it reflected his culture really; if it is biochemical get them vaccinated, drug to counter the effect, an antiviagra so to speak, but no, he thought and said rapes were only natural, and said he was being scientific), .... unimaginably horrible agenda of annihilation of women, of love or joy, of life itself, of humanity and of civilisation, of all progress since the days when women used to die as a routine in childbirth. They have the temerity to name it pro life and the other, the side that never loses sight of basic human rights for all, lets them have the false label. The anti abortionists really are pro death.


After a number of posts denying that the church or the faith has anything to do with this, a post goes on the offensive in the belief it will terrify the general public into giving up their liberty agenda and flock to the church in hope of being not condemned, as the rest of the humanity (non church going ones) are bound to be according to the church. But the post has the effect of cancelling all denials of the right wing anti abortionists regarding the murderer being associated with them.


While on this discussion I was unaware of the further developments, and soon after closing this came to know about the other recent murders by another right wing nut - they are this time busy calling him left wing rather than denying he was supported by rigth wing organisations or that they were associated with him - and the now exposed fact of the ws groups proliferation across US with weapons et al. I had posted about it on some intuition unawares, just on the what made sense looking at the anti abortion posts frenzy, and was horrified at the reality, am dismayed at the mindlessness disease spreading across the much loved country, the first nation.


What follows is some of the pertinent posts, although there are more, but it is difficult to give all.
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"So you deny original sin? How can you say an aborted human is saved without having faith? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God. If they had no chane to hear the Word of God, and receive faith, they will go to hell. Original sin dictates that. " C**y.



C**y just happened to justify the lumping of all church goers with this murder, by giving the dogma that justifies it, and nullified the protests of those that would like to keep faith without being lumped with the terrorist killing.

Really, stupid people on your side do more harm than intelligent enemies.
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The terrorost right wingers need not have pulled the trigger if he were not within law, a hundred or even one complaint to the law with evidence or proof or witness would have taken him out of circuit with reputation gone and a jail sentence and license revoked.

That he had to be murdered by the misogynist anit abortion terrorists is a strong proof that he was not doing anything illegl or unethical.

Post murder, it is only a propaganda tool to go on insisting he was doing un approvable things, purpose being to shut up the clamour for justice.

In any case, the law will take its course and unless someone does not believe he won't be given up for mob lynching (which is a right wing tool too) to the prochoice people (yes I can just see the people who are in reality prolife, the label being stolen by the opposite side, stoning the murderer!) there is really no reason to go on trying to convince people he was wrong so the murder was no big deal.

Except this - the right wing plans to have the murderer be released with minimum punishment as a lone nut and this requires a propaganda, so later the killer will be a hero of the right wing, and the women will die in pregnancy as the right wing wants them to all along.

This explains the strange behaviour of those posting to the effect that the doctor was doing illegal stuff, and that the killer was a lone nut, and there is no terrorism. They do not wish to be caught, have their cells dismantled, their persona and personnel and weapons caches identified.

It is war against US society, liberty, rights. Recognising it as such is necessary so it can be dealt with.
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The anti abortionist arguments on this page are entirely selfish, arrogant and ignorant. They all assume it is a picnic and thoughtless affair, while they give no thought to possibility that the doctors know about medical facts, about risk to the mother's life, about the viability of the fetus, if the child will ever be able to take care for oneself for doing anything at all, .. no, no thought at all. If the mother goes into a coma, paralysis, the child is handicapped, they couldn't care less. None of them have ever seen such realities of life, and most of them have never diapered a baby even a normal one. Not one of them have faced risk of death to give birth, or have carried a baby due to rape. And they couldn't care less about those that are in that situation. To call themselves "prolife" is not only hypocritical, it is downright false flattery.

If ever a male of the human species had his life endangered by a fetus, or even inconvenienced by a baby, the whole ethic of institutional religions would be very different.

It is easy and cheap to discount lives, risks, pains and dangers to lives of others, when you can never experience even the normal dangers they - women - go through to be a parent, much less the far more riusky or dangerous - or worse circumstances.

When all handicapped children are cared for by male priests and preachers with responsibility for life, with no community help for the purpose, and when they also take care of rape victims as long as needed and the women who are in coma or paralysis due to unviable pregnancies, they might have an iota of comprehension. Legal responsibility and physical with no woman helper.

the abortions are not forced on anyone, minority or otherwise. The word is CHOICE, and often it is a traumatic one made with many considerations.

Anyone who wants women to not make such a choice - to start with have a culture that celebrates the wonder of birth and conception rather than the horrible quotes from "born in sin" (everyone, according to your priests) or the very derogatory "man that is born of woman" as if men could choose to be born of beasts or birds, preferebly. Horrible stuff, and being brought up with that, no wonder women have a heavy burden in your culture, being told they are sinful by being born, unimporatant by being women, and sinful in being pregnant rather than revered for being mothers and respected for their potential for being mothers.

Great art is not born of whipcracking and bondage. Humans are not less than art. If you wish more women to give birth celebrate motherhood, respect women, strike out the offending quotes up there and their like, and learn to celebrate birth as a matter of gratitude to the mother.
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Amazing - this discussion, and the amount of duplicity I have seen in the right wing posts.

There is repeated denial of this being anything related to anyone while there is an urgency to have it declared a lone nut private act (why the insistence if the fbi won't find any organisational support anyway, which they won't if it did not exist? but they might if it did, hence the urgency).

There is repeated ignoring of the medical facts posted by doctors and mothers who have been through the horrendous ordeals, and too of the repeated posts of one person about the legality to the effect that KS would only allow late term mtp under life threatening circumstances or if the fetus is not viable and was never going to be so.

There are repeated posts by some people with the same argument or propaganda repeated on and on, and one repeats the church dogma in capital letters to threaten and browbeat people to say that there is only one choice possible (without admitting they are anti choice, a clear implication of the post).

There is the suggestion by at least one post to the effect that a woman instead of terminating a pregnancy should kill herself, with no concern there for the fetus if she does, which really says that anti abortion and anti choice people are really pro death.

And then the most brutal, subhuman post by someone repeatedly abusing which begins with the this-is-lone-nut agenda and goes on to assert that rapes are inevitable, there is nothing anyone anywhere can do about it; the post then comes back to abuse some more and post bio chemical justification excusing rapes (why not find a vaccine and innoculate male populations, at least those likely to commit the crime, by testing - if it is only biochemistry, and not a social and church tacit sanction of rape for the perpetrator while the victim is hurled into hell by mostly all but the pro choice people? ) - which then escalates the offense to find out my identity by questioning my qualifications (did the rape approver think I would be so stupid as to fall for it, by giving my identity and proving my qualifications, so they could next come shoot me and my colleagues, family, and so on? HA!).

What has been heartening is the fact that majority of posts were for the women, and even more against the murder.

Whether anyone likes it or not, fact is, no one likes or wants an mtp later - most people who want it for other reasons (and there are plenty in a society that does little to educate males against rapes or church that speaks not against it or law that does little enough preventive), have it done as soon as possible, when there is little awareness or connection and the fetus really going through the elementary evolution. The later it gets, the more the awareness, the connection, and the trauma even psychologically, besides the horrendous health hazards.

But the need to or advisability to perform a late term mtp arises due to the new technologies that can determine if the fetus is in fact not viable due to a lack of say brains, lungs, or something - or the cases where the mother's health is adversely affected to the point where she is in danger for her life.

These new technologies make it possible to save the mother when in fact saving the fetus might not be possible - it might be born dead, or die after birth, or bring about the death of hte mother and die in the process.

The right wing, the church, the anti abortion crazies do not wish to understand reality, which is that if abortions were banned or reduced, it would not give them the blue eyed blond babies they are desperate for (they really couldn't care less about the unwanted "other" children, plenty available for adoption in US, millions unwanted. or for that matter the millions starving in Africa or forced abortions in China which no one is protesting about, in fact the abti abortionist terrorists of US tacitly approve of the abortions in China since that contains the population of another race) - in reality if abortions were not easy to find as and when needed, women would begin to die and be injured severely in large numbers, and that won't help anyone whose agenda is life. It would, of course, help those whose agenda is enslaving well over half of humanity - other races and their own women, the major components to begin with. So really the anti abortion is anti choice, anti life, pro slavery and even pro death.

Fortunately people are not so easy to enslave any longer, if the discussion is any indication. Which is exactly why they, the right wing crazies, have descended to murders, false propaganda, terrorism and denial.


They being the right wing crazies, of course. Perhaps they don't look look crazy, when you meet them. But wanting to return to dark ages, is a crazy agenda. Terrorism for the purpose makes them dangerous, not normal.
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If any of the church affiliated groups, people, authorities, whatever, are truly sincere about their protest and campaigns against abortions being only due to to their concern about sanctity of life, how do any of them reconcile with the hypocrisy of their position vis-a-vis the very well known facts of the world?

In China for a few decades now women have been forced to abort. No church has thundered about the sin of the government, or instructed its followers to boycott Chinese merchandise, much less protest at the consulates or at the UN or anywhere. In fact I have heard people - respectable, good middle class Archie Bunkers of US - approve of it since it helps keep the population down in China. Right wing and church racism?

Look at the non protest against perfectly good food that could feed humans being instead wasted elsewhere and even more waste in terms of land that could grow such food for human consumption.

Everyone has been aware of the starvation in Africa for the last few decades with dying populations including children and pregnant women. Yet the much tom tom of charity is at the private discretionary level, while no church or right wing life loving groups have ever protested against the waste of millions of acres across the rich countries devoted to feeding pigs for fattening for rich consumers, making fuel for luxury of driving gas guzzlers, or for alcohol making of all sorts - liquor, wine, et al. Yet it is clear that no one dies of alcohol deprivation and pigs could be lean and fed leftovers (chaff, stalks, whatever) for better health of the consumers while the corn could be sent to Africa. And vehicles might do better with solar batteries, at any rate they won't stop or suffer without corn fed to them via ethanol - corn that could help Africa survive.

Not a peep from the right wing against any of this, no thundering by the church against the sin of rich nations indulging in luxuries (fat meat, alcohol, coffee, chocolate, ...) while Africa starved for over three decades in millions. That was not life enough for the right wing?

In the more religious nations, central Europe, particularly Germany or even Austria, a new person who is taken sick will find it extremely difficult to get any over the counter medicine or other needs one normally gets from a pharmacy or a drug store. One needs to know which one is open and how to get there, if it happens to be after 4 p.m. Saturday on weekend, else suffer miserably - and the same is true if you happen to need milk for your children, even a baby, by any chance. In fact in the latter case your only hope is either a gas station or a large train station, possibly an airport.

When questioned, they are indignant about "this is religion, you cannot attack this" - but there are people of other religions in the country who might instead close shops on Saturday or Friday or whenever and keep them open on Sunday, which is not allowed by law. Yet restaurants and pubs are open throught the day to late night, so no one suffers from any shortage of alcohol. As for the excuse that this is a family togetherness day, so shops should close, what about the families of restaurant and pub workers, train operators, planes, train stations and airports? No, it does not wash. So your baby could suffer without milk if you are so misfortunate as to visit the country without awareness of this, or you might if you happen to visit on Saturday afternoon and are sick and need a common aspirin or cold cure, but that is not church's problem, while alcohol runs plenty free and there is no discouraging it. And yet the continental nations are suppposedly secular.

UK is far more relaxed and shopping does not make one anxious nor does one need a wife only for the purpose of shopping. Shops might close or open as per convenience of Athe shopkeepers, normally. No one - not even liberals - in the continent, though, admit the shop closures with rare exceptions (gas stations, large train stations, ..) as possibly not quite life friendly, possibly not so friendly to children or families or babies. I have heard flippant claims to the effect that wine might save life while milk could be dangerous, instead! And if you are ill, new to the country, a hotel employee who is supposed to be on duty will flat out declare you won't have any help since it is Sunday evening, all closed.

How about your own neighbourhood, is it all pubs or do you have pharmacies and shops selling life's necessities including provisions needed for children and babies? Do you have any thought about the Chinese and African, the human food going to pigs unnecessarily, the corn ethanol, et al? Chances are if you do you are not right wing. Herein lies the hypocrisy of the right wing. Ever heard anyone protest against any of this from the pulpit?

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If it is about sanctity of life, then unless all life is considered sacrosanct this is hypocrisy. Obviously life being sacred is a concept that gives way to other considerations, such as need or even greed of food.

One needs meat in arctic lands and weather but hardly in plush farming areas in seasons of plenty, and certainly not where there are well stocked supermarkets around; besides most don't hunt or fish themselves for food, and as such there is a tremendous waste of life to feed a small amount thereof to a populations shopping in supermarkets.

No church has spoken against this wanton destruction of life and consequent waste (which brought in BSE for example by trying to feed cattle unnatural food), even the wiping out of whole species in the ocean by trawlers in greed for money. As such sanctity of life is not where it is at.

Again, no one punishes a laboratory for throwing away fertilised eggs, in fact there are court battles where the would be eager mother is denied access to the fertised eggs either by the court after her partner's death or by the partner going to court because he is fighting to keep from paying child support, and the fertilised eggs then are destroyed.

If abortion is murder so is this, so the people demanding or allowing this for considerations of not paying child support are guilty, the court is guilty, and the church extremely guilty of not having spoken out in defence of the said fertilised eggs, thundering against their destruction or demanding they be implanted in the would be (and genetic) mother. Hence the church position about abortions is hypocritical, at best, and anti women at foundation of the whole anti abortion thundering.

And if one has to go by science, the stages of evolution of the human life from a fertilised egg to a full grown viable fetus do matter, it is not all equal. The embryo practically goes through the stages of evolution of life from cells to human until it is born, and there is good reason why mtp is considered less of a trauma or risk during the first few weeks - natural miscarriages during early periods are less of a trauma, less health risk, and they occur in nature all the time too.

If any stage has to be considered as specific therefore it has to be birth - (there is a good reason for natural childbirth, until the fetus is ready even the most fed-up-with-heavy-carrying woman is helpless and the birth happens only when the new life is willing to be a person -) when the new born takes a first breath on its own and now needs to be fed as a person, no more the umbilical cord bringing ready nutrition from the mother's body, but the next stage of bringing another form of ready nutrition from the mother's body through her milk that the infant has to feed with its own efforts and will.

From birth to the stage where the child is able to eat, walk, live alone, work, cook, and take care of its own progeny, the growth is a continuous process with increasing ability to do on one's own but never a time when parents are totally redundant - when you have your own children, too, often parents can offer good sound advice and support on parenting not to mention support system to the grandchildren.

No one has ever advised or declared to the effect that when a child is grown up enough to support oneself then the father might be given up to death with strangers making that decision to deny him life saving medical procedures, and saying that a mother ought to give birth even at risk of her own death is not less of a horror - it ought to be her own choice, her own decision. It will not only be her life at stake, it will also likely be her very handicapped infant now orphaned, and it is not for strangers to decide this is to be so.

So it cannot be about when life begins, or church, or strangers, but has to be about the medical expert advice to the mother helping her to make an informed decision. Birth can be the only point where a child is in fact separate, until then it is more than connected, it is entirely dependent on the mother. And a mother is very connected, attached, so such a decision is not just a health hazard, it is also a trauma, and can only be made when she is in danger or the fetus is known to the medical authorities to be severly lacking viability - without brain, without lungs, dead already, ectopic, any of the hundreds of things that might go wrong that make it advisable to terminate the pregnancy and thereby save one out of the two connected people.

After all, when twins with shared brains or body parts are born, they are not demanded by the church - or by bunches of medically illiterate presumptous pompous idiots - to remain joined together due to God's will or danger to one from the separation, but do instead get to have doctors make an effort to separate them with the best possible effort made to save both. Late term mtp is such an effort to save at least one when the other is not viable.

One might speak of soul, rather than life with less hypocrisy, since obviously (as given at length above) considerations of life have many other facets. Life is not where is it at even with human gestation, else there should be no natural terminations of pregnancies in early or even later stages.

Soul rushes in at birth, if at all.
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Australia - European Heritage of Darkness - Vestiges of Colonialism

For a while it did look like the world was getting better, with a growing light within - but whenever there is a Descent of Light the darkness of nether wells up and fights it.

And now there is the new outbreak of a plague of spirit of darkness inherited from Europe haunting the world again, especially continental Europe and the regions occupied by colonial settlers from UK and Europe. Racism this time in various has manifested in various episodes against Asians, mainly from India.

A few decades ago, a housemate from Australia, needless to say one of European colonialist origin (those days Australia did not allow any other settlers, and it was perhaps not too long after their horrible policies to the native population of the continent had begun to be only slightly less horrible) spoke out openly about the immigration policy with a casual, final, "we don't want "Asian hordes" to flock our country" - while the words are approximate within the first set of quotes they are exact within the second. I liked this housemate in most other ways, an open and friendly person. Apart from the habit of buying used clothes to save money and this statement so unconcious about the racism, and about geography or geology, a fine person.

A few years later a relative relocated to Australia, and we spoke about the place in a desultory mode, he assured me that Australia today was the country of future much as US was a few centuries ago. There was a new hope for the family and they emigrated. Now, they are settled. They rarely visit, unlike those that emigrate to US who visit at the very least every couple of years for a holiday, for keeping in touch with the roots and acquaint the new generation with the mother country. This family is perhaps uncomfortable about it, since differences are not tolerated in Australia, even more so than in say Germany.

I remember having precisely this conversation with a relative about how Australia compares with Germany, explaining that Germans don't want any outsiders but if and when one has to go there for say business, it works; while Australia is impossible since the people there won't work with an outsider at all, and the racism is in that respect much higher. Germans behave correctly often enough. Australians don't bother with rectitude.

First, refusing to take complaints from the victims fighting for life in hospitals, then refusing to concede it was racist, then advising the victims to not speak their own languages in public, publicly speaking out by police authorities and saying the students from India are too passive and thus their victimhoood, and finally after the international outcry and peace rally (where the marchers got arrested and dragged to police station physically) the victims are being advised by the same police not to keep vigils for protection and depend on the police for protection. The attacks meanwhile have continued, and why wouln't they? No discouragement to the attackers from the authorities. Who cares if the parliament of Australia claims it is not racist, certainly not the goons attacking the easy targets from India.

And now they mull over race crime laws.

Speaking in another language in a public place in US or UK gets perhaps a glance or not even that. A different dress in a public place or whatever in US worn by anyone usually gets a very genuine appreciation, while in UK again there is hardly a glance if that. In Germany speaking in any language other than German gets hostile glances from people around, the younger the crowd the more hostile the mute anger. But this is irrespective of the language. In fact speaking English in public is likely to be a far more sureshot way of one being a target of a hostile attack.

And now, in Australia, the police are explaining to the victims of racist murderous attacks that they - the victims - are too passive, and that they should not speak their "native" languages in public places. This is not really a change from the days when the natives of Australia, including children, were beaten up for speaking their own native language of Australia, by the settlers from Europe.

Furthermore, not only the police are refusing to take or record any complaints from the victims of murderous racist attacks, they are also in fact attacking peace rallies, dragging students who are waiting to hand over the complaints to authorities so violently the students are landing up in hospitals. And they are refusing to admit there is any racism.

So much for the immigrants' hope for Australia as a continent of the future -

The nation that is also a continent was settled originally by convict colonies from UK and had racist policies right from its start, with prohibition against Asian or any other people entering - and yet geographically it is a hop from Asia, in fact geologically Australia is connected to Asia, and as such Asians are the more natural immigrants to the continent.

Yet few people in the world realise that Australia is not a natural part of other colonies of Europe geographically, in fact it is a hop from Indonesia and other Asian islands while even New Zealand which is usually clubbed together with Australia is much further away as miles go. Tectonic plates that India and Australia belong to are conected at the very least if not actually same.

And yet the settlers from Europe, mostly from UK and second large population being from Germany, claim the continent belongs to them, by the last vestiges of a colonial mindset. That denies the very existence of the original population of the continent, much as it happens in the other continent across the Pacific from Australia, with the original populations either marginalised, packed in reservations (ghetto, anyone?) or used as almost bonded slave labour in all but words as in various countries from Columbia to Ushuaia.

Australians - the original ones - fare no better, in fact they were systematically decimated by the European colonisers.

For a long time the European settlers had abominable behaviour towards the natives of the continent (who are linguistically linked to Tamilians, of southern part of India, incidentally) and while males of European extraction used the native Australian women their children were taken away from them by force and families separated, broken, with generations of Australians suffering from identity loss and worse, psychological trauma, name it.

Attacks on students from India is only another recent manifestation of the xenophobia of the primitive mindset of European population of Australia, a mindset that one can see in Germany in recent times and in fact in Paris too, recently. This basically amounts to, if someone looks different from you in the slightest (colour of hair or eyes, colour of skin, not the same fashion as you are familiar with, lack of cosmetics or different clothes, ..) - attack.

This has more to do with the European settlers' racism, hatered of any others who do well, and general tendancy to dominate the world and make slaves out of everyone (think south "America", the continent that lost its indigenous name as well,) or herd them in "reservations" (as in US) or worse, destroy their families and lose their identities in an effort to "whitewash" them (as in natives of Australia) and generally treat them as animals or worse, in fact. Hatred for India is due to India doing well.

Australia not only makes money from the students from India, there is tourism as well, and a lot of films from India have been shot in Australia in recent years (India has the largest film industry in the world in terms of number of films made every year as well as the numbers in viewership around the world, as a matter of fact) - so the loss if people of India are put off from Australia are non trivial to say the least. Moreover it won't be as if Australia could do very well without all this - need of manpower was what made Australia open its gates in the first place to people of non European ethnicities, while ironically it sits in a neighbourhood not of Europe but of Asia, a hop from Brunei - which is visible from Australia's northern tip of Cairns.

Hate blogs on the internet are questioning people of other cultures are being allowed in the lands of Anglo culture if they hate it so much. This of course is turning it completely around into a falsehood. The attacks are from the European colonial settlers of the land on Asians, not the other way around. Demanding that everyone confirm and ape the Anglo culture willy nilly is merely prolonging colonial era, gone from the world except where hidden in caves of mindsets like these. Do they even realise this is precisely what nazi regime was about? No surprise there, after all the largest minority of settlers in Australia has been from Germany, chiefly post war.

Demanding that one give up one's own roots and culture is bringing back the Rabbit Proof Fence.

Which, just in case anyone is unaware of it, is not about the rabbits or the fence to protect the farmland which helped the two abducted little girls go back home walking across the span of the continent along it - it is about the European colonials' demands made from all other cultures however superior they be, to give up their own culture, roots, families, and ape the colonial rulers and settlers or else be caged in smaller and smaller parts of earth, work like slaves to support the luxuries of the European settled nations, and at some convenient point of time in future - convenient to the European settlers and their needs of luxuries that need almost slave labour for a while yet - be wiped off the face of the earth. Not that different from the Jews of Germany who were invited by the rulers in Berlin just a couple of centuries before they were massacred, invited for sake of betterment of the then appalling state of economy.

Are people from India picked to be the next victims of genocide after they have served the needs of economy of various nations appropriated by European settlers around the globe, along perhaps with natives of various of those continents? Or perhaps the natives of those continents serve better as a slave labour force and a zoo for exhibition ("we did not exterminate them, those left alive are allowed to live their way") while those from India with a strong culture with deep roots are invoking hatred for being better, just as Jews did by being relatives of the one worshipped (at least on the surface, with a lip service rather than an actual attempt at following and transforming) in Europe?

Fighting Terrorism

Fighting terorists today is not easy for any state agency, since the very nature of today's terrorist tactics consists of being hidden in plain sight amongst families, women and children and old and so on, denying their own acts except in media and not identifying their own fighting personnel to the enemy.

Ancient India had other ethics, where not only a war was fought away from the civil society, but there were very strong ethics of a stronger person and a fighter not raising a weapon or arm against someone weak, old, unarmed, too young to fight, or even simply unwilling to fight; there was no question of anyone getting away with harming a woman or a child or anyone weak and unarmed, and even a fighter would not attack another one without fair warning of an attack and an acceptance to the effect, a shown readiness.

India was later invaded by another sort of ethics that was prevalent elsewhere, and some time ago a European colleague from a country in central Europe remarked that he "could not understand the ethical injunction against soldiers who were victorious in a war availing themselves of the opportunity of taking every possible advantage of the women of the defeated society, in fact (he said) he would definitely have done so". And a look at the way the two world wars were fought shows the fact of the matter - allies kept the ethics, at least US and UK did, about not attacking the civilians of the defeated enemy in Europe; the other side did not.

The war being waged today with terrorist organisations is waged most often against civilians of the nations and people that the terrorist organisations wish to destroy, and fighting the terrorists with scruples about their civilian populations can be afforded perhaps by large nations with huge populations where a few hundred or even a few hundred thousand suffering at the hands of terrorists are glossed over, forgotten, taken in stride, whatever, as the train and bus and market blasts in India have been (until the rich were attacked in their very own den at the luxury hotels); a little nation not retaliating with adequate measures will only be complying with their enemies' promise of "pushing them into the ocean" as they promised a half century ago.

A couple of decades ago the terrorism in Delhi was beign waged in a way that had an eery similarity to that happening for last few decades in Israel, with no function of joy be it a wedding or a child's party remain without a threat of attack with several dead. The agenda in either case is simple, the population under attack must be made unable to forget terror for life and to enjoy life in any way.

Fighting this and hunting terrorists down is no simple task, and their beign able to argue civil ethics in their favour - notably as has been recently employed by another nation refuting or confounding every attempt by India to track down the source of terrorism and the masterminds hiding amongst the population there - merely amounts to enabling the terrorists not only continue with impunity but with glee about the attacked being no good at fighting back.

A few years ago Atlantic Monthly carried a long article, well researched, about a video that until then was in circulation, depicting a young boy hiding behind his father dying in crossfire. It ought to be easy enough to find and go through. The arguments are almost scientific and if there were any possibility of a refutation it would have made headlines in most media. Instead the story died down. Similar two stories have also met the same fate, when questioned by investigative agencies of various global organisations, one in Kashmir against Indian military, '90 or '91, and another very famous in Lebanon, early eighties.

And genocide of sikh population, known innocent, has met with no investigation or uproar of the sort that is raised against happenings in western states of India - for that matter, Bhagalpur remains forgotten as does Calcutta of '46. This shows agenda of the terrorism - attack any society or part thereof that is prosperous, with a relatively well functioning society with civil structure. Destroy their happiness and peace. Claims about such a society being bad to minorities are never raised much less acted upon in case of a totaliatarian regime or a poor society where similar things happen in far more horrible way - which shows that the agenda of terrorists has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting injustice anywhere, only to shout injustice against anyone prosperous, happy, progressing and maintaining a reasonably good civil structure.

India And Love In Ancient Tradition

Only One Day For Love

Really hilarious in many ways, and unfortunate in others, this war over various issues of western influence in India, including the rights to pubgoing for urban women, and now over a day for love every year. And as happens over many world issues that suddenly get an unexpected twist in India, this one has capped them and got more than one twist.
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The news however is disheartening, to anyone with some sense, some compassion. The media reports goons out in full force through the day, attacking couples everywhere.There were few exceptions. Some places were quiet.

In a few places there were ordinary citizens out in force through all sorts of age groups and firm about saying, they understood culture of India just as well as anyone else and were out to make it known. In some places - one, at least - they had celebrations of a cultural sort celebrating old couples with youngsters performing classical music and old couples taken out in buggies in procession with applause.

Other places had cultural celebrations about their own roots, with beautiful indigenous dresses and processions including elephants and horses.

Some people sold greeting cards at nominal prices, as a sensible way to counter the exorbitant prices of cards and flowers this day normally that seems like a day for profit by some name or other - which really is one factor the various protestors could speak out against sensibly.

Most places however shown on news show couples beaten up, including one case of a pair of siblings whom nobody asked if they were related and in what way, before they beat him up even as she was screaming and protesting. Their crime was to be out together on this day, in a place where normally girls are safer taking their brothers with them for protection.

One is really put off by all of this goon culture on rampage and wishes this mud on face of India was not thrown at it by those that are of India in the name of Indian culture, bringing them in line with misogynists by any name across the world. These goons do not know about Indian culture really.
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One leader however went clear on the issue and said, love exists in many forms and should be in every relationship whether parents and children or couples or siblings or whatever, and they are not against love in any relationship, but they do not see the need to limit a celebration to one day that happens to be memorial to some ancient Roman who is supposed to have been lovers' protector - there are many love stories in India and love is celebrated in India and should be, not just one day but all through the year, all through life.

This made immense sense, although then his next words quoting various love stories told of his having forgotten his own heritage - he spoke of various legendary lovers but forgot the really important ones, the heritage of the ancient Indian tradition.

If one begins to count, one does not know where to stop, so many are the tales, of heroes, heroines and worshipped Avataars. Not only they loved and married for love, but often they went against the parents or society, and mind you it is all sanctioned in the Dharma itself.

No other social or religious or cultural tradition gives a santity to a wedding of two lovers with only Gods as witness.

Or has a tradition of a would be bride's parents inviting appropriate and eligible would be grooms for inspection so she could select one for herself, which then stands true.

Sometimes it used to involve a test of valour of the would be groom, the more desirable the bride the more difficult the test. And sometimes, it was merely the selection by the bride, going around inspecting each one while her designated friend for the purpose would relate to her about each one as she stood before him. Either way the chosen one was honoured and others accepted the choice of the bride.
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Where does one begin to count as far as the love stories go?

One might begin with Satie and Shiva, then Rudra, who were disparaged by her father during a major occasion by her father - everyone else was offered gifts and her husband was not in spite of being a God. She corrected this slight from her father to her husband by jumping into the fire as an offering to her husband the God that had not been offered like other Gods were.

One can definitely begin with the young daughter of mountains Himaalaya, Uma or Parvatie (she has many names and many forms), who fell in love with Shiva the God who chose to be without belongings much less palaces or wealth such as silk clothing or ornaments - he sat alone in dire places and meditated, an austere life. Uma went out to find him with her mother crying after her, U, Ma (O, don't) and hence her name Uma; she meditated with a single wish, that of invoking love in Shiva, and began to fast; when she stopped eating even leaves she was put to a further test and she overcame that hurdle too effortlessly, and then appeared Shiva who was testing her. Their honeymoon was long and was only interrupted by other Gods needing his help to defeat a nether being that had become too powerful for the good of the world.

One might count Savitrie (the daughter of Sun the source of Divine Light), who went to find her heart's choice all around protected by her father's soldiers, and fell in love finally with a youth in a forest chopping wood, Satyavaan (Truthful) who was a prince living in the forest with his blind parents due to dire circumstances. She not only married him there and then, but then when relating about her choice to her parents was told by a Divine Messanger about his being short lived did not recant or relent due to her parents' grief, and stood by her choice and went back to live in the forest with him and his parents, without any royal accompaniment of servants this time except to bring and leave her there. Moreover she fought his death and won - by her sheer spirit. And love.

One can definitely take Raam and Sietaa, who married because he could alone satisfy the condition set extremely tough by her father for the purpose, but had in fact happened to see each other in the garden when he strolled about with his brother and she was proceeding to the temple with her friends - they saw one another, their eyes met, and that was it, they loved each other.

She could have lived safe and comfortable in the palace when subsequently he was banished to a forest life due to a pact between his stepmother and his father that was invoked before his being crowned, but Sietaa chose instead to accompany her husband to the fourteen years of an ascetic life in the forest with all possible dangers and discomforts it involved. He tried to make her stay back, but she was adamant, being together was more important for her love than comforts and security for her person.

Mind you the risks included wild beasts and this was an era of bows and arrows, and they were on foot for the duration.

Then of course there are the many, many couples of Mahaabhaarata, from Nala and Damayantie to Shakuntalaa and Dushyanta to Arjun and Subhadraa - why the most remarkable being Krshna and his first, chief, consort and wife and queen, Rukminie, for that matter. Her parents were too old to counter her not so nice brother, who was adamant about giving her away to a friend of his, while she loved Krshna. She wrote to the one she loved and he came and took her away, battling the armies of her brother and coming away victorious with his bride.
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Never a more true word was spoken - why one one day, for some Roman memorised? India has love galore in every form and love should be celebrated in India by India every day whole year.

Once someone in another country asked about how people fall in love, if they are under parents' control in India, unlike the person who was asking and their ways of finding love.

I simply explained that no one can really stop any lover from what is the heart's true desire - in any culture or country there is only a difference in name of finding a mate, for that matter. People who think they have a culture of finding love actually have a cuture of having to find their own mate and have to be geared to the search right from the school years, while people who claim they could not do something or other due to parental pressure ( - and who says parents approve everything in countries where love is supposed to be the norm? That is hypocrisy of course! Or else they would not always fall in love with suitable people generally) - they are forgetting they had the choice of suffering a disapproval and forging ahead with love and taking on any and every problem. Parental disapproval - when it does not consist of a whole society geared to hunt out and murder the couple - is merely the parents' right to their own opinion.

If a person insists on his or her love being only possible if approved by everyone or else lamenting about social pressure, is not serious about love. Or his or her choice and decision, or identity for that matter.

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Post Script - Why Media Push This Story

The battle lines are being drawn about something frivoulous on one level and very basic question of right on the other - do upper class and other well off young women have a right to go drink at pubs in western states of India?

Some channels won't let it go, and keep harping on this one. It is irritating and one wonders if they really care about what country they are in, what the people of the country care about.

One would like to hear about what level the investigations are at in grisly murders of women in Delhi on their way to or from work, or even about the man with a young family who has been beheaded by Taliban for a ransom of US $50,000.00 - a sum that could feed half a million people one sumptuous meal where he came from. But no, these channels, one especially, is like a dog with a bone to dig up - they won't let the pubs and women story be scaled down to where it belongs.

No matter that in Lucknow railways station a married couple walking towards the town just fresh from the train have a local male push his hand casually in the woman's crotch and look back with victory as the shocked couple looks back in rage. He can run, while they are unlikely to be able to catch and beat him up. It is his town.

No matter that in Allahabad a woman cannot go shopping for vegetables for her home in her neighbourhood without being similarly handled on the go by another local guy. She is dressed conservatively and is middle class, with no make up and no nonsense. Being a woman is one thing she cannot escape however she dresses, hence the manhandling is a factor of life unless one appoints a servant for the purpose with all its ensuing problems.

In short, these incidents - common, although no woman would admit to them publicly since the shame would be considered theirs, and they might just be beaten up by their own families for being looted of their honour for having stepped out.

Delhi is the worst unless you are a woman with a car, a driver, and a powerful male protector, preferably a husband rich and powerful. If you are middle class and walk to the market instead of having your husband take you or even better, send a servant - or the ultimate, phone in the list and have it delivered so you cannot look and shop around - you are fair game.

The media couldn't care less.

People by hundreds dying of multiple blasts on trains, buses, and other places middle class and other normal people frequent, are mere unfortunate payoff for one building (while hundreds of others are going up ever since everywhere else) to be blamed on the very convenient party without support from outside.

Women of middle class and poorer than that being abused, raped, murdered on regular basis in states north of the Vindhya is a mere fact of life, who cares, they are not the glitzy ones in pubs spending mucho dollars on drinks, they are merely trying their best to survive and take care of themselves and their families in their regular activities of work, shopping, and little else.

In the western states however the women are free to study and work and shop and go out and are relatively free of fear, until the recent murders - and even then televisions did not pick up on the women being murdered while they were at home, the blitz was short and it was about a couple of IT workers on night shift. That made news because they could go after good sturdy multinational companies and ask if women should be discouraged from working night shifts.

No one asked - what about the ordinary women being murdered at home?

And now, the whole hoopla about the pubs. Why - why is right to get drunk in public more important than right to be safe at home?

It isn't.

The whole point is, when a woman stays home, she is not spending on alcohol and so there is no vested interest involved. No one pays the television channels to go on a blitz to publicize the poor middle class women whose only fault was opening the door when someone knocked - they had been used to being fearless, living in the safe western states, you see.

So the pubs story about the right of women to go drinking in western states being given far more importance than any rights or safety issues of women as such, is not about women or their rights or safety at all.

On a small scale it is about hitting out at anyone who happens to bear the names that are not from outside uness you are shamed of that name and all it implies, and are deprecatory about it.

On a large scale it is about the importance of getting people to spend on things like alcohol where one gets into danger of life as a value received for money, since there are mucho sellers and producers and importers and fraudsters selling non imported in name of imported, in pubs .

If you buy from a shop, it is cheaper (German practical sense about drinking) and also you might check on the brand, the price, and not pay unless you are satisfied. And then you might not drink stupid and drive over a few innocent people, but instead have a little peg quietly at home and go to bed, safely.

Pub drinking however is about socialising mixed with drinking, a very dangerous beast. You are ashamed to question the brand and the honesty, ashamed to say no to begin with or as long as the server or your peers say come on have another one. And the rates are likely to be ten times as much as you would spend on comparative quality by shopping and taking home a bottle.

But anyone who drinks only at home and stays sober and safe is unlikely to promote a crowd of others to join. And there are billion people in India, all potential customers for liquor industry. The pay for channels to keep the pub story alive cannot be small.

Hence the lopsided amount of importance given to rights in various states for various aspects of life making it seem like drinking in pubs in western states is far more a fundamental right than being unmolested when going to school, college, university, work, or grocery shopping in northern states.

Just wonder - do these people want the billion people of India to live Angela's Ashes? Or worse, is it they couldn't care less as long as the get their payoff from the liquor industry?

Bars and liberty

Every time you think you know all facets of something India surprises you and often into helpless laughter, sometimes into taking positions you did not think you could.

The recent attacks on women by people calling themselves Shri Ram sena, much discussed in media with great heat, had a lot of surprises. First the people copying Taliban behaviour had forgotten about the Somarasa of Vedic times, and that women as men did partake Madira through old times. And that women of India were free to move and to act according to their decisions, with men not being approved for attacking one in any way. Never.

A sena would justify its name if it fought armed opposition, not attacking helpless young women and molesting them. Even the sena of Raama did not attack women of Lanka, whatever they were doing - and Vaalmieki does describe them drunk does he not?

As for Raama, his ideal was not attacking any woman (except one who tried to cannibalise them) but in fact bringing one back from a petrified state to life, Ahilyaa.

On one hand the spokesperson of the major party spoke early and said, why is this being sensationalised and politicised when in fact Delhi has had so many murders and rapes of young women on or from their way to work and it was not sensationalised or politicised by them? Good point, and the point still stands. BJP is falsely named Hindu party by media in interest of sensationalising, branding and hacking to bits - it is not clear if it is only BJP or India and its soul they are after, so it would be easy for everyone else to cannibalise it.

And it certainly is true that while the three more progressive and free states of west are being attacked relentlessly in the media, in north women have not been free to go even to school, college, office, work, shopping, or a walk, without fear of molestation.

The fear is not baseless, and things very unpleasant happen with great frequency. The women are brave if necessary, going out and accomplishing and silent about the fear and incidents they often suffer (why complain if it only brings about a return to being shut up in the home, or is useless anyway?); but men often react with "why do they need to go out" when I have discussed it, and further elaborate with "if they need to go to the temple they can take a brother to go with them". What about those with no easily available hefty male protector, are they easy targets (yes of course, in practice) to be disapproved of for stepping out of the home?

There is no easy answer, but here is a clue - you might live in a northern state next door to some family for a year without ever realising they have a teenage daughter, and this is not a palace they are living in but a small house we are talking about.

So really what the spokesperson said needs to be extended and demands need to be made to have women of north as free and safe at least as those in south are until now. The difference has been considerable, and the balance changes with large scale migrations. Like it or not, such is fact of Mumbai and other places too.

Media needs to wake up and realise women coming home from work in Delhi are not less important than women drinking in Karnataka. The former get regularly raped and murdered while media shouting about the latter being a couple of times recently slapped around is losing credibility, for being out of proportion in dealing with the two.

Does that mean the latter should be ignored?

No - because the freedom to go to the bar is included in the freedom of movement in general, and the ridiculous people later found by one channel to explain why only women were attacked were not thinking.

Today they complain that women going to bars are risking being manhandled and this is the excuse for the sena attacking the women - tomorrow it would be about women going to work being murdered and then someone else attacking them for their own safety.

There was already talk of companies being reluctant to hire women or being shouted at for having women employees work at late night shifts, when the few murders of working women happened in Bangalore. But even in the same town far more number of women were murdered around the same time at home, in daylight or at night, and nobody turned around and said, hey, women are not safe at home - please go out, sisters, for your own safety! It would have made far more sense too, since few would dare to murder someone in a public place with witnesses.

They need to clean up their act and thinking, and realise and admit that they attacked women because it is easy and cheap. Attacking males might just bring danger to their own persona. In short, they did not behave like men, but like less than animals. Animals or even insects do not attack their own species females. Men who do not feel certain of their own manhood, do.

What are these idiots trying to do, get the society ready to receive oppressive regimes of terror?

What is the media trying to do, pretending drinking libery is more than life?

Banning pubs or drinks or alcohol at private parties might in fact solve one problem, that of drunken drivers killing others and themselves as two separate happenings in Bangalore last week alone showed. It is not about freedom to spend your own money, it is about freedom of others and their right to life that drunken drivers are putting at risk. And more.

Or else it needs one hefty gun toting policeman per drunken pubgoer to make sure they do not drive. Too much. Can India afford the cost of rapid westernisation to this extent, is India ready? It is ok to go slow, and restrain drinking meanwhile - especially for men.

As for the argument that a hard working person needs to relax, why is this assumed that drink is the only possibility?

The burgeoning cities of today need parks, trees, grass, benches, playgrounds and more, where people can go relax - walk or sit or chat or play, without fear and with being able to breather without fumes of traffic. Read on a park bench quietly without molestation, go with your spouse and friends and family or alone walking without fear of miscreants that has driven middle class out of the existing spaces.

Middle class of Mumbai have the seashore and some cities like Pune have a culture of people walking without fear, but this needs to be extended to others.

As for the anticlimax of Rajasthan CM declaring he disapproves of malls and is going to close them down, because boys and girls go together to them - while his party is taken aback, he is of course securing his own seat by playing to the worst of his backwater state of keeping women enclosed. Today, no malls, tomorrow, no school either - in fact not so many girls do go to school in his state, while in Karnataka they regularly top the results.

The people who mix together are unlikely to attack each other, for they become friends, and if he cares about the daughters of his home state he would prescribe girls and boys going to the malls and elsewhere in mixed groups as friends.

The people who should be not going to the malls are small children, breating fumes and taking in the noise and suffering in the crowd; and the food - don't even begin to think of the effects of fast food on young children. The people who should be banned are the little ones, anyone shorter than four feet and younger than twelve, not yet in high school and not quite responsible or able to take care of oneself. Let there be other, open and safe, places for them. Without lifts and escalators, not so much crowd as trees and benches and playgrounds including cinema hall. And good country food, made from raw ingredients the way grandmother used to make it. Healthy.