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Violence and Gita
Published on 21st September, 2014, in Mid-Day Mahatma Gandhi found inspiration for his satyagraha or non-violent protest in the Gita. Balgangadhar Tilak on the other hand found in Gita justification...
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Competitors and Collaborators
Published on 28th November, 2014, in The Economic Times In a wolf pack we find collaboration and competition. The wolves collaborate to hunt a deer. After the hunt is complete they compete for the...
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Legal share of mummy’s love
Published on 30th November, 2014, in Mid-Day Bhaga is a Vedic god. Not much is known about him except that he was one of the 12 solar gods, the Adityas, and he was associated with marriage and...
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Contextualising Is Key
Published on 6th February, 2015, in The Economic Times If you are a devotee, you will go to a temple. But if you go to a temple, are you a devotee? This is a question that I often ask people who are...
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Laughter Is Power
Published on 8th February, 2015, in the Mid-Day On the day of Rama’s coronation, in the middle of the royal court, Lakshman started to laugh. Everyone wondered who was Lakshman laughing at. Was he...
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Bromances from mythology
Published on 14th February, 2014, on www.livemint.com Bromance in India means yaarana, dostana. We saw it on full display when Jai and Veeru rode on bikes in the 1975 film Sholay. In 1990, journalist...
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Two kinds of teachers
Published on 6th March, 2015, in The Economic Times In the Ramayana, Ram is educated by two teachers: Vasistha and Vishwamitra. And these two teachers are as different from each other as day and...
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God of Sunday
Published on 1st May, 2015, in the Speaking Tree In Roman times, Sunday was the first day of the week — an important day named after the Sun-God. Helios or Hyperion was the Greco-Roman Sun-God, who...
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Return to Samadhi
Published 21st June 2015, in Mid-day Samadhi commonly refers to the tomb of a holy man, or a place where his relics are stored, or a place where he was cremated, example Gandhi Samadhi. Traditionally,...
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Your smile, my tail
Published on 5th July, 2015, in Mid-Day When Hanuman returned from Lanka with a burned tail, and recounted his adventures, many monkeys of Kishkinda burst out laughing. “So, you got your tail burned to...
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Breaking the royal pillar
Published on 8th November, 2015, in Mid-Day People often find it hard to believe that the literature containing stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharat and Puranas came into being only 2,000 years ago,...
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A lesson from Ravana
Published on 13th December, 2015, in Mid-Day After striking Ravana with a fatal arrow, Ram tells Lakshman to go to Ravana and seek knowledge from him for ‘he is an educated Brahmin, his faults...
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The complete man
Published on 27th December, 2015, on www.theweek.in There are two Krishnas. One lived in north India, in the Gangetic plains around Mathura, and later on the island of Dwarka, off the Gujarat coast, in...
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Unlimited Choice
Published on 1st January, 2016, in thespeakingtree.in Did Rama have an elder sister? Yes, he did, according to a popular tele serial. She is referred to in Balakanda of Valmiki’s Ramayana, as Dashratha...
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Why is Ram misogynist, but not the Buddha?
Published on 2nd January, 2016, on scroll.in Hinduism is patriarchal. No doubt about it. So are Christianity and Islam, Sikhism and Shinto, Jainism and Judaism. But Buddhism? It is not the first...
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Article 0
Published on 11th January, 2016, on www.dailyo.in In a recent TV show, the story of Shabari, the aged tribal devotee of Ram, was retold. In it, she feeds Ram grapes, not berries. This upset a lot of...
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The flower that killed Indumati
Published on 24th April, 2016, in Mid-Day Kalidasa’s famous work, Raghuvamsa, composed around 500 CE, tells the story of Ram’s ancestors, including Dashratha’s parents, Aja and Indumati. Indumati...
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No laughing in Ram Rajya
Published on 5th June, 2016, in Mid-Day In the 15th century, a Sanskrit treatise came to be written known as the Anand Ramayana (Ramayana of bliss). The author did not reveal his name and claimed it...
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Forest and Field in Dharma Discussion
Published on 8th June, 2016, on speakingtree.in In the Sama Veda, the hymns of the Rig Veda are turned into melodies. These melodies are classified into two groups: aranya-gaye-gana or Forest Songs,...
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The girl who chose
Published on 17th July, 2016, in Mid-Day About a thousand years ago, a remarkable thing happened in India. We find a rapid rise of regional languages and scripts giving rise to the modern languages of...
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