Is this only about Mother Teresa?

Just to quote a great African leader: - “When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”
I have heard that till the middle of the eighteenth century India had about 25% share of the world’s GDP which is now hardly about 3%. I am, at times, surprised to see the downfall in the economy. There are many reasons attributed to this down fall which include India missing on the Industrial revolution growth which is a major factor to have strengthened the western economies. Prior to the Industrial revolution, the world was majorly agrarian and production was by human hands or hand driven equipment. The industrial revolution changed everything. I do not know if the western economies became rich or India became poorer or the western economies made Indians to believe that they are poor and used India for raw materials as well as end product markets or both. One fact remains that they could source raw material at abysmally low rates and could sell the finished goods at a premium. This ofcourse is business and business in legal in this world. Such businesses are still legally running around the world!
Now, let’s forget all the reasons because the final truth as of date is that India is a poor third world country and the west is a prosperous territory. Having said that, we will have to agree that westerners are concerned about the poor third world countries and send across help. My only concern is that mostly the help is in the form of Missionaries and not in the form of technology and money which is required more by the third world nations. But, ofcourse, we all should understand that gifting technology and money is against the fundamentals of economics. So, we are expected to develop technology and create wealth on our own. We need to forget that raw material used for the development of the west was from the third world, labor used for development was from the third world and a large segment of market for the goods was also the third world. We are supposed to forget everything so let’s actually forget everything and come to the point.
It was around 2002-2003 when I was in Bhopal and was attending a session of a senior RSS functionary. He also mentioned Mother Teresa in his discourse, according to him, Missionaries of Charity had around 500 centres across the world whereas Vidya Bharti had around 24000 schools all across India. His gave this comparison just to prove that there were many Sangh affiliates and other organizations which were doing far more and better work for the upliftment of the people and that the name and fame of Mother Teresa is just the way Missionaries function in order to advertise their work whereas most of the Indian organizations believe in “Prassidhi Paronmukhata” which means being “averse to fame”. My reason to mention this was that this is not the first time that a RSS top functionary has said such words about Mother Teresa, this is RSS’s stand on the work done by missionaries. It is only the media which has timed it well in order to get better viewership and have better debate on the matter.
I personally have very high regard for Mother Teresa because I feel that service to mankind irrespective of the motive should be respected. We should also remember that most of our great warriors and freedom fighters fought against the invaders because they thought it was their “Dharma” to fight for their motherland and protect it from the invaders (Although Dharma is not synonymous to Religion). So, I personally feel that we should always respect such people who serve humanity. On the other hand, I also feel that we should also not shy away in being clear with the intent of such people. Mother Teresa believed in the concept of “Salvation only through Christianity” and I expect everyone to accept this aswell. How does the respect for Mother Teresa reduce if we accept that she did the service in the name of god and believed that spreading Christianity is actually service to god? I feel that we should be non-partisan enough to accept this truth. Also, we should not shy away from criticism of Mother Teresa. If Mahatma of this land can be criticized then, ofcourse, Mother Teresa can also be criticized.
It has been a historical fact that prime agenda of Christians and Muslims has been to propagate their faith all across the world. They have invaded nations ruled them and tried all tactics in order to promote and propagate their religion. Another fact that remains is that it is only the Indian sub-continent, China and a few other Asia Pacific nations that have been able to sustain their original faiths despite occupation by both Muslims and Christians. Limiting myself to Christian missionaries here, they feel that Salvation can only be achieved through Christianity and they do it for the human good. They also feel that it’s god’s work that they are doing and will be given a place in heaven after death. So where is the problem?
Ideally, the concepts of “I am good and you are bad” or “Only I am good” is the problem. These concepts come out while one professes his or her religion because when one professes his/her religion, one compares it with other (read “my”) religions and in this process of comparison proves that his/her religion is better than other religions. This creates conflict of ideas which finally leads to mistrust and violence. Ideally, the belief of missionaries which is “salvation only through Christianity” creates the conflict because it sends all the non-Christians, including me, directly to hell. This is in conflict with my faith and continuous rhetoric of the same will lead to conflict for sure. Another cause of conflict is use of fraud to convince that Christianity is better than Hinduism. There have been many cases where people have been given medicines in the guise of holy water in order to prove that holy water cures diseases and such is the power of Jesus. Many missionaries give priority admission to Christians’ in the educational institutions that they run. This creates difference and conflict.
But, one thing that is peculiar here is that all these fraudulent practices and the truth about the intent of missionaries is not discussed by the Media. Whereas, a single conversion case, popularly known as “Ghar wapasi”, from other religions to Hinduism is depicted by media as atrocity on minorities on the country. I am personally against any kind of faith propagation because I do not see any constructive use of change of faith and there is a lot of comparison involved in propagating a faith. So, I am in favor of a law which is against religious conversions. I also understand that it is very difficult to make such a law because it is very difficult to monitor such things, but, I feel that there are many learned people in the world who can suggest many ways to resolve the issues here.
I hope the God blesses all of us and gives us good sense. Jai Shree Ram!!

From a Sanghi to AAP

First of all, Congratulations and best wishes to AAP on this huge victory!!
In the heat of the Delhi Elections, Arvind Kejriwal was accused of being an Anarchist by many. Today, the People of Delhi have given him all the powers to be one, ofcourse within the framework of the Indian Constitution. The results have a similar pattern to that of the Lok Sabha election, anyone under the banner of AAP has won similar to the trend that was in favor of BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. AAP’s phenomenal victory is a proof of the secular and tolerant nature of an ordinary Indian. The Indian who voted Narendra Modi to power for his development agenda and has again trusted in Kejriwal on his clean politics and clean governance agenda.
AAP has a huge responsibility on its shoulders now. People have believed in AAP and voted for it in such huge numbers. Most of the people who voted for AAP are from the sections of the society which haven’t benefitted from the present system and were losing faith in the system, people who have not benefited because of independence, and people who feel that white rulers have replaced brown rulers. AAP has come as a ray of hope for those sections of the society. This election has showed the power of democracy and the power of a common man in a democracy. I hope AAP keeps up to the expectations of the people because failure will lead to loss of faith in the system which is very difficult regain and takes a lot of time and struggle. I do not want this painful thing to happen to my generation. But, history is not in favor of AAP.
A few days back one of my seniors told me that India hasn’t seen great changes and revolutions post independence, I did not have a convincing answer then. But today, we are all witness to a great change. In a democracy, all changes are in the form of Politics and political revolutions as we vote for our choice and bring about change. But, this is not the first time that such a change has come. In 1957, EMS Namboodripad, became the first Non-Congress chief minister of India and if you read a little about EMS Namboodripad you will get to know about the impeccable integrity and character of this leftist man. In 1967, CN Annadurai, became the first non-congress CM of Tamil Nadu. He was also a man of character and ethics. Later his party divided into two and now rule Tamil Nadu alternately. In 1983, Telugu Desam Party, under the leadership of NT Rama Rao (NTR) swept the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections to bring the first non-congress government in Andhra Pradesh. NTR was known to be a tough administrator and a reformist. In 1985, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, represented the aspirations of the Assamese people when he did not bow down to Indira Gandhi’s pressure and came to power. Similar has been the case with UP and Bihar which have hardly seen any Congress government in the past 25 years.
But, has this brought about drastic change in the system? I guess the present state of affairs in UP & Bihar is known to all of us. Leaders of both the parties of Tamil Nadu which were formed after the division of DMK have serious corruption charges against them. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is history now, TDP which has done a great deal of work was out of power for more than a decade. So, one cannot convincingly say that this change in government will bring about something revolutionary in the coming five years.
The only thing different in this case of AAP is that it has taken Congress Party’s place. In all the earlier mentioned cases, these parties came up as opposition of Congress and competed with it to win elections. In the present case, Congress has been wiped off and AAP has routed BJP which was also an opposition party till last year. So, the best thing about this case is that the “bad boy of politics”, Congress, has no place and all the politics will be between AAP and BJP. BJP, of course, because it is in power at the centre. So, let’s hope that this is a welcome change.
One other thing that I would like to talk about is the perception of AAP. How if AAP perceived of by people? People who hate AAP consider it to be a group of hardcore leftists combined with Islamists. People who support AAP consider it to be like the pre-independence Congress Party with great leaders who are fighting the war of total Independence. On this day when AAP has created history with the kind of win I would like to believe that AAP is the kind of a nationalist party similar to the one Congress was before Independence. Having said that, I expect AAP to take a note of the mistakes that Congress committed to ruin itself and the nation in its rule after independence. It might have taken 50 years for the opposition to remove Congress from the centre. But, in the current scenario, if two years of struggle can bring AAP to power with such huge majority, five years of non performance, bad governance and populism without vision can lead to the party’s decimation in the future.
May AAP keep up to the expectations of the people, All the Best from my side!

A Request to the people of Delhi

It’s the evening when election gets over in Delhi. This election campaign has been very different where the person who rose to fame throwing mud as others is being considered as the victim of mudslinging and negative politics. He says that negative politics is being played against him; I do not remember a single instance when he played positive politics. I always remember him accusing others. He has always considered him “holier than thou”.
I have many friends who are very educated, live abroad and have sympathies with him but I have my reservations. I do not want anyone to win Delhi elections just for the sake of sympathy. I want someone with proven credentials to come to power in Delhi. Many people cry foul and support him saying that BJP is using all its might to suppress an ordinary person like him. I say that all parties including Congress see this as an opportunity to defame BJP and undermine the leadership of NaMo. I wish that their dangerous designs do not succeed.
Kindly do not see him as a victim, see that he is taking advantage of the situation. Everyone in politics has a background and credentials to support. He does not have any; he’s just a puppet in the hands of many powers which do not want to surface. I do not know if he’s ignorant or wishes to ignore it.
I just want to say that the he has allegiance with Arundhati Roy and Binayak Sen, these are people who do not believe in Democracy as an institution. He has association with Mr SAS Gilani who is a separatist and does not believe in Democracy. One of his founder members, Prashant Bhushan, has suggested plebiscite in J&K which is against the national stand. He fought election against NaMo just to garner Muslim votes which he was successful in garnering.
All nationalists, kindly be careful when you vote for Delhi. Its not about emotion, its about the state which has the National Capital Territory. We can have experiments outside the NCR, we cannot risk NCR. Kindly vote and vote Sensibly!
In all references “He” points towards Mr Arvind Kejriwal.

My Heart Goes out to the People Of Gaza- Kindly complete the blog

My heart goes out to the people of Gaza. But, when I ask the same heart that why does it then fail to condemn Israeli attacks? It gives me a very logical answer. It says that the same set of people who are so vehemently condemning the atrocities in Gaza will not shed a tear, or would rather, rejoice the slaughtering of Israeli’s in the same region.
In my opinion, it’s a fight between two different ideologies and will exist till people keep thinking that their faith is the best. This fight between faiths has existed since times immemorial. India has also seen such fights and is still witness to it because of its people with a many kinds of religious, political and regional belief systems. So let us discuss about the conflicts in India primarily focusing on the beliefs Nationalism and Religion. This conflict, in the Indian scenario, is mostly centered on Muslims. I will discuss the same in this write-up.
India is said to be a so called secular nation which has state separated from religion and, thus, gives equal rights to the follower of every religion and considers every religion to be equal. But, I feel that the above thought is only confined to the books/constitution and is not practiced even by the government. I will not get into discussions of Muslim appeasement etc to support my observation. I will instead I will talk about some cases which we all hear and read about regularly in the media.
One of the controversies Narendra Modi created during his election campaign was about helping Hindu Bangladeshis to settle in India. Many secular intellectuals rejected his idea considering it as being communal. But, I was surprised to see many Assamese, who are the worst victims of Bangladeshi influx, not being averse to the idea. All of them supported the idea with one condition that all these settlers should be spread evenly across the country. Even they were ready to take the load of allowing Bangladeshi Hindus, but, oppose settlement of Muslim Bangladeshis tooth and nail. We can of course call this idea of Narendra Modi as a communal thought, but, this differential treatment has always prevailed in the region officially.
If we consider the case of a Nepalese or a Bhutanese citizen, there is no restriction on his/her coming to India and settling here. Basically the only difference between a Nepalese/Bhutanese citizen and an Indian citizen is the latter’s right to vote, else every other thing is the same. Each one of us knows many Nepalese living and working in our area. I have hardly seen any national level hue and cry about Nepalese or Bhutanese citizens settling in India although Nepalese are present in India in good numbers. Same is the case with Tibetans living in India, although their asylum in India is among the bone of contention between India and China. Still, people have no issues. Even, people of Chinese origin living in India might not be facing problems. I think the only reason for Indians not having any major problem with these people is that these two countries are predominantly Hindu or Buddhist or for the matter of fact, Nepal was the only Hindu nation in the world officially till recent times whereas Pakistan and East Pakistan were formed on the basis of religion. Pakistan became an Islamic nation whereas India remained a secular nation (which Bangladesh is also now) accommodating everyone officially. Relations with the Lankans are not that good because of the Tamil problem, but, I do not see any settlement problems to Lankan nationals in India.
According to me, the major threat that majority Hindus in India see with the settlement of Muslims in India is that with the rise of Muslim population there will be a drastic change in the way of life of the Hindus. I can say so because I know Bengali Hindus who have peacefully lived in Assam even during the heat of the Assam agitation in the late 70’s and the early 80’s whereas there are riots between Bengali Muslims and ethnic people even today. This according to me is the threat that Hindus perceive in many parts of the country.
If we look at the Muslim aspect of the issue there is even more complexity which might turn into a Gaza like problem in the future. Muslims are actually stuck between faith and nation. If a Muslim thinks that nation is supreme and that the government should not allow Bangladeshis who are mostly Muslims to settle in India, he being anti-Islamic. As per Islam, a Muslim should not go against a Muslim when it’s a case of his betterment and Bangladeshis infiltrate into India only because of the compulsions of poverty. How can one Muslim be against the empowerment of another Muslim? This is a major conflict that a practicing Muslim must be facing! I can also say that it is inhuman not to allow poor people in search of bread and butter to settle here.
I say it with confidence that a conflict exists amongst Muslims between Nationalism and Religion because when there are riots in Assam between Bodos and Bangladeshi Muslims, Mumbai comes to a halt. There are protests in many parts of the country and people from the North Eastern states are targeted. Muslims should actually be supporting their countrymen instead of a settler who is trying to assert himself in their own country. Although, people from North East face problems in many parts of the Country as well, but then, there is never an open community clash with the people of NE India and most of the people agree that they are our fellow countrymen and stringent action should be taken against the perpetrators of the crime.
So, one confusion of a practicing Muslim or even a person with basic humanity is whether to support a poor Muslim who is coming to their nation in search of work or be with the national policy of opposing Bangladeshi settlement. Now, in case the government comes up with a policy to rehabilitate Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh, how would a Muslim convince himself that Muslims are not being meted differential treatment on the ground of religion by the government? Such policy would actually reflect pure differential treatment between Hindus and Muslims by a secular government. If we consider this from a humanitarian aspect, Hindus should also not oppose Bangladeshi Muslim settlement India as all these people come to India in search of daily bread and butter and were their fellow countrymen sixty seven years back. It is inhuman not to allow a poor man to search for his bread and butter.
Now, we see that it’s inhuman as well as un-Islamic not to allow Bangladeshis in India. Let’s look at another case in India, let’s look at Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
Jammu & Kashmir, internationally known as Kashmir, is a clear example where national preferences are based on religion. Muslims either want freedom or want to merge with Pakistan (this merging with Pakistan thought has been shelved by well off people looking at its present state) whereas Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and even Shia Muslims want to stay with India. There might be many technical arguments that can be put forth like the instrument of accession or matter being in the UN or Pandit Nehru’s promise to the people of Kashmir on plebiscite. The crux of the matter is that national preferences are divided on religious lines.
The state of affairs in Kashmir (not J&K) have been very turbulent in the past quarter century. Some people might even compare it to a Gaza like situation in the early nineties. Muslims say that Indians have occupied J&K whereas others say that they are Indians. Muslims say that there have been atrocities on them by the Indian security forces in the past quarter century whereas others say that the people victimized were either terrorists or anti-Nationals. So it’s clear that a division exists! Muslims say that they have been victimized and others say that the people victimized were either terrorists or anti-Nationals.
So, this victim card is one dangerous tactic that has to be dealt with. If there is a riot between Bangladesh Muslims and Bodos, Muslims are being victimized.
So the situation is quite interesting, Muslims say that they were victimized where others say that the people taken to task were either terrorists or anti-Nationals. So, there is a clear situation of conflict between faiths. Some say that nation is supreme whereas others say that religion is supreme.
Now, let’s look at the idea of India. Kashmiris in their fight for a separate nation even go to the extent of challenging the idea of India. No one would agree that India was India/Bharat before 1947. Many Muslims whom I speak to also do not agree with this idea of India, they consider India to be a post 1947 creation whereas a Hindu (excluding communists) will never challenge this idea of India. Actually, both these beliefs of people suit their own convenience and faiths.
So, I guess the above discussion is enough to say that there exists a lot of difference between Hindus & Muslims in India

The Spirit of Non-Violence

Once, Gautama Buddha, as the regular routine of a wanderer, decided to go from one village to another after sun set. There was dense forest between the villages. Villagers did not like this idea and requested him not to do so as there was a very aggressive and venomous snake species in the forest which would attack people unprovoked. But, Bhagwan Buddha did not listen to them and started for the village. Frightened villagers followed him. As Bhagwan Buddha was walking through the forest, a snake of the same species charged upon him. Villagers saw the snake and alerted Buddha. Buddha stood there and looked at the attacking snake with all his calm and composure. The snake came to Buddha and encircled his feet, it did not bite him. The villagers were surprised and asked Bhagwan Buddha about the reason for which the aggressive snake not biting him. Bhagwan Buddha gave them the answer, “When I do not think bad about anything in this world or do not hurt anyone, why will anyone hurt me”?
I personally feel that because it was Bhagwan Buddha even the wild animal did not bite him or hurt him. He was in such sync with nature. Ofcourse, it might not be possible in our case that we get so much in sync with nature that wild animals or anyone else, as such, does not hurt us. We can atleast be in sync with our surroundings so that people around us do not hurt us. There is a difference between disagreeing and being against something. We should prefer to disagree instead of being against something.
We have had regional, religious and political systems since ages. All have been changing. There were revolutions, evolutions and these revolutions and evolutions will keep on happening. Regional profiles will keep on changing, religious beliefs will keep on changing and so will political systems. Nothing is permanent!
There are many theories of migration of people, of countries conquering other countries, stories of faith being spread by invaders etc. We also have stories of ethnic races being wiped out by races coming from other regions. But, I do not feel that races or cultures are wiped out. I feel that when two human races and cultures start living together, there comes up a third race and culture which is richer as well as superior than the first two races. The problem comes when the two races are averse to change and engage in conflict which mostly is violent. Why is there such aversion to change? In my opinion, the aversion to change is because the people of either of the races and cultures believe that theirs is the superior one and the other race should adapt its customs. They forget that mingling of the two races will lead to a superior race. This eventually happens as well with time and the people of the later generations are only able to understand and realize this. Still people fight for the same reason again and again.
India has had classy cases of people spreading their faiths, beliefs and spirituality without any violence. Classic is the case of Gautam Buddha who became a wandering monk and people became his disciples as and where he went. Such was his effect that in the next few centuries almost the whole of Asia was turning Buddhist. As Buddhism spread, it became a perceived threat to Sanatan Dharma. Then a young boy from Kerala started his journey across India by conquering all regions and people with his weapon “Shashtrartha”. His weapon “Shashtrartha” was debate on Shashtras, spirituality and philosophy of life. No Scholar could defeat him across India and finally he made four Matth’s in all the four regions in India. If you look at the Sufi Saints, their mysticism was such that people of all faiths go to their door step even today. India has innumerable examples, the latest and the best known to the world being Swami Vivekananda. It is said that it were not the mere words,” My Dear brothers and sisters of America” that mesmerized the listeners, it was the true spirit and love behind the words that did the magic.
So, people, beliefs, cultures, political systems etc will keep coming and will keep mingling and will keep improving. If one feels that his or her system is superior, he or she has all the right to spread it and convince people about. In the same conquest, he or she should also be open to learn from others and accept it. So, as things will keep changing, no one has the right to force upon his or her views on others, nobody has the right to eliminate people who do not accept his or her views or beliefs because change is inevitable and killing someone to avoid change is unnatural, thus inhuman.
Mahatma Gandhi has been the tallest icons of non-violence in the modern world. India should be proud that such a soul was born on its soil. So, it’s our foremost duty to adhere to non-violence. Non-Violence is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It’s the strength processed by a free man who is open to change and can express his views without any fear. Non-Violence is the most important characteristic of a free soul. It’s the spirit of Non-Violence that the whole world requires today. May god enlighten us all!!
Happy Independence Day!!

A Small Note on Corruption

As a teenager I once asked my father, Papa how can we get rid of corruption in India like the developed countries have? He told me that these developed nations are also not devoid of Corruption, but, they have almost zero corruption at the level where government transacts with the public. Corruption is quite prevalent at levels where governments, politicians and corporations deal.

In the present times in India, we are only focusing on corruption at the level of corporations and government dealing and painting all politicians with the same brush which has given rise to some leaders over night. We are hardly interested in corruption at lower levels which affects us more.

Eradicating corruption at lower levels requires good governance and good governance requires a non populist approach which we all fail to understand or refuse to understand. This is because good governance would force us to step out of our comfort zones. In 1989 when NT Rama Rao of TDP lost to Congress many people where happy just because they will not have to wear helmets while driving scooters. This is our basic approach.

We have issues if women pillion riders have to wear a helmet, we have issues if we are stringently fined for traffic rule violations, we have issues if the government orders closure of bars at mid night. We have issues with most of the things which are actually good for us collectively as a society.

Now my liking for BJP or in fact parties like BJD, TDP etc is because they give good governance. They are also not able to ensure everything because they have to after all keep the voter happy. But, they have a strong will to improve system and make it deliver.

Next, my opposition to Congress is because it’s the oldest party and has ruled for quite a long time. Most (not everyone) of the people who have joined it ever since independence have had vested interests. Such people want to be associated with the people in power to push their personal agenda. These people look for “Satta Sukh”, the pleasure of being in power.

Such people have also joined parties like BJP, but, they get sidelined as they rise. This is because of the robust organizational structure.

In Politics one has to come to power and sustain in power to bring about change. In a scenario as mentioned above where people have issues in stepping out of their comfort zones, even a right thinking and progressive person also has to manipulate to sustain in power because power is his opportunity to bring about positive change in the society. I am sure that had Gandhiji been in electoral politics, he would have never become a “Mahatma”!

I would like to end with an incident. During college days, a student of some other college came to me and asked me to get some of his personal work done. I told him that he knew so many RSS pracharaks, why doesn’t he ask them for help? His reply was a bit surprising then, “Bhaya unko bataoonga to hone wala kaam bhi nahi hoga”.

All the Best!!

Gujrat 2002 Facts

This is taken from a FB friend's update.Its interesting


2002 Deconstructed

"Ten years on, India owes it to the victims of the Gujarat riots to end the culture of impunity and prosecute those responsible for this open wound on the country's reputation," South Asia director at Human Rights Watch Meenakshi Ganguly said. I completely agree with Ms. Ganguly. But I wouldn’t have done so had she said, “India owes it to the muslims of Gujarat riots to……” She, in fact, did not.
Indians have died in the riots and not just Hindus & Muslims. Who can deny that these riots are a blot on the reputation of our country? There can be no justification for Godhra or post-Godhra riots but I think the truth of Gujarat is not yet known to all. Let the truth be known to all irrespective of who it benefits or indicts. It certainly cannot acquit Modi or BJP because the riots took place under their guard. But are there lies & propaganda being spread? Who gains by these lies? Ideally, it should not have been important to know how many died, who killed, etc since none of these Indians should have been killed by their own, but it is better if people base their decisions based on truth and not lies & half-truths. The information collated in this note has been in the public domain since more than a decade but I believe not all people are aware of these events. This attempt need not be seen as defense of the guilty or the Government at that time unless it suits your agenda and requirement. I don’t think they can be defended. But there are questions, and the devil should be given his due.

Were post-Godhra riots a ‘pogrom’, ‘genocide’, ‘massacre’ or the ‘worst-ever massacre in India.’? You may be reminded of similar characterizations by others in another context, which have rightly been dismissed as fantastic on this page.
Ranganath Mishra Commission gave the number of 1984 Sikh-riot victims as 3874 of which 2307 were in delhi.

Is 1984 forgotten or forgiven, since the learned men and media are not talking about bringing justice to its victims any longer?
Who apologized for those riots? Who showed remorse?
Which political leader or how many rioters were convicted for those riots? And who killed these 3874 innocent citizens of India within 3 days? How come not even a single rioter was killed during the 5 days of rioting during 1984? Was not imposing curfew in Delhi a sinister plot of the then Government?
No, this is not what aboutery but a reminder to those who need to ask these questions as well while demanding answers for the Gujarat riots. It is also important to know the reaction of both governments in 1984 & 2002 during the riots.

Was it really a one-sided massacre?

1. If 790 muslims & 254 hindus were killed during post-Godhra riots, why are killings of muslims exaggerated to the levels of thousands?
2. Why isn’t the killing of 254 hindus in the same riots ever mentioned either by BJP baiters or the media? Isn’t it strange?
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=46538


Who killed these 254 hindus? The poltergeist in S-4 coach? Does this mean that Muslims were offensive as well?

3. The Times of India reported on 17th March that more than 10,000 Hindus were living in refugee camps in Ahmedabad. Again on 25 April 2002, out of the 1, 40, 000 people living in various refugee camps, more than 42,000 of them were Hindus. This despite of Muslim population being 10% and the state governed by a Hindu nationalist party. What does this indicate?
4. Large scale retaliation from the Hindus started on the 27th night and went on through the day on 28th February. . On 28 February there was large-scale retaliation from the Hindus. But on 1st March, the second day of the riots, the Muslim counterattack began. It was a one-sided affair only for 24-hours. Muslims retaliated from 28th February onwards.

India Today in the weekly’s issue dated 15 April 2002:

“On 13/3/2002, the Supreme Court’s ruling banning any religious activity in Ayodhya proved a psychological setback to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its affiliates. It was also the day when some people in the walled city of Ahmedabad burst crackers in celebration and unfurled banners saying-“You darkened our skies. We will spill your blood on the streets.”
5. The Hindu on 2/2/2002

“But unlike Thursday (i.e. Feb 28) when one community was entirely at the receiving end, the minority backlash (on 1st March, Friday) caused further worsening of the situation. Police presence had little impact on the two communities pelting stones at each other in Bapunagar, Gomtipur, Dariapur, Shahpur, Naroda and other areas from where incidents of firing had been reported. But there were no reports of casualty. Pitched battle was continuing between the two communities late in the evening. The official sources said timely arrival of the police foiled a retaliatory attempt to break into a prominent temple in Jamalpur locality in the walled city.”

6. The Indian Express 2/3/2002: “Tension escalated in the walled city areas just before the Friday prayers. There were violent clashes between mobs in Jamalpur, Bapunagar, and Rakhial.” Clearly Muslims were on the offensive. And The

7. Times of India also reported the same day: “There were signs of retaliation in areas like Juhapura, Kalupur, Dariapur and Shahpur…”

8. The Times of India’s on 18/3/2002:
“Mobs attack police post, combing operations on
Ahmedabad: Police have carried out massive combing operations in the city following attacks by violent mobs on the security personnel on Friday night. During the combing operations, a 65-year-old man died of shock after he was arrested by an army contingent from Dariapur for possessing a revolver. A youth was killed in police firing when a 5,000-strong mob tried to attack Dudheshwar police chowky in Madhavpura area. According to police sources, an army contingent, which was confronted by a 700-strong mob, identified the accused, a resident of Char Musa Ni Pole in Dariapur, who was brandishing a revolver and a big knife. The mob was dispersed by the army. In the combing operation that followed, the army men traced the accused at Char Musa Ni pole in Dariapur. He was arrested and taken to Dariapur police station where he complained of uneasiness. The accused was taken to the civil hospital where he was declared brought dead. A few hours later, a 23-year-old fell victim to police firing while eight persons were injured in Dudheshwar area when police tried to disperse a violent mob. “Our men braved heavy stone-pelting and petrol bombs but the mob swelled beyond 5,000 around 3 am, forcing us to open fire in self-defence,” says G C Ravat, senior Police Inspector at Madhavpura police station. The police and State Reserve Police personnel fired 21 rounds to disperse the mob and prevent it from advancing to the majority community-dominated areas. Madhavpura police has registered a case against 38 persons for murderous assault on police chowky and clamped curfew in its police station area. Police recovered crude bombs, sharp-edged weapons, slings and crates of petrol bombs. “We have recovered a lot of substances which could be possibly used for fuelling violence,” says M T Mehta, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad. Madhavpura police also opened fire in Idgah area to control violence unleashed by a 500-strong mob. Three people were injured. Police fired three rounds and lobbed three tear gas cells to disperse a mob at Rakhial cross-roads. Meanwhile, indefinite curfew continued in the areas of Kalupur, Shahpur and Karanj. Madhavpura and Dariapur were put under curfew since 3 am on Saturday. Police arrested 112 persons from six police commissionerate zones. Reports of crowds assembling at various places in Amraiwadi, Rakhial, Khadia, Karanj and Kalupur areas kept pouring in at the police control room.”

9. India Today written by Uday Mahurkar in the weekly’s issue dated 20 May 2002:
“On the morning of May 7, Amrit Chagganlal, a camel cart owner, was passing by the Sarkhej area on Ahmedabad’s outskirts. It was the 70th day since communal riots had engulfed Gujarat following the killing of 57 Ramsevaks at Godhra on February 27. It was difficult and dangerous times but Chagganlal ventured out in a bid to eke out a living. A mob suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere, surrounded him and hacked him to death before throwing his body into a well. Chagganlal was the 933rd victim of the continuing communal violence in Gujarat that shows no signs of ebbing…
By nightfall, the death toll had crossed the 940 mark when a group of Muslims in Ahmedabad’s Shah Alam area drew Hindus out by throwing bombs at their homes in the Maninagar area and then launched a fierce attack with country-made weapons and crude bombs. BSF jawans who intervened were fired upon before they killed five of the attackers and arrested several others with a huge quantity of weapons including a country made cannon. True, since the last round of violence began on Ramnavmi day on April 21, violence has been restricted to Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Lunawada, a small town in Panchmahal distric. The repeated recovery of huge catches from Muslim pockets forced some of the ministers to ask BJP about the steps the police was taking to flush out the armouries…
Says Dharmesh Vyas, 26, a employee of a private company who is recovering from bullet wounds sustained in firing by Muslim mobs: “If Modi is removed, the violence will increase because there is a feeling among the Hindus that the riots are now engineered by BJP’s rivals to get rid of him. It is BJP’s presence that is keeping Hindus in check. Once he is gone, things will become uncontrollable”…
In Ahmedabad, riots continue despite the two peace meetings between religious leaders of both Muslims and the RSS-VHP combine and joint statements calling for peace. It took the VHP less than two days to consider backtracking from peace initiatives following attacks on Hindu locality.
Among the factors which kept the communal pot boiling in Ahmedabad are the 40-odd relief camps in the city in which over 50,000 Muslims are lodged…There is pressure on the government to close down some of these relief camps amid unconfirmed reports that at least some of these camps have become sanctuaries for Muslim trouble-makers…”

10. The Tribune on 30/4/2002
“Ahmedabad, April 29
The death toll in Gujarat since the February 27 Sabarmati Express carnage reached 900 today, with the fragile peace being shattered repeatedly in Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
The police said of the seven persons seriously injured when the crude bombs they were making exploded in their house in Kalupur this morning, two had died in hospital. One person was stabbed to death in Gomtipur within hours of the conclusion of the peace rally led by Defence Minister George Fernandes and Chief Minister Narendra BJP. Prior to the rally, three persons had died in Chandola Talao area under the Maninagar police station.In Kalupur, two persons died in police firing late last night as sporadic violence, arson and group clashes continued.
A report from Anand said that two scooter-borne men tried to shoot a man on his morning walk, but he ducked in time. The police later recovered the revolver and cartridge shell from the spot.

11. Another story of same day:
VADODARA: Despite imposition of indefinite curfew and heavy security bandobast, sporadic incidents of violence and arson continued unabated in Vadodara city for the fourth consecutive day.
At least three persons were injured in private firing and another in stone throwing following group clashes at Navidharti in the curfew-bound Karelibaug area, where a rocket launcher was also recovered by the police early today.
Reports said at least 15 persons were injured, including five in private firing and as many in acid bomb attacks, during the past 24 hours in the city as mobs engaged in intense fighting. Miscreants also reportedly set ablaze more than 36 shops, houses, kiosks, restaurants and godowns in the riot-hit city in the past 24 hours.
Reports said several families belonging to the majority (Hindu) community had fled from Tandalja following mounting communal tension in the area, where the authorities had provided shelter to nearly 2000 members of the minority community. Meanwhile, the police registered a case of attempt to murder against Congress councillor Manzoorkhan Pathan and arrested his brother on the same charge for their alleged murderous attack on a family at Junigadi Harijan Basti on Saturday.
According to the police, violence also erupted in Savli past night, forcing the police to open two rounds of fire to disperse the warring mobs. UNI”

12. The Times of India on 18/3/2002 written by Leena Misra:
“Ahmedabad: When Union Home Minister L K Advani answered Rajya Sabha MP Shabana Azmi’s query in the parliament on Monday saying that more from the majority community fell to police bullets than the minorities in the recent riots, he was referring to the whole of Gujarat. Sixty per cent of the people who died due to police firing were from the majority community, the state-wide figures show. But the scene in Ahmedabad is quite the reverse. In the city that is considered communally and politically most volatile, more members of the minority community died in the police firing. According to figures available, 57 per cent (23 out of 40) of the people killed in the police firing belong to the minority community. This figure should be seen with the toll of rioting in Ahmedabad which shows that out of the 286 people killed, some 41 were Hindus killed in about 5,500 rounds of firing by the police. Similarly in the state, of the 571 people who died in other violence, 494 people from the minority community were killed in the riots that followed the Godhra carnage as compared to 77 from the majority community. But the state figures, as against Ahmedabad, show that of the 100 that succumbed to the police firing, 60 were Hindus.”

13. Times of India, Ahmedabad Edition on 28/2/2002: Police officials said that the backlash could be especially seen in Ahmedabad, where out of the total number of persons injured in stabbings, 62 are Hindus and 30 Muslims. The overall figures for Gujarat of those injured in stabbings tell a different story, with 131 Hindus and 179 Muslims.

14. 18th march 2002:: Leena Misra :::: …..by 17th March,137 Hindus had been killed in the riots,77 in riots and 60 in police firing. That is a total of 137 Hindus.

Did the State connive with the rioters?

15. 100% of 6000-strong police force was on the streets of Ahmedabad but just not enough to contain such wide-spread violence, 1500 of them armed. SRF too was pushed into service. 1000-strong army contingent arrived on 28th February itself with more to follow the following days.

16. The Times of India: “The sparse police presence looked like a drop in the ocean of violence.” This despite the deployment of the entire police force.” The Hindu: “Mob fury reached its crescendo and “Police were outnumbered by the rioters”. The Telegraph & The Tribune reported the same. The Times of India reported on 2nd March 2002 on events on 1st March (Friday)- “Neither the Army nor the shoot-at-sight orders given to Gujarat Police could stop riots on Friday 1st March…” And this was on 1st March 2002 when the violence was much less than 28 Feb (Thursday).

17. Shoot-at-sight orders given to police on the night of 28th Februray itself. The police shot 98 rioters between February 27th & 2nd March, majority of the hindus.?

18. More than 600 rounds of fire were fired in Ahmedabad on 27th February.

19. The police fired more than 3900 rounds & about 6500 tear gas shells between 27th February & 1st March – 3 days.

20. Shoot-at-sight order issued in Godhra on the night of 27th February itself.

21. Despite the presence of the Army for 73 out of 74 days, the police fired as many 15000 tear gas shells, and a total of 10500 rounds. Out of the total people killed in the riots, about 20 % have been shot dead by the police.

22. “On 1st March, the police shot dead 17 people in Ahmedabad alone-as reported by The Hindu dated 2nd March 2002.

23. “On 2nd March 2002-police firing resulted in 47 deaths” The Hindu, 3/3/2002.

24. Indian Express on 3/3/2002 said that 77 people were killed in Police/Army firing on 2nd March 2002. Majority of those killed were hindus.

25. Indefinite curfew was clamped in 26 cities/towns including ahmedabad, surat, baroda, rajkot, nadiad, anand and kaira by Feb 28th in addition to the indefinite curfew in force in Godhra since February 27 : The Hindu dated 1st March 2002

26. 827 preventive arrests were made on 27th February itself.

27. On 28 April 2002 The Times of India reported that 9954 Hindus and 4035 Muslims were arrested by police as substantive arrests and 17947 Hindus and 3616 Muslims were arrested as a preventive measure.

28. Of 25486 accused the Guj police arrested 25,204 people

29. Indian Express, ToI, Telegraph, Hindu and other newspapers reported that army units had arrived in Ahmedabad and other cities. This means that army started arriving on 28th itself. State Government had requested for the army presence in cities/towns on 27th itself and the then Defense Minister, George Fernandes, reached Ahmedabad on 28th morning along with senior army officers.

30. Army staged its first flag march on 1st March at 11:30am with shoot-at-sight orders in hand.

31. The Indian Express dated 3rd March reported that 77 people were killed in Police firing on 2nd March 2002, majority of them Hindus. Also The Times of India in a report titled “More fall prey to police firings in Gujarat” dated 28 April 2002 says that a total of 35,552 people were arrested for rioting in Gujarat- out of whom 27,901 were Hindus.

32. Of the first 285 convictions for post-godhra riots, 251 were hindus. Gujarat police has had a strong role in the courts being able to convict them.

33. The Adivasi Outrage & How police played a vital role in saving muslims losing more than 30 personnel.

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20020422/states.shtml

34. Action-Reaction-Action-Rea………
http://archives.digitaltoday.in/indiatoday/20020415/states.html

35. The India Today 20/5/2002: ”A series of attacks on policemen by Muslims has further added to the lack of faith. Now, strapped with the anti-Muslim label, the police has been slow in acting against Muslim fanatics”.

36. Anti-BJP camp claims he is not sorry about 2002. In the State Assembly after the riots NM made a statement that said, “Are we not supposed to soul-search ourselves? Whether it is Godhra incident or post-Godhra it does not enhance the prestige of any decent society. The riots are a stigma on humanity and do not help anyone to hold his head high. Then why is there a difference of opinion”.


I also came across quite a few comments since 2002 from senior leaders of BJP condemning the riots and expressing sadness. Honestly, I did believe (as I was fed this by the media) that except for Atal Bihari Vajpayee & LK Advani, no other senior BJP leader showed any remorse. These comments came as a pleasant surprise, particularly Narendra Modi’s comments.

1. After the 2002 Gujarat riots Narendra Modi made a statement in the State Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) in March 2002. One paragraph from that statement is: “Are we not supposed to soul-search ourselves? Whether it is Godhra incident or post-Godhra it does not enhance the prestige of any decent society. The riots are a stigma on humanity and do not help anyone to hold his head high. Then why is there a difference of opinion”.
2. On Aaj Tak‘s Prabhu Chawla on its program Seedhi Baat, the excerpts of which were published in India Today weekly dated 4 Nov 2002, Narendra Modi was asked “Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani have said that whatever happened in Gujarat was wrong” to which he said, “I say the same thing. The communal riots in Gujarat were unfortunate and we are sad they took place.”
3. ”Constitution of India is supreme for us. As a Chief Minister of the state, pain of anybody in the state is my pain. (Delivering) Justice to everyone is the duty of the state,” BJP said

There has been no apology from either Narendra Modi or any other senior BJP leader. Maybe he is waiting to be elected as the Prime Minister like Manmohan Singh, post which – like him – he will do so.

Abuse me:- Its Sad but True!!

You are free to abuse me for this, but, I have a few points to make after listening to so many people during these days...

1) Women say they do not wish to be seen as sex objects: - I say women should stop projecting themselves as sex objects (Look i have said nothing about clothes, you can say so). But, the moment they show me their legs and curves, frankly speaking, I will see them as a sex object. I will of course not rape them, but, that’s only my case! Now, kindly do not tell me about the women in my family. I am conditioned enough not to look at them that way.
2) This is about the 18 year old who has been accused in this case. People have started discussing on the age to declare a person as juvenile. I ask, what has the society given to that 18 year old? He would have himself been born to abuses and brought up with abuses. His life itself would have been an abuse. He himself has been a victim of rape by society. I can still understand a 25 year old understanding the rule/fear of Law. I have serious doubts about a 18 year old being able to understand the rule/fear of law, especially one having lived such a life.
3) I still have my belief in humanity and am sure that at least one of them would have stopped the main accused while he was assaulting the woman in such a barbaric/inhuman manner.

Let the course of law prevail and let us not have a media trial to pressurize the government so that it acts in haste. I believe that the law will take its own course as it took in the case of Kasab who committed a no lesser crime.

Women Women Women

Yesterday in a newspaper, I saw the photograph of a girl holding a placard which said “If I show my legs, it does not mean I intend to spread them”. I could not distinguish whether it was “BOLD” or “VULGAR”??

In any case, the people here in Delhi are fighting for empowerment of women. They want Delhi to be a safe place for women. A place where women can go to work at any hour, can have their opinion, can wear anything they wish to and etc. I agree!!
Let me narrate a short story. A girl from a Yadav family of a sub-urban area in Delhi qualified for MBBS. She was ecstatic, so was her family. While she was doing her MBBS she fell in love a Jat boy who was her course mate. In the final year of her course, her parents asked her about the kind of life partner she would like to have. She told her parents that she had already found one and would like to marry him. When her parents inquired about the guy, she told them everything. Her parents were not ready to get her married into a different caste. On further insistence her parents called the guy and tried to convince him to end their relationship. They guy did not agree to do so. The girl’s parents again tried to convince the girl. She was adamant and did not bow down to her parent’s pressure. Later in night, her father, with the help of her relatives strangulated her to death and cremated her in the morning. No inquiry, no police case, no remorse. The End!!

No one knows this story. There must be many such stories which would have gone unnoticed as they never came out. The only question her parents were left to answer was “Kyun bheja ladki ko bahar padhne? Humne pehle hi mana kiya tha!” (Why did you send your girl to study away from home? We had asked you not to do so).
I am concerned about safety of women who go to work. I wish girls get all the rights, but, at present, I am least bothered about the right of a girl to wear anything or the right of a girl to party all night.

I am most concerned about the girl who will have to stop her studies after this incident, the girl who will never be able to come out of the “Purda” citing threat, the female who will never grow more that a fetus. All this protest does not bring about any change in her life.

Sorry to say, but I feel, the crowds coming out in protest are more concerned (other than getting guilty punished) about the right of the girl to wear whatever she wants to and the girl who wants to be safe during a late night party. I believe that depiction of lavish lifestyle by men and women is also a deterrent to a woman being allowed to go to school or a woman being allowed to shed the “Purdah”. Sad but True!
If modern woman expects a man to be mature enough and support her cause for gender equality, I would also urge the modern woman to think of the woman who lives in backward parts of India who is looking for an opportunity to breathe in free air. I believe that its always the responsibility of the empowered and the educated to make way for the liberation of the underprivileged and undereducated.

Right and wrong is not absolute. Something right for someone could be wrong for someone else! Finally, India is not Hypocritical, India is dual. India has duality in its society which needs to be addressed! It’s a process of slow change and I wish we have a better society in the near future.

My Introduction to Fundamentalism

To tell you about my introduction to Fundamentalism, I will have to start the story right from the days of my schooling. I was born and brought up in a very protected environment; it was high on intellectual/academic inputs but almost completely lacked real time exposure to life. I knew only two campuses, NIRD (National Institute of Rural Development) where I stayed and NPA (National Police Academy) where my school was. By protected environment I mean, I had no opportunities to make day to day operational decisions. My life was highly structured, wake up at six, in the toilet for half an hour completing my sleep, opening books for half an hour, getting ready for school, catching the school bus at 8.15, coming back at 3.30, again opening the book for about an hour, playing in the campus from 5 to 7, again opening the book from 7 to 9, then watching TV till 10 and then finally going to sleep. This was my daily schedule which changed only on holidays and festivals.


By intellectual inputs, I mean, I believed beyond doubt in facts like India is the greatest country in the world, India is an example of unity in diversity, Indian freedom fighters were the greatest people ever born on earth, we should respect elders, all religions should be respected, cigarettes and liquor are a curse to the society etc. Lack of practical exposure can be ascertained by the fact that, I was bhaya to all girls younger to me and all girls elder to me were didi’s (no scope left for morality!!), Rakshabandhan was among the most awaited festivals, the number of Rakhis on a boy’s hand was a measure of his local standing, and finally, I believed that affairs between boys and girls could happen only in movies! These thoughts and perceptions were deeply ingrained in me, this can be figured out by the fact that carnal feelings towards a female always had a fair amount of guilt attached to it, traces of it still carry on!

Although, I started experiencing life firsthand from class eleven. The first shock of my life came to me when my father was transferred to NIRD’s regional centre at Guwahati, Assam, as its director.I moved to Guwahati when I got into class twelve. The Director’s Bungalow, in the campus, was not ready. Thus, we had to take a house on rent in the city. New place meant new set of friends, both at home and school, new thoughts, new practises and new topics of discussion. One important topic of discussion which gave me my first shock was “the indifferent attitude of India towards the North Eastern states” (I do not know if this still remains as the favourite topic as things have changed a lot in the past 15 years there). I actually could not understand the difference between “India” and “Northeast”. It was little later that I could figure out that India meant “New Delhi”. Most people might not be able to relate to my confusion, but, believe me it was confusing. My belief of India had shaken. Now, it meant, “Hyderabad and India were different”, this was not acceptable to me. I started taking these discussions personally, I started defending India because I believed India could never be wrong. This was my first expression of Fundamentalism. I call it fundamentalism because I defended India because of my feelings and beliefs, not by rationality or logic. I made my logic on the basis of my feelings and beliefs; one can call it as conditioning also. Above all, it was a fundamentalist approach because I felt that I was right and “they were wrong”.



This was the time when my de-conditioning started. I, while introspecting, had started questioning my beliefs. I started searching for India. Some of my personality traits like an inquisitive and rebellious mind, docile nature and ability to survive in an unsettled physical and mental state have been very helpful in my quest. These traits also act like double edged swords, thus, if I have gained a lot out of it, I have also lost a lot. Anyways, all this is a part and parcel of life! Also, I will limit my discussion on my quest for India here as this piece of writing is also a part of the same. One realization I made during my stay in the Northeast is about the importance of politics and economics in a person’s life. Although, I still did not know (at that time) how these two things are important! Fortunately or Unfortunately, I somehow qualified for engineering immediately after my twelfth class. My only option was REC Srinagar as I was not a domicile of the state and was not eligible for admission in Assam Government Colleges and my score in the entrance test did not qualify me for a seat in any other REC. I believe, this was destined to happen as this was the place that I was about to get the second major shock of my life.



The two questions which I had to answer within a few days of coming to Kashmir and were no less that a shock to me were: - “Tum Hindustan se aye ho?”(Meaning, have you come from India?) and “What is your religion?”. Although, my being a Hindu and being from a different state did not in any way affect my relationship with the locals. But still, my confusion prevailed. As far as I remember, I up till an age of 13 or 14 did not know that I am a Brahmin. Another thing that I was fed with during the 1992 riots is that, it was not Hindus and Muslims fighting, these were all hired criminals. There was no difference between Hindus and Muslims. I still do not know if this is the right way of upbringing secular children in secular India! In the context of the questions relating to Hindustan and religion, I later observed that religion had a lot of involvement in the daily life of a Kashmiri. This never existed in my life; I did not know the importance of religion in my life. The only thing I knew was that Eid was a Muslim festival and seriously felt sad for Muslims because they did not have exciting festivals like Holi and Diwali. Because of this involvement of religion in daily life, I got introduced to Islam. It was great and exciting, the people talking about Islam were not necessarily the Mullahs, there were many clean shaven, jeans wearing, and convent educated boys giving logical views on practises in Islam and their validity in daily life. I was impressed and in my own words “I would have converted to Islam, had those people convinced me of their view on mandatory hijab by women and had they not, of course unknowingly, hurt my pride as a Hindu”(Of course, courage would have also been required). I had started comparing Hinduism with Islam. I did not know about any logic supporting daily life practises in Hinduism. On the contrary, I had only heard of bad practises like casteism, sati pratha, etc in Hinduism. To be precise, I had started developing an inferiority complex. I felt, I belonged to a non contemporary religion which had outdated practises. I had no answers for these questions and was also unable to find a source to get the answers. My major handicap that continues to be one is that I am not a voracious reader and there was no source other than books, especially in those days when internet had just reached India, which could have solved my problem. But, I was destined to get my answers from a different channel. Differences cropped up between students from other regions and the students from Kashmir, tension escalated and later the students from other regions decided that it was not safe for them to continue their studies in Kashmir. They decided to approach the Government of India and ask the government to move us all out of Kashmir. The government, after months of following up and protest, finally agreed. I was moved from REC Srinagar to REC Bhopal. In the process of following up with the government, I got in touch with RSS (Rastriya Swayamsewak Sangh). RSS sympathised with us during our migration process and helped us on many accounts. Also, interaction with some top leaders like LK Advani, who were also former RSS pracharaks, created a soft corner for RSS in my heart. This was the start of my association with Hindu fundamentalism.



REC Bhopal was altogether quite different from REC Srinagar. Students were least bothered about the world and were interested in living their life to the extreme. As usual, I because of my habit of giving valuable advice free of cost on all issues irrespective of the issue’s relevance to me and irrespective of having being asked to give one entered the “Hall of Fame” of the college. In the mean time, I also had RSS pracharaks visiting me. This was because, I was among the few people who entertained them and showed keen interest in their “idea of India”. I was already confused with both India and Hinduism. These were the people who connected India with Hinduism. Their idea of “India is Hinduism” and “ Hinduism is India” excited me. This was for the first time I was hearing rational talk on India and Hinduism. My inferiority complex, of being a Hindu, attracted me towards these pracharaks and they quenched my thirst for logical Hinduism. Adding to my inclination was the fact that these pracharaks were highly qualified men with modern logic supporting traditional Hindu practises. One of them was a M.Tech from REC Bhopal itself. As my association with RSS increased, I was invited for a two day introduction camp in Bhopal itself. I attended it, this increased my attachment with the organisation. Again, I went on a two day visit to tribal villages in Madhya Pradesh. This further increased my respect for the organisation. I started conforming to the view that it is only because of the sangh that the country is surviving attempts by foreign forces to disintegrate it. My logic started growing stronger and stronger in support of the sangh. I started feeling that these were actually the answers I was looking for since a long time. But, my personality traits mentioned above helped me again. It was later, I realised that all that these people whom I met in Kashmir and Bhopal were talking about two truths. Like these two many other truths also existed in the world. Religion is a social, economic and political system which stands on very strong logic. But, believing that only my system is right and that of others is wrong, is a fundamentalist approach. Although, you will not find a single fundamentalist claiming openly that other systems are wrong, but, they so strongly impress upon the fact about their system being right that a person by general analogy infers that the other system is wrong! A person starts looking only at the threats associated with the other system and does not look at the liberals having faith in that system around him as his strength. Another weakness of these fundamentalists is that these people use time based and incident based logic. This can be noted by two common observations, a fundamentalist always says before he puts his point, “in those days” or “if you look at this incident”. Now, I reply to these arguments by saying; “gone are the days” and “look at other incidents”.



I was lucky that I got out of the clutches of fundamentalists, but, everybody is not that lucky. Some end up losing their lives and consider it to be their passports to heaven, jannat, swarg etc. Mind you all these are different. Because, reaching here requires you to stick to different set of practices. As one of my college friend, Kesari Kumar, used to put forth to my Kashmiri seniors. “Sir, you will never go to swarg because you eat beef and I will never go to jannat because I do not offer namaz”, Strange Indeed! Even more dangerous than their misinformed death is that, these people inspire many others to follow their path. In the specific case of Kashmir, I would consider that inferiority complex has developed in a Kashmiri after being branded as a terrorist for more than two decades now! This multiplies in an idle condition where a person has nothing to do for self development. He receives no appreciation, here he finds the idea of giving life for the purpose of so called truth better than living. He might get appreciation for his sacrifice, but what is the use when he himself is not there to listen to it. Adding to the woes of a Kashmiri is the way in which the world conceives of Islam these days. This is the view that needs to change if the world wants to get rid of Islamic fundamentalism.

Thus, as I got solace in the company of RSS, a Kashmiri Muslim might get it in the company of Hisbul Mujahedeen. RSS gives you a way out. Does HM give? Does a Kashmiri have a chance to come out? Can life be so rude to a Kashmiri!!

Kasab Hanged- There's nothing to rejoice about it

It was very saddening to see my frenzied fellow countrymen celebrating a person’s death yesterday, no matter that the person was a terrorist. This, I believe, is not our value system. Yesterday evening one of the radio stations was broadcasting a story (supposed to be humorous) in which it named a dog as Kasab. I consider it disgusting and not humorous.

Although, in principle I am against capital punishment, Kasab’s hanging for me was a routine legal activity for the heinous crime he had committed. And, I do not consider it as avenging the death of our slain soldiers. I carry a very high regard for our soldiers who fought to protect Mumbai from these terrorists. Had Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhwi been killed or captured, I would have considered it as a big step in our fight against terrorism.

Kasab was a kid who lived in poverty. He was brainwashed by radical Islamists and lured using money into the game of death. I consider him to be a victim of the system which could not give him proper upbringing and opportunity. We have many such similar cases here in India as well.

I personally feel that he could have been reformed and could have been presented as an example to the world. He could have been an example for all those misguided youth of the world who have taken up arms considering terrorism to be a holy war.

All this could not happen. Still, I believe we should not be rejoicing the death of a misguided youth. Here I find something that Gandhiji quoted as a perfect fit in the situation, I quote him: - “Hate the crime not the criminal”!!

Two Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation

How many Ramayanas ? Three hundred? Three thousand? At the end of some Ramayanas , a question is sometimes asked: How many Ramayanas have there been? And there are stories that answer the question. Here is one. One day when Rama was sitting on his throne, his ring fell off. When it touched the earth, it made a hole in the ground and disappeared into it. It was gone. His trusty henchman, Hanuman, was at his feet. Rama said to Hanuman, "Look, my ring is lost. Find it for me." Now Hanuman can enter any hole, no matter how tiny. He had the power to become the smallest of the small and larger than the largest thing. So he took on a tiny form and went down the hole. He went and went and went and suddenly fell into the netherworld. There were women down there. "Look, a tiny monkey! It's fallen from above? Then they caught him and placed him on a platter (thali ). The King of Spirits (bhut ), who lives in the netherworld, likes to eat animals. So Hanuman was sent to him as part of his dinner, along with his vegetables. Hanuman sat on the platter, wondering what to do. While this was going on in the netherworld, Rama sat on his throne on the earth above. The sage Vasistha and the god Brahma came to see him. They said to Rama, "We want to talk privately with you. We don't want anyone to hear what we say or interrupt it. Do we agree?" "All right," said Rama, "we'll talk." Then they said, "Lay down a rule. If anyone comes in as we are talking, his head should be cut off." "It will be done," said Rama. Who would be the most trustworthy person to guard the door? Hanuman had gone down to fetch the ring. Rama trusted no one more than Laksmana, ________________________________________ ― 23 ― so he asked Laksmana to stand by the door. "Don't allow anyone to enter," he ordered. Laksmana was standing at the door when the sage Visvamitra appeared and said, "I need to see Rama at once. It's urgent. Tell me, where is Rama?" Laksmana said, "Don't go in now. He is talking to some people. It's important." "What is there that Rama would hide from me?" said Visvamitra. "I must go in, right now." Laksmana said, "I'11 have to ask his permission before I can let you in." "Go in and ask then." "I can't go in till Rama comes out. You'll have to wait." "If you don't go in and announce my presence, I'll burn the entire kingdom of Ayodhya with a curse," said Visvamitra. Laksmana thought, "If I go in now, I'll die. But if I don't go, this hotheaded man will burn down the kingdom. All the subjects, all things living in it, will die. It's better that I alone should die." So he went right in. Rama asked him, "What's the matter?" "Visvamitra is here." "Send him in." So Visvamitra went in. The private talk had already come to an end. Brahma and Vasistha had come to see Rama and say to him, "Your work in the world of human beings is over. Your incarnation as Rama must now he given up. Leave this body, come up, and rejoin the gods." That's all they wanted to say. Laksmana said to Rama, "Brother, you should cut off my head." Rama said, "Why? We had nothing more to say. Nothing was left. So why should I cut off your head?" Laksmana said, "You can't do that. You can't let me off because I'm your brother. There'll be a blot on Rama's name. You didn't spare your wife. You sent her to the jungle. I must be punished. I will leave." Laksmana was an avatar of Sesa, the serpent on whom Visnu sleeps. His time was up too. He went directly to the river Sarayu and disappeared in the flowing waters. When Laksmana relinquished his body, Rama summoned all his followers, Vibhisana, Sugriva, and others, and arranged for the coronation of his twin sons, Lava and Kusa. Then Rama too entered the river Sarayu. All this while, Hanuman was in the netherworld. When he was finally taken to the King of Spirits, he kept repeating the name of Rama. "Rama Rama Rama . . ." Then the King of Spirits asked, "Who are you?" "Hanuman." "Hanuman? Why have you come here?" ________________________________________ ― 24 ― "Rama's ring fell into a hole. I've come to fetch it." The king looked around and showed him a platter. On it were thousands of rings. They were all Rama's rings. The king brought the platter to Hanuman, set it down, and said, "Pick out your Rama's ring and take it." They were all exactly the same. "I don't know which one it is," said Hanuman, shaking his head. The King of Spirits said, "There have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter. When you return to earth, you will not find Rama. This incarnation of Rama is now over. Whenever an incarnation of Rama is about to be over, his ring falls down. I collect them and keep them. Now you can go." So Hanuman left. This story is usually told to suggest that for every such Rama there is a Ramayana .[1] The number of Ramayanas and the range of their influence in South and Southeast Asia over the past twenty-five hundred years or more are astonishing. Just a list of languages in which the Rama story is found makes one gasp: Annamese, Balinese, Bengali, Cambodian, Chinese, Gujarati, Javanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khotanese, Laotian, Malaysian, Marathi, Oriya, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Santali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan—to say nothing of Western languages. Through the centuries, some of these languages have hosted more than one telling of the Rama story. Sanskrit alone contains some twenty-five or more tellings belonging to various narrative genres (epics, kavyas or ornate poetic compositions, puranas or old mythological stories, and so forth). If we add plays, dance-dramas, and other performances, in both the classical and folk traditions, the number of Ramayanas grows even larger. To these must be added sculpture and bas-reliefs, mask plays, puppet plays and shadow plays, in all the many South and Southeast Asian cultures.[2] Camille Bulcke, a student of the Ramayana , counted three hundred tellings.[3] It's no wonder that even as long ago as the fourteenth century, Kumaravyasa, a Kannada poet, chose to write a Mahabharata , because he heard the cosmic serpent which upholds the earth groaning under the burden of Ramayana poets ( tinikidanuphanirayaramayanadakavigalabharadali ). In this paper, indebted for its data to numerous previous translators and scholars, I would like to sort out for myself, and I hope for others, how these hundreds of tellings of a story in different cultures, languages, and religious traditions relate to each other: what gets translated, transplanted, transposed. Valmiki and Kampan: Two Ahalyas Obviously, these hundreds of tellings differ from one another. I have come to prefer the word tellings to the usual terms versions or variants because the latter terms can and typically do imply that there is an invariant, an original or ________________________________________ ― 25 ― Ur -text—usually Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana , the earliest and most prestigious of them all. But as we shall see, it is not always Valmiki's narrative that is carried from one language to another. It would be useful to make some distinctions before we begin. The tradition itself distinguishes between the Rama story (ramakatha ) and texts composed by a specific person—Valmiki, Kampan, or Krttivasa, for example. Though many of the latter are popularly called Ramayanas (like Kamparamayanam ), few texts actually bear the title Ramayana ; they are given titles like Iramavataram (The Incarnation of Rama), Ramcaritmanas (The Lake of the Acts of Rama), Ramakien (The Story of Rama), and so on. Their relations to the Rama story as told by Valmiki also vary. This traditional distinction between katha (story) and kavya (poem) parallels the French one between sujet and recit , or the English one between story and discourse.[4] It is also analogous to the distinction between a sentence and a speech act. The story may be the same in two tellings, but the discourse may be vastly different. Even the structure and sequence of events may be the same, but the style, details, tone, and texture—and therefore the import—may be vastly different. Here are two tellings of the "same" episode, which occur at the same point in the sequence of the narrative. The first is from the first book (Balakanda ) of Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana ; the second from the first canto (Palakantam ) of Kampan's Iramavataram in Tamil. Both narrate the story of Ahalya. The Ahalya Episode: Valmiki Seeing Mithila, Janaka's white and dazzling city, all the sages cried out in praise, "Wonderful! How wonderful!" Raghava, sighting on the outskirts of Mithila an ashram, ancient, unpeopled, and lovely, asked the sage, "What is this holy place, so like an ashram but without a hermit? Master, I'd like to hear: whose was it?" Hearing Raghava's words, the great sage Visvamitra, man of fire, expert in words answered, "Listen, Raghava, I'll tell you whose ashram this was and how it was cursed by a great man in anger. It was great Gautama's, this ashram that reminds you of heaven, worshiped even by the gods. Long ago, with Ahalya he practiced tapas[5] here ________________________________________ ― 26 ― for countless years. Once, knowing that Gautama was away, Indra (called Thousand Eyes), Saci's husband, took on the likeness of the sage, and said to Ahalya: 'Men pursuing their desire do not wait for the proper season, O you who have a perfect body. Making love with you: that's what I want. That waist of yours is lovely.' She knew it was Indra of the Thousand Eyes in the guise of the sage. Yet she, wrongheaded woman, made up her mind, excited, curious about the king of the gods. And then, her inner being satisfied, she said to the god, 'I'm satisfied, king of the gods. Go quickly from here. O giver of honor, lover, protect yourself and me.' And Indra smiled and said to Ahalya, 'Woman of lovely hips, I am very content. I'll go the way I came.' Thus after making love, he came out of the hut made of leaves. And, O Rama, as he hurried away, nervous about Gautama and flustered, he caught sight of Gautama coming in, the great sage, unassailable by gods and antigods, empowered by his tapas , still wet with the water of the river he'd bathed in, blazing like fire, with kusa grass and kindling in his hands. Seeing him, the king of the gods was terror-struck, his face drained of color. The sage, facing Thousand Eyes now dressed as the sage, the one rich in virtue and the other with none, spoke to him in anger: 'You took my form, you fool, and did this that should never be done. Therefore you will lose your testicles.' At once, they fell to the ground, they fell even as the great sage spoke ________________________________________ ― 27 ― his words in anger to Thousand Eyes. Having cursed Indra, he then cursed Ahalya: 'You, you will dwell here many thousands of years, eating the air, without food, rolling in ash, and burning invisible to all creatures. When Rama, unassailable son of Dasaratha, comes to this terrible wilderness, you will become pure, you woman of no virtue, you will be cleansed of lust and confusion. Filled then with joy, you'll wear again your form in my presence.' And saying this to that woman of bad conduct, blazing Gautama abandoned the ashram, and did his tapas on a beautiful Himalayan peak, haunt of celestial singers and perfected beings. Emasculated Indra then spoke to the gods led by Agni attended by the sages and the celestial singers. 'I've only done this work on behalf of the gods, putting great Gautama in a rage, blocking his tapas . He has emasculated me and rejected her in anger. Through this great outburst of curses, I've robbed him of his tapas . Therefore, great gods, sages, and celestial singers, help me, helper of the gods, to regain my testicles.' And the gods, led by Agni, listened to Indra of the Hundred Sacrifices and went with the Marut hosts to the divine ancestors, and said, 'Some time ago, Indra, infatuated, ravished the sage's wife and was then emasculated by the sage's curse. Indra, king of gods, destroyer of cities, ________________________________________ ― 28 ― is now angry with the gods. This ram has testicles but great Indra has lost his. So take the ram's testicles and quickly graft them on to Indra. A castrated ram will give you supreme satisfaction and will be a source of pleasure. People who offer it will have endless fruit. You will give them your plenty.' Having heard Agni's words, the Ancestors got together and ripped off the ram's testicles and applied them then to Indra of the Thousand Eyes. Since then, the divine Ancestors eat these castrated rams and Indra has the testicles of the beast through the power of great Gautama's tapas . Come then, Rama, to the ashram of the holy sage and save Ahalya who has the beauty of a goddess." Raghava heard Visvamitra's words and followed him into the ashram with Laksmana: there he saw Ahalya, shining with an inner light earned through her penances, blazing yet hidden from the eyes of passersby, even gods and antigods.[6] The Ahalya Episode: Kampan They came to many-towered Mithila and stood outside the fortress. On the towers were many flags. There, high on an open field, stood a black rock that was once Ahalya, the great sage's wife who fell because she lost her chastity, the mark of marriage in a house. 547 ________________________________________ ― 29 ― Rama's eyes fell on the rock, the dust of his feet wafted on it. Like one unconscious coming to, cutting through ignorance, changing his dark carcass for true form as he reaches the Lord's feet, so did she stand alive formed and colored again as she once was. 548 In 550, Rama asks Visvamitra why this lovely woman had been turned to stone. Visvamitra replies: "Listen. Once Indra, Lord of the Diamond Axe, waited on the absenceLord of the Diamond Axe, of Gautama, a sage all spirit, meaning to reach out for the lovely breast of doe-eyed Ahalya, his wife. 551 Hurt by love's arrows, hurt by the look in her eyes that pierced him like a spear, Indra writhed and cast about for stratagems; one day, overwhelmed and mindless, he isolated the sage; and sneaked into the hermitage wearing the exact body of Gautama whose heart knew no falsehoods. 552 Sneaking in, he joined Ahalya; coupled, they drank deep of the clear new wine of first-night weddings; and she knew. Yet unable to put aside what was not hers, she dallied in her joy, but the sage did not tarry, he came back, a very Siva with three eyes in his head. 553 ________________________________________ ― 30 ― Gautama, who used no arrows from bows, could use more inescapable powers of curse and blessing. When he arrived, Ahalya stood there, stunned, bearing the shame of a deed that will not end in this endless world. Indra shook in terror, started to move away in the likeness of a cat. 554 Eyes dropping fire, Gautama saw what was done, and his words flew like the burning arrows at your hand: 'May you be covered by the vaginas of a thousand women!' In the twinkle of an eye they came and covered him. 555 Covered with shame, laughingstock of the world, Indra left. The sage turned to his tender wife and cursed: 'O bought woman! May you turn to stone!' and she fell at once a rough thing of black rock. 556 Yet as she fell she begged: 'To bear and forgive wrongs is also the way of elders. O Siva-like lord of mine, set some limit to your curse!' So he said: 'Rama will come, wearing garlands that bring the hum of bees with them. When the dust of his feet falls on you, you will be released from the body of stone.' 557 The immortals looked at their king and came down at once to Gautama in a delegation led by Brahma and begged of Gautama to relent. ________________________________________ ― 31 ― Gautama's mind had changed and cooled. He changed the marks on Indra to a thousand eyes and the gods went back to their worlds, while she lay there, a thing of stone. 558 That was the way it was. while she lay there, a thing of stone. From now on, no more misery, only release, for all things in this world. O cloud-dark lord who battled with that ogress, black as soot, I saw there the virtue of your hands and here the virtue of your feet."[7] 559 Let me rapidly suggest a few differences between the two tellings. In Valmiki, Indra seduces a willing Ahalya. In Kampan, Ahalya realizes she is doing wrong but cannot let go of the forbidden joy; the poem has also suggested earlier that her sage-husband is all spirit, details which together add a certain psychological subtlety to the seduction. Indra tries to steal away in the shape of a cat, clearly a folklore motif (also found, for example, in the Kathasaritsagara , an eleventh-century Sanskrit compendium of folktales).[8] He is cursed with a thousand vaginas which are later changed into eyes, and Ahalya is changed into frigid stone. The poetic justice wreaked on both offenders is fitted to their wrongdoing. Indra bears the mark of what he lusted for, while Ahalya is rendered incapable of responding to anything. These motifs, not found in Valmiki, are attested in South Indian folklore and other southern Rama stories, in inscriptions and earlier Tamil poems, as well as in non-Tamil sources. Kampan, here and elsewhere, not only makes full use of his predecessor Valmiki's materials but folds in many regional folk traditions. It is often through him that they then become part of other Ramayanas . In technique, Kampan is also more dramatic than Valmiki. Rama's feet transmute the black stone into Ahalya first; only afterward is her story told. The black stone standing on a high place, waiting for Rama, is itself a very effective, vivid symbol. Ahalya's revival, her waking from cold stone to fleshly human warmth, becomes an occasion for a moving bhakti (devotional) meditation on the soul waking to its form in god. Finally, the Ahalya episode is related to previous episodes in the poem such as that in which Rama destroys the demoness Tataka. There he was the destroyer of evil, the bringer of sterility and the ashes of death to his enemies. Here, as the reviver of Ahalya, he is a cloud-dark god of fertility. Throughout ________________________________________ ― 32 ― Kampan's poem, Rama is a Tamil hero, a generous giver and a ruthless destroyer of foes. And the bhakti vision makes the release of Ahalya from her rock-bound sin a paradigm of Rama's incarnatory mission to release all souls from world-bound misery. In Valmiki, Rama's character is that not of a god but of a god-man who has to live within the limits of a human form with all its vicissitudes. Some argue that the references to Rama's divinity and his incarnation for the purpose of destroying Ravana, and the first and last books of the epic, in which Rama is clearly described as a god with such a mission, are later additions.[9] Be that as it may, in Kampan he is clearly a god. Hence a passage like the above is dense with religious feeling and theological images. Kampan, writing in the twelfth century, composed his poem under the influence of Tamil bhakti . He had for his master Nammalvar (9th C.?), the most eminent of the Srivaisnava saints. So, for Kampan, Rama is a god who is on a mission to root out evil, sustain the good, and bring release to all living beings. The encounter with Ahalya is only the first in a series, ending with Rama's encounter with Ravana the demon himself. For Nammalvar, Rama is a savior of all beings, from the lowly grass to the great gods: By Rama's Grace Why would anyone want to learn anything but Rama? Beginning with the low grass and the creeping ant with nothing whatever, he took everything in his city, everything moving, everything still, he took everything, everything born of the lord of four faces, he took them all to the very best of states. Nammalvar 7.5.1[10] Kampan's epic poem enacts in detail and with passion Nammalvar's vision of Rama. Thus the Ahalya, episode is essentially the same, but the weave, the texture, the colors are very different. Part of the aesthetic pleasure in the later poet's telling derives from its artistic use of its predecessor's work, from ring- ________________________________________ ― 33 ― ing changes on it. To some extent all later Ramayanas play on the knowledge of previous tellings: they are meta-Ramayanas . I cannot resist repeating my favorite example. In several of the later Ramayanas (such as the AdhyatmaRamayana , 16th C.), when Rama is exiled, he does not want Sita to go with him into the forest. Sita argues with him. At first she uses the usual arguments: she is his wife, she should share his sufferings, exile herself in his exile, and so on. When he still resists the idea, she is furious. She bursts out, "Countless Ramayanas have been composed before this. Do you know of one where Sita doesn't go with Rama to the forest?" That clinches the argument, and she goes with him.[11] And as nothing in India occurs uniquely, even this motif appears in more than one Ramayana . Now the Tamil Ramayana of Kampan generates its own offspring, its own special sphere of influence. Read in Telugu characters in Telugu country, played as drama in the Malayalam area as part of temple ritual, it is also an important link in the transmission of the Rama story to Southeast Asia. It has been convincingly shown that the eighteenth-century Thai Ramakien owes much to the Tamil epic. For instance, the names of many characters in the Thai work are not Sanskrit names, but clearly Tamil names (for example, Rsyasrnga in Sanskrit but Kalaikkotu in Tamil, the latter borrowed into Thai). Tulsi's Hindi Ramcaritmanas and the Malaysian Hikayat Seri Ram too owe many details to the Kampan poem.[12] Thus obviously transplantations take place through several mutes. In some languages the word for tea is derived from a northern Chinese dialect and in others from a southern dialect; thus some languages, like English and French, have some form of the word tea , while others, like Hindi and Russian, have some form of the word cha(y) . Similarly, the Rama story seems to have traveled along three routes, according to Santosh Desai: "By land, the northern route took the story from the Punjab and Kashmir into China, Tibet, and East Turkestan; by sea, the southern route carried the story from Gujarat and South India into Java, Sumatra, and Malaya; and again by land, the eastern route delivered the story from Bengal into Burma, Thailand, and Laos. Vietnam and Cambodia obtained their stories partly from Java and partly from India via the eastern route."[13] Jaina Tellings When we enter the world of Jains tellings, the Rama story no longer carries Hindu values. Indeed the Jaina texts express the feeling that the Hindus, especially the Brahmins, have maligned Ravana, made him into a villain. Here is a set of questions that a Jaina text begins by asking: "How can monkeys vanquish the powerful raksasa warriors like Ravana? How can noble men and Jaina worthies like Ravana eat flesh and drink blood? How can Kumbhakarna sleep through six months of the year, and never wake up even ________________________________________ ― 34 ― though boiling oil was poured into his cars, elephants were made to trample over him, and war trumpets and conches blow around him? They also say that Ravana captured Indra and dragged him handcuffed into Lanka. Who can do that to Indra? All this looks a bit fantastic and extreme. They are lies and contrary to reason." With these questions in mind King Srenika goes to sage Gautama to have him tell the true story and clear his doubts. Gautama says to him, "I'll tell you what Jaina wise men say. Ravana is not a demon, he is not a cannibal and a flesh eater. Wrong-thinking poetasters and fools tell these lies." He then begins to tell his own version of the story.[14] Obviously, the Jaina Ramayana of Vimalasuri, called Paumacariya (Prakrit for the Sanskrit Padmacarita ), knows its Valmiki and proceeds to correct its errors and Hindu extravagances. Like other Jains puranas , this too is a pratipurana , an anti- or counter-purana . The prefix prati , meaning "anti-" or "counter-," is a favorite Jaina affix. Vimalasuri the Jains opens the story not with Rama's genealogy and greatness, but with Ravana's. Ravana is one of the sixty-three leaders or salakapurusas of the Jaina tradition. He is noble, learned, earns all his magical powers and weapons through austerities (tapas ), and is a devotee of Jaina masters. To please one of them, he even takes a vow that he will not touch any unwilling woman. In one memorable incident, he lays siege to an impregnable fort. The queen of that kingdom is in love with him and sends him her messenger; he uses her knowledge of the fort to breach it and defeat the king. But, as soon as he conquers it, he returns the kingdom to the king and advises the queen to return to her husband. Later, he is shaken to his roots when he hears from soothsayers that he will meet his end through a woman, Sita. It is such a Ravana who falls in love with Sita's beauty, abducts her, tries to win her favors in vain, watches himself fall, and finally dies on the battlefield. In these tellings, he is a great man undone by a passion that he has vowed against but that he cannot resist. In another tradition of the Jaina Ramayanas , Sita is his daughter, although he does not know it: the dice of tragedy are loaded against him further by this oedipal situation. I shall say more about Sita's birth in the next section. In fact, to our modern eyes, this Ravana is a tragic figure; we are moved to admiration and pity for Ravana when the Jainas tell the story. I should mention one more motif: according to the Jaina way of thinking, a pair of antagonists, Vasudeva and Prativasudeva—a hero and an antihero, almost like self and Other—are destined to fight in life after life. Laksmana and Ravana are the eighth incarnations of this pair. They are born in age after age, meet each other in battle after many vicissitudes, and in every encounter Vasudeva inevitably kills his counterpart, his prati . Ravana learns at the end that Laksmana is such a Vasudeva come to take his life. Still, overcoming his despair after a last unsuccessful attempt at peace, he faces his destined enemy in battle with his most powerful magic weapons. When finally he ________________________________________ ― 35 ― hurls his discus (cakra ), it doesn't work for him. Recognizing Laksmana as a Vasudeva, it does not behead him but gives itself over to his hand. Thus Laksmana slays Ravana with his own cherished weapon. Here Rama does not even kill Ravana, as he does in the Hindu Ramayanas . For Rama is an evolved Jaina soul who has conquered his passions; this is his last birth, so he is loath to kill anything. It is left to Laksmana to kill enemies, and according to inexorable Jaina logic it is Laksmana who goes to hell while Rama finds release (kaivalya ). One hardly need add that the Paumacariya is filled with references to Jaina places of pilgrimage, stories about Jaina monks, and Jaina homilies and legends. Furthermore, since the Jainas consider themselves rationalists—unlike the Hindus, who, according to them, are given to exorbitant and often bloodthirsty fancies and rituals—they systematically avoid episodes involving miraculous births (Rama and his brothers are born in the normal way), blood sacrifices, and the like. They even rationalize the conception of Ravana as the Ten-headed Demon. When he was born, his mother was given a necklace of nine gems, which she put around his neck. She saw his face reflected in them ninefold and so called him Dasamukha, or the Ten-faced One. The monkeys too are not monkeys but a clan of celestials (vidyadharas ) actually related to Ravana and his family through their great grandfathers. They have monkeys as emblems on their flags: hence the name Vanaras or "monkeys." From Written to Oral Let's look at one of the South Indian folk Ramayanas . In these, the story usually occurs in bits and pieces. For instance, in Kannada, we are given separate narrative poems on Sita's birth, her wedding, her chastity test, her exile, the birth of Lava and Kusa, their war with their father Rama, and so on. But we do have one complete telling of the Rama story by traditional bards (tamburidasayyas ), sung with a refrain repeated every two lines by a chorus. For the following discussion, I am indebted to the transcription by Rame Gowda, P. K. Rajasekara, and S. Basavaiah.[15] This folk narrative, sung by an Untouchable bard, opens with Ravana (here called Ravula) and his queen Mandodari. They are unhappy and childless. So Ravana or Ravula goes to the forest, performs all sorts of self-mortifications like rolling on the ground till blood runs from his back, and meets a jogi , or holy mendicant, who is none other than Siva. Siva gives him a magic mango and asks him how he would share it with his wife. Ravula says, "Of course, I'll give her the sweet flesh of the fruit and I'll lick the mango seed." The jogi is skeptical. He says to Ravula, "You say one thing to me. You have poison in your belly. You're giving me butter to eat, but you mean something else. If you lie to me, you'll eat the fruit of your actions yourself." ________________________________________ ― 36 ― Ravula has one thing in his dreams and another in his waking world, says the poet. When he brings the mango home, with all sorts of flowers and incense for the ceremonial puja , Mandodari is very happy. After a ritual puja and prayers to Siva, Ravana is ready to share the mango. But he thinks, "If I give her the fruit, I'll be hungry, she'll be full," and quickly gobbles up the flesh of the fruit, giving her only the seed to lick. When she throws it in the yard, it sprouts and grows into a tall mango tree. Meanwhile, Ravula himself becomes pregnant, his pregnancy advancing a month each day. In one day, it was a month, O Siva. In the second, it was the second month, and cravings began for him, O Siva. How shall I show my face to the world of men, O Siva. On the third day, it was the third month, How shall I show my face to the world, O Siva. On the fourth day, it was the fourth month. How can I bear this, O Siva. Five days, and it was five months, O lord, you've given me trouble, O Siva. I can't bear it, I can't bear it, O Siva. How will I live, cries Ravula in misery. Six days, and he is six months gone, O mother, in seven days it was seven months. O what shame, Ravula in his seventh month, and soon came the eighth, O Siva. Ravula was in his ninth full month. When he was round and ready, she's born, the dear, Sita is born through his nose. When he sneezes, Sitamma is born, And Ravula names her Sitamma.[16] In Kannada, the word sita means "he sneezed": he calls her Sita because she is born from a sneeze. Her name is thus given a Kannada folk etymology, as in the Sanskrit texts it has a Sanskrit one: there she is named Sita, because King Janaka finds her in a furrow (sita). Then Ravula goes to astrologers, who tell him he is being punished for not keeping his word to Siva and for eating the flesh of the fruit instead of giving it to his wife. They advise him to feed and dress the child, and leave her some place where she will be found and brought up by some couple. He puts her in a box and leaves her in Janaka's field. It is only after this story of Sita's birth that the poet sings of the birth and adventures of Rama and Laksmana. Then comes a long section on Sita's marriage contest, where Ravula appears and is humiliated when he falls under the heavy bow he has to lift. Rama lifts it and marries Sita. After that she is abducted by Ravana. Rama lays siege to Lanka with his monkey allies, ________________________________________ ― 37 ― and (in a brief section) recovers Sita and is crowned king. The poet then returns to the theme of Sita's trials. She is slandered and exiled, but gives birth to twins who grow up to be warriors. They tie up Rama's sacrificial horse, defeat the armies sent to guard the horse, and finally unite their parents, this time for good. One sees here not only a different texture and emphasis: the teller is everywhere eager to return to Sita—her life, her birth, her adoption, her wedding, her abduction and recovery. Whole sections, equal in length to those on Rama and Laksmana's birth, exile, and war against Ravana, are devoted to her banishment, pregnancy, and reunion with her husband. Furthermore, her abnormal birth as the daughter born directly to the male Ravana brings to the story a new range of suggestions: the male envy of womb and childbirth, which is a frequent theme in Indian literature, and an Indian oedipal theme of fathers pursuing daughters and, in this case, a daughter causing the death of her incestuous father.[17] The motif of Sita as Ravana's daughter is not unknown elsewhere. It occurs in one tradition of the Jaina stories (for example, in the Vasudevahimdi ) and in folk traditions of Kannada and Telugu, as well as in several Southeast Asian Ramayanas . In some, Ravana in his lusty youth molests a young woman, who vows vengeance and is reborn as his daughter to destroy him. Thus the oral traditions seem to partake of yet another set of themes unknown in Valmiki. A Southeast Asian Example When we go outside India to Southeast Asia, we meet with a variety of tellings of the Rama story in Tibet, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Java, and Indonesia. Here we shall look at only one example, the Thai Ramakirti . According to Santosh Desai, nothing else of Hindu origin has affected the tone of Thai life more than the Rama story.[18] The bas-reliefs and paintings on the walls of their Buddhist temples, the plays enacted in town and village, their ballets—all of them rework the Rama story. In succession several kings with the name "King Rama" wrote Ramayana episodes in Thai: King Rama I composed a telling of the Ramayana in fifty thousand verses, Rama II composed new episodes for dance, and Rama VI added another set of episodes, most taken from Valmiki. Places in Thailand, such as Lopburi (Skt. Lavapuri), Khidkin (Skt. Kiskindha), and Ayuthia (Skt. Ayodhya) with its ruins of Khmer and Thai art, are associated with Rama legends. The Thai Ramakirti (Rama's glory) or Ramakien (Rama's story) opens with an account of the origins of the three kinds of characters in the story, the human, the demonic, and the simian. The second part describes the brothers' first encounters with the demons, Rama's marriage and banishment, the abduction of Sita, and Rama's meeting with the monkey clan. It also describes the preparations for the war, Hanuman's visit to Lanka and ________________________________________ ― 38 ― his burning of it, the building of the bridge, the siege of Lanka, the fall of Ravana, and Rama's reunion with Sita. The third part describes an insurrection in Lanka, which Rama deputes his two youngest brothers to quell. This part also describes the banishment of Sita, tile birth of her sons, their war with Rama, Sita's descent into the earth, and the appearance of the gods to reunite Rama and Sita. Though many incidents look the same as they do in Valmiki, many things look different as well. For instance, as in the South Indian folk Ramayanas (as also in some Jaina, Bengali, and Kashmiri ones), the banishment of Sita is given a dramatic new rationale. The daughter of Surpanakha (the demoness whom Rama and Laksmana had mutilated years earlier in the forest) is waiting in the wings to take revenge on Sita, whom she views as finally responsible for her mother's disfigurement. She comes to Ayodhya, enters Sita's service as a maid, and induces her to draw a picture of Ravana. The drawing is rendered indelible (in some tellings, it comes to life in her bedroom) and forces itself on Rama's attention. In a jealous rage, he orders Sita killed. The compassionate Laksmana leaves her alive in the forest, though, and brings back the heart of a deer as witness to the execution. The reunion between Rama and Sita is also different. When Rama finds out she is still alive, he recalls Sita to his palace by sending her word that he is dead. She rushes to see him but flies into a rage when she finds she has been tricked. So, in a fit of helpless anger, she calls upon Mother Earth to take her. Hanuman is sent to subterranean regions to bring her back, but she refuses to return. It takes the power of Siva to reunite them. Again as in the Jaina instances and the South Indian folk poems, the account of Sita's birth is different from that given in Va1miki. When Dasaratha performs his sacrifice, he receives a rice ball, not the rice porridge (payasa ) mentioned in Valmiki. A crow steals some of the rice and takes it to Ravana's wife, who eats it and gives birth to Sita. A prophecy that his daughter will cause his death makes Ravana throw Sita into the sea, where the sea goddess protects her and takes her to Janaka. Furthermore, though Rama is an incarnation of Visnu, in Thailand he is subordinate to Siva. By and large he is seen as a human hero, and the Ramakirti is not regarded as a religious work or even as an exemplary work on which men and women may pattern themselves. The Thais enjoy most the sections about the abduction of Sita and the war. Partings and reunions, which are the heart of the Hindu Ramayanas , are not as important as the excitement and the details of war, the techniques, the fabulous weapons. The Yuddhakanda or the War Book is more elaborate than in any other telling, whereas it is of minor importance in the Kannada folk telling. Desai says this Thai emphasis on war is significant: early Thai history is full of wars; their concern was survival. The focus in the Ramakien is not on family values and spirituality. Thai audiences are more fond of Hanuman than of Rama. ________________________________________ ― 39 ― Neither celibate nor devout, as in the Hindu Ramayanas , here Hanuman is quite a ladies' man, who doesn't at all mind looking into the bedrooms of Lanka and doesn't consider seeing another man's sleeping wife anything immoral, as Valmiki's or Kampan's Hanuman does. Ravana too is different here. The Ramakirti admires Ravana's resourcefulness and learning; his abduction of Sita is seen as an act of love and is viewed with sympathy. The Thais are moved by Ravana's sacrifice of family, kingdom, and life itself for the sake of a woman. His dying words later provide the theme of a famous love poem of the nineteenth century, an inscription of a Wat of Bangkok.[19] Unlike Valmiki's characters, the Thai ones are a fallible, human mixture of good and evil. The fall of Ravana here makes one sad. It is not an occasion for unambiguous rejoicing, as it is in Valmiki. Patterns of Difference Thus, not only do we have one story told by Valmiki in Sanskrit, we have a variety of Rama tales told by others, with radical differences among them. Let me outline a few of the differences we have not yet encountered. For instance, in Sanskrit and in the other Indian languages, there are two endings to the story. One ends with the return of Rama and Sita to Ayodhya, their capital, to be crowned king and queen of the ideal kingdom. In another ending, often considered a later addition in Valmiki and in Kampan, Rama hears Sita slandered as a woman who lived in Ravana's grove, and in the name of his reputation as a king (we would call it credibility, I suppose) he banishes her to the forest, where she gives birth to twins. They grow up in Valmiki's hermitage, learn the Ramayana as well as the arts of war from him, win a war over Rama's army, and in a poignant scene sing the Ramayana to their own father when he doesn't quite know who they are. Each of these two endings gives the whole work a different cast. The first one celebrates the return of the royal exiles and rounds out the tale with reunion, coronation, and peace. In the second one, their happiness is brief, and they arc separated again, making separation of loved ones (vipralambha ) the central mood of the whole work. It can even be called tragic, for Sita finally cannot bear it any more and enters a fissure in the earth, the mother from whom she had originally come—as we saw earlier, her name means "furrow," which is where she was originally found by Janaka. It also enacts, in the rise of Sita from the furrow and her return to the earth, a shadow of a Proserpine-like myth, a vegetation cycle: Sita is like the seed and Rama with his cloud-dark body the rain; Ravana in the South is the Pluto-like abductor into dark regions (the south is the abode of death); Sita reappears in purity and glory for a brief period before she returns again to the earth. Such a myth, while it should not be blatantly pressed into some rigid allegory, resonates in the shadows of the tale in many details. Note the many references to fertility and rain, Rama's ________________________________________ ― 40 ― opposition to Siva-like ascetic figures (made explicit by Kampan in tile Ahalya story), his ancestor bringing the rivet Ganges into the plains of the kingdom to water and revive the ashes of the dead. Relevant also is the story of .Rsyasrnga, the sexually naive ascetic who is seduced by the beauty of a woman and thereby brings rain to Lomapada's kingdom, and who later officiates at the ritual which fills Dasaratha's queens' wombs with children. Such a mythic groundswell also makes us hear other tones in the continual references to nature, the potent presence of birds and animals as the devoted friends of Rama in his search for his Sita. Birds and monkeys are a real presence and a poetic necessity in the Valmiki Ramayana , as much as they are excrescences in the Jaina view. With each ending, different effects of the story are highlighted, and the whole telling alters its poetic stance. One could say similar things about the different beginnings. Valmiki opens with a frame story about Valmiki himself. He sees a hunter aim an arrow and kill one of a happy pair of lovebirds. The female circles its dead mate and cries over it. The scene so moves the poet and sage Valmiki that he curses the hunter. A moment later, he realizes that his curse has taken the form of a line of verse—in a famous play on words, the rhythm of his grief (soka ) has given rise to a metrical form (sloka ). He decides to write the whole epic of Rama's adventures in that meter. This incident becomes, in later poetics, the parable of all poetic utterance: out of the stress of natural feeling (bhava ), an artistic form has to be found or fashioned, a form which will generalize and capture the essence (rasa ) of that feeling. This incident at the beginning of Valmiki gives the work an aesthetic self-awareness. One may go further: the incident of the death of a bird and the separation of loved ones becomes a leitmotif for this telling of the Rama story. One notes a certain rhythmic recurrence of an animal killed at many of the critical moments: when Dasaratha shoots an arrow to kill what he thinks is an elephant but instead kills a young ascetic filling his pitcher with water (making noises like an elephant drinking at a water hole), he earns a curse that later leads to the exile of Rama and the separation of father and son. When Rama pursues a magical golden deer (really a demon in disguise) and kills it, with its last breath it calls out to Laksmana in Rama's voice, which in turn leads to his leaving Sita unprotected; this allows Ravana to abduct Sita. Even as Ravana carries her off, he is opposed by an ancient bird which he slays with his sword. Furthermore, the death of the bird, in the opening section, and the cry of the surviving mate set the tone for the many separations throughout the work, of brother and brother, mothers and fathers and sons, wives and husbands. Thus the opening sections of each major work set into motion the harmonics of the whole poem, presaging themes and a pattern of images. Kampan's Tamil text begins very differently. One can convey it best by citing a few stanzas. ________________________________________ ― 41 ― The River The cloud, wearing white on white like Siva, making beautiful the sky on his way from the sea grew dark as the face of the Lord who wears with pride on his right the Goddess of the scented breasts. 2 Mistaking the Himalayan dawn for a range of gold, the clouds let down chains and chains of gleaming rain. They pour like a generous giver giving all he has, remembering and reckoning all he has. 15 It floods, it runs over its continents like the fame of a great king, upright, infallible, reigning by the Laws under cool royal umbrellas. 16 Concubines caressing their lovers' hair, their lovers' bodies, their lovers' limbs, take away whole hills of wealth yet keep little in their spendthrift hands as they move on: so too the waters flow from the peaks to the valleys, beginning high and reaching low. 17 The flood carrying all before it like merchants, caravans loaded with gold, pearls, peacock feathers and rows of white tusk and fragrant woods. 18 Bending to a curve, the river, surface colored by petals, gold yellow pollen, honey, the ochre flow of elephant lust, looked much like a rainbow. 19 ________________________________________ ― 42 ― Ravaging hillsides, uprooting trees, covered with fallen leaves all over, the waters came, like a monkey clan facing restless seas looking for a bridge. 20 Thick-faced proud elephants ranged with foaming cavalier horses filling the air with the noise of war, raising banners, the flood rushes as for a battle with the sea. 22 Stream of numberless kings in the line of the Sun, continuous in virtue: the river branches into deltas, mother's milk to all lives on the salt sea-surrounded land. 23 Scattering a robber camp on the hills with a rain of arrows, the sacred women beating their bellies and gathering bow and arrow as they run, the waters assault villages like the armies of a king. 25 Stealing milk and buttermilk, guzzling on warm ghee and butter straight from the pots on the ropes, leaning the marutam tree on the kuruntam carrying away the clothes and bracelets of goatherd girls at water games, like Krsna dancing on the spotted snake, the waters are naughty. 26 Turning forest into slope, field into wilderness, seashore into fertile land, changing boundaries, exchanging landscapes, the reckless waters roared on like the pasts that hurry close on the heels of lives. 28 ________________________________________ ― 43 ― Born of Himalayan stone and mingling with the seas, it spreads, ceaselessly various, one and many at once, like that Original even the measureless Vedas cannot measure with words. 30 Through pollen-dripping groves, clumps of champak, lotus pools, water places with new sands, flowering fields cross-fenced with creepers, like a life filling and emptying a variety of bodies, the river flows on.[20] 31 This passage is unique to Kampan; it is not found in Valmiki. It describes the waters as they are gathered by clouds from the seas and come down in rain and flow as floods of the Sarayu river down to Ayodhya, the capital of Rama's kingdom. Through it, Kampan introduces all his themes and emphases, even his characters, his concern with fertility themes (implicit in Valmiki), the whole dynasty of Rama's ancestors, and his vision of bhakti through the Ramayana . Note the variety of themes introduced through the similes and allusions, each aspect of the water symbolizing an aspect of the Ramayana story itself and representing a portion of the Ramayana universe (for example, monkeys), picking up as it goes along characteristic Tamil traditions not to be found anywhere else, like the five landscapes of classical Tamil poetry. The emphasis on water itself, the source of life and fertility, is also an explicit part of the Tamil literary tradition. The Kural —the so-called Bible of the Tamils, a didactic work on the ends and means of the good life—opens with a passage on God and follows it up immediately with a great ode in celebration of the rains (Tirukkural 2). Another point of difference among Ramayanas is the intensity of focus on a major character. Valmiki focuses on Rama and his history in his opening sections; Vimalasuri's Jaina Ramayana and the Thai epic focus not on Rama but on the genealogy and adventures of Ravana; the Kannada village telling focuses on Sita, her birth, her wedding, her trials. Some later extensions like the Adbhuta Ramayana and the Tamil story of Satakanthavana even give Sita a heroic character: when the ten-headed Ravana is killed, another appears with a hundred heads; Rama cannot handle this new menace, so it is Sita ________________________________________ ― 44 ― who goes to war and slays the new demon.[21] The Santals, a tribe known for their extensive oral traditions, even conceive of Sita as unfaithful—to the shock and horror of any Hindu bred on Valmiki or Kampan, she is seduced both by Ravana and by Laksmana. In Southeast Asian texts, as we saw earlier, Hanuman is not the celibate devotee with a monkey face but a ladies' man who figures in many love episodes. In Kampan and Tulsi, Rama is a god; in the Jaina texts, he is only an evolved Jaina man who is in his last birth and so does not even kill Ravana. In the latter, Ravana is a noble hero fated by his karma to fall for Sita and bring death upon himself, while he is in other texts an overweening demon. Thus in the conception of every major character there are radical differences, so different indeed that one conception is quite abhorrent to those who hold another. We may add to these many more: elaborations on the reason why Sita is banished, the miraculous creation of Sita's second son, and the final reunion of Rama and Sita. Every one of these occurs in more than one text, in more than one textual community (Hindu, Jaina, or Buddhist), in more than one region. Now, is there a common core to the Rama stories, except the most skeletal set of relations like that of Rama, his brother, his wife, and the antagonist Ravana who abducts her? Are the stories bound together only by certain family resemblances, as Wittgenstein might say ? Or is it like Aristotle's jack knife? When the philosopher asked an old carpenter how long he had had his knife, the latter said, "Oh, I've had it for thirty years. I've changed the blade a few times and the handle a few times, but it's the same knife." Some shadow of a relational structure claims the name of Ramayana for all these tellings, but on closer look one is not necessarily all that like another. Like a collection of people with the same proper name, they make a class in name alone. Thoughts on Translation That may be too extreme a way of putting it. Let me back up and say it differently, in a way that covers more adequately the differences between the texts and their relations to each other, for they are related. One might think of them as a series of translations clustering around one or another in a family of texts: a number of them cluster around Valmiki, another set around the Jaina Vimalasuri, and so on. Or these translation-relations between texts could be thought of in Peircean terms, at least in three ways. Where Text I and Text 2 have a geometrical resemblance to each other, as one triangle to another (whatever the angles, sizes, or colors of the lines), we call such a relation iconic .[22] In the West, we generally expect translations to be "faithful," i.e. iconic. Thus, when Chapman translates Homer, he not only preserves basic textual features such as characters, imagery, and order of incidents , but tries to reproduce a hexameter and retain the same number ________________________________________ ― 45 ― of lines as in the original Greek—only the language is English and the idiom Elizabethan. When Kampan retells Valmiki's Ramayana in Tamil, he is largely faithful in keeping to the order and sequence of episodes, the structural relations between the characters of father, son, brothers, wives, friends, and enemies. But the iconicity is limited to such structural relations. His work is much longer than Valmiki's, for example, and it is composed in more than twenty different kinds of Tamil meters, while Valmiki's is mostly in the sloka meter. Very often, although Text 2 stands in an iconic relationship to Text ! in terms of basic elements such as plot, it is filled with local detail, folklore, poetic traditions, imagery, and so forth—as in Kampan's telling or that of the Bengali Krttivasa. In the Bengali Ramayana , Rama's wedding is very much a Bengali wedding, with Bengali customs and Bengali cuisine.[23] We may call such a text indexical : the text is embedded in a locale, a context, refers to it, even signifies it, and would not make much sense without it. Here, one may say, the Ramayana is not merely a set of individual texts, but a genre with a variety of instances. Now and then, as we have seen, Text 2 uses the plot and characters and names of Text 1 minimally and uses them to say entirely new things, often in an effort to subvert the predecessor by producing a countertext. We may call such a translation symbolic . The word translation itself here acquires a somewhat mathematical sense, of mapping a structure of relations onto another plane or another symbolic system. When this happens, the Rama story has become almost a second language of the whole culture area, a shared core of names, characters, incidents, and motifs, with a narrative language in which Text 1 can say one thing and Text 2 something else, even the exact opposite. Valmiki's Hindu and Vimalasuri's Jaina texts in India—or the Thai Ramakirti in Southeast Asia—are such symbolic translations of each other. One must not forget that to some extent all translations, even the so-called faithful iconic ones, inevitably have all three kinds of elements. When Goldman and his group of scholars produce a modern translation of Valmiki's Ramayana , they are iconic in the transliteration of Sanskrit names, the number and sequence of verses, the order of the episodes, and so forth.[24] But they are also indexical, in that the translation is in English idiom and comes equipped with introductions and explanatory footnotes, which inevitably contain twentieth-century attitudes and misprisions; and symbolic, in that they cannot avoid conveying through this translation modern understandings proper to their reading of the text. But the proportions between the three kinds of relations differ vastly between Kampan and Goldman. And we accordingly read them for different reasons and with different aesthetic expectations. We read the scholarly modern English translation largely to gain a sense of the original Valmiki, and we consider it successful to the extent that it resembles the original. We read Kampan to read Kampan, and we judge him on his own terms—not by his resemblance to Valmiki but, if any- ________________________________________ ― 46 ― thing, by the extent that he differs from Valmiki. In the one, we rejoice in the similarity; in the other, we cherish and savor the differences. One may go further and say that the cultural area in which Ramayanas are endemic has a pool of signifiers (like a gene pool), signifiers that include plots, characters, names, geography, incidents, and relationships. Oral, written, and performance traditions, phrases, proverbs, and even sneers carry allusions to the Rama story. When someone is carrying on, you say, "What's this Ramayana now? Enough." In Tamil, a narrow room is called a kiskindha ; a proverb about a dim-witted person says, "After hearing the Ramayana all night, he asks how Rama is related to Sita"; in a Bengali arithmetic textbook, children are asked to figure the dimensions of what is left of a wall that Hanuman built, after he has broken down part of it in mischief. And to these must be added marriage songs, narrative poems, place legends, temple myths, paintings, sculpture, and the many performing arts. These various texts not only relate to prior texts directly, to borrow or refute, but they relate to each other through this common code or common pool. Every author, if one may hazard a metaphor, dips into it and brings out a unique crystallization, a new text with a unique texture and a fresh context. The great texts rework the small ones, for "lions are made of sheep," as Valery said. And sheep are made of lions, too: a folk legend says that Hanuman wrote the original Ramayana on a mountaintop, after the great war, and scattered the manuscript; it was many times larger than what we have now. Valmiki is said to have captured only a fragment of it.[25] In this sense, no text is original, yet no telling is a mere retelling—and the story has no closure, although it may be enclosed in a text. In India and in Southeast Asia, no one ever reads the Ramayana or the Mahabharata for the first time. The stories are there, "always already." What Happens When You Listen This essay opened with a folktale about the many Ramayanas . Before we close, it may be appropriate to tell another tale about Hanuman and Rama's ring.[26] But this story is about the power of the Ramayana , about what happens when you really listen to this potent story. Even a fool cannot resist it; he is entranced and caught up in the action. The listener can no longer bear to be a bystander but feels compelled to enter the world of the epic: the line between fiction and reality is erased. A villager who had no sense of culture and no interest in it was married to a woman who was very cultured. She tried various ways to cultivate his taste for the higher things in life but he just wasn't interested. One day a great reciter of that grand epic the Ramayana came to the village. Every evening he would sing, recite, and explain the verses of the epic. The whole village went to this one-man performance as if it were a rare feast. ________________________________________ ― 47 ― The woman who was married to the uncultured dolt tried to interest him in the performance. She nagged him and nagged him, trying to force him to go and listen. This time, he grumbled as usual but decided to humor her. So he went in the evening and sat at the back. It was an all-night performance, and he just couldn't keep awake. He slept through the night. Early in the morning, when a canto had ended and the reciter sang the closing verses for the day, sweets were distributed according to custom. Someone put some sweets into the mouth of the sleeping man. He woke up soon after and went home. His wife was delighted that her husband had stayed through the night and asked him eagerly how he enjoyed the Ramayana . He said, "It was very sweet." The wife was happy to hear it. The next day too his wife insisted on his listening to the epic. So he went to the enclosure where the reciter was performing, sat against a wall, and before long fell fast asleep. The place was crowded and a young boy sat on his shoulder, made himself comfortable, and listened open-mouthed to the fascinating story. In the morning, when the night's portion of the story came to an end, everyone got up and so did the husband. The boy had left earlier, but the man felt aches and pains from the weight he had borne all night. When he went home and his wife asked him eagerly how it was, he said, "It got heavier and heavier by morning." The wife said, "That's the way the story is." She was happy that her husband was at last beginning to feel the emotions and the greatness of the epic. On the third day, he sat at the edge of the crowd and was so sleepy that he lay down on the floor and even snored. Early in the morning, a dog came that way and pissed into his mouth a little before he woke up and went home. When his wife asked him how it was, he moved his mouth this way and that, made a face and said, "Terrible. It was so salty." His wife knew something was wrong. She asked him what exactly was happening and didn't let up till he finally told her how he had been sleeping through the performance every night. On the fourth day, his wife went with him, sat him down in the very first row, and told him sternly that he should keep awake no matter what might happen. So he sat dutifully in the front row and began to listen. Very soon, he was caught up in the adventures and the characters of the great epic story. On that day, the reciter was enchanting the audience with a description of how Hanuman the monkey had to leap across the ocean to take Rama's signet ring to Sita. When Hanuman was leaping across the ocean, the signet ring slipped from his hand and fell into the ocean. Hanuman didn't know what to do. He had to get the ring back quickly and take it to Sita in the demon's kingdom. While he was wringing his hands, the husband who was listening with rapt attention in the first row said, "Hanuman, don't worry. I'll get it for you." Then he jumped up and dived into the ocean, found the ring in the ocean floor, brought it back, and gave it to Hanuman. Everyone was astonished. They thought this man was someone special, ________________________________________ ― 48 ― really blessed by Rama and Hanuman. Ever since, he has been respected in the village as a wise elder, and he has also behaved like one. That's what happens when you really listen to a story, especially to the Ramayana .