Indian democracy touched its nadir during the Emergency (Ghost Writers of 1975, Nov 2). Indira Gandhi was consumed by the human failings of arrogance and vanity. She took her personal setbacks as setbacks to the nation. Nothing could convince her otherwise. People close to her only fuelled her ego; voices of dissent had no place in her scheme of things. Unknowingly perhaps, she also gave rise to the personality cult in Indian politics. Neither devi nor demon, Indira turned out to be only too human in the end. Sunil Kumar, DelhiA pathetic attempt to deflect the blame from the source of the crisis. Indira Gandhi was captive to her own arrogance and ambition. Some people say Sonia doesn’t even come close to Indira. Thank god for that.
Anil Kumar, Toronto
If she had really lost confidence in her advisors, why did Indira carry on with them?
Aditya Mookerjee, Belgaum
It does not take rocket science to deduce that all decisions—major or minor—are suggested and influenced. Corporates take a collective decision, but the accolades or blame for a decision accrue to the ceo; this is true in the business of running the country too. The Emergency will always be Indira’s cross to bear.
Aleya Jung, New York
Nice try. Outlook is such a slave of the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family that it will go to any extent to defend them. In this magazine’s brand of history, the villains will always be the others. Who doesn’t know that nothing moved in the Congress unless Indira wished it to. Barooa, Rajni and Ray were simply used by her.
Ashok Joshi, New Delhi
As Ram Guha points out in his book India After Gandhi, the Emergency engendered dynastic politics. That, more than anything else, makes me judge it as evil. For instance, it was the coercive nature of the idea that worked against the sterilisation campaign. Had people been encouraged to come forward on their own, it may have garnered some support. But the humiliation of being forced to do it led to its undoing.
Mascon, New Delhi
S.S. Ray may say that “I had declared that nobody would be arrested in Calcutta” in his interview to your magazine, but I had a very frightening experience as the editor of the Caldust English Weekly published from Calcutta in 1976. The police visited my office to confiscate all the copies of the weekly dated September 12, 1976, which carried a political story captioned, ‘West Bengal Scene: Hectic political activities’ about Ray losing the support of the Congress high command and the likelihood of him being replaced by Pranab Mukherjee as the West Bengal CM at the instance of Sanjay Gandhi. Ray’s press secretary, Pritin Bhattacharyya, made threatening phone calls reminding me about the Emergency and censorship. The police was after me. I was saved from being arrested due to the intervention of the then Union petroleum minister, K.D. Malviya. It is well-known that two senior journalists, namely Barun Sengupta and Gourkishore Ghosh, were put behind bars for months during the Emergency. Sitaram Sharma, CalcuttaIt is no service to your readers that you should now try and prove that Indira Gandhi was an innocent victim of her circumstances. It would have been better work if you had instead unearthed the remains of the Shah Commission report, which was buried mischievously and untimely. The all-round corruption we can see today can be directly attributed to the unceremonious burial of Emergency crimes.
M. Kapoor, New Delhi
There is hardly anything ‘explosive’ in S.S. Ray’s letter; their role is known well enough to be any ‘revelation’ now.
P. Prasad Thampy, Thiruvalla
The poem B.G. Verghese attributes to Domingo Ortega in his book extract (The Last Waltz in Williamsburg) was written by Robert Graves based upon something the bullfighter had said. It was written extemporaneously when a journalist rang him up in Spain to congratulate him on his being chosen/elected as professor of poetry at Oxford, 1961. President John F. Kennedy then quoted it for his own purposes at his press conference but attributed it in error to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset.
Dr Rajeev Ardey, on e-mail
The death of PF scam kingpin Asthana (Judging from this Case..., Nov 2) can only lead back to those who would have benefited from such an eventuality. In this instance, it’s the high and mighty in the judiciary and the executive. A.K. Biswas, CalcuttaThe media should give out the names of all the 33 judges involved so that a clearer picture emerges of who all have been ‘infected’.
B. Prabhu, Mangalore
Asthana was a key witness in a case which involved half of UP’s judiciary and an SC judge. Now the same courts have ordered an inquiry into his death! Very touching.
Rajesh, Phoenix, US
The hand may well hold the reins in Maharashtra, but it is Raj Thackeray who is riding the media-propelled high horse (Return to Palm Springs, Nov 2). Mickie Sorabjee, on e-mailBrave hopes and braver words...both failed the BJP in the assembly polls. The blunt truth is that the party simply failed to enthuse the voters. This is more a comment on the party’s leadership than on its agenda of governance which, tragically, appears increasingly immaterial. The loss of direction at the top is affecting the less organised state units also.
P. Arihanth, Hyderabad
It is unfortunate that things have come to this pass in Pakistan (Chevalier of the Undead, Nov 2). Somehow, the whole idea of religion being the base for founding a separate state seems to me—an atheist—as flawed. The fact is that Pakistan had started with better ideals than what actuates it now. One just feels sorry for the sane, normal people there. Prakash, San FranciscoYou need a diamond to cut a diamond, a thorn to remove a thorn. Mehsud’s rise could well be a lesson for the Pak army.
Vijay, Bangalore
I was associated with Basava Premanand for a long time and really appreciated Rahul Singh’s tribute (The Spell Breaker, Nov 2). We have lost a human being who devoted his life to one of the toughest careers anyone can follow—without benefit or monetary reward. All he wanted to do was bring out in us that most uncomplicated of faculties—plain common sense. Margaret Bhatty, on e-mail‘Rationalist’—one with a rationed sense of reason—is an apt name for people who can’t think beyond their noses and go only by facts and principles. The outright condemnation of godmen and spiritual gurus by the likes of Basava Premanand is because they can’t understand the miracles of people like Sathya Sai Baba.
Lt Col Shanti Prakash Karir, Noida
In the death of Basava Premanand, India has lost a great fighter against exploitation through the use of superstition. Premanand was a simple man. A chance meeting at a Karol Bagh bus stop once made me invite him to my flat in Mayur Vihar, where he spoke to a small audience I managed to gather. He spoke so convincingly that all of them were influenced by him.
N. Kunju, New Delhi
Basava Premanand’s death is a loss to India, where so many well-educated people flock to watch the miracles of so-called godmen! One man called such blind followers “literate illiterates”—that was Osho!
Sudhir Sharma, Bangalore
There are societies propagating the belief that the earth is flat and I do not know of any harm they’ve caused anyone. People like Abraham Kovoor and Basava Premanand may have written some books and articles but I haven’t heard of a single person bailed out of misery by them. I care two hoots if Sathya Sai Baba is a fraudster; all I know is that his ashrams and other institutions have brought benefits to thousands—rationalists included.
M. Srinivasulu, Hyderabad
India needs to have binding emission cuts precisely because it, and not the US, would be the one to bear the brunt of climate change (Charcoal Sam Was Here, Nov 2). It must not only aggressively cut its own greenhouse gas emissions, but push others to do the same. India wants to continue on its policy of environmental profligacy in the name of development of its millions of people, but life gets better for only a select few. High emissions by this group look small when represented as per capita for the whole population. India just wants to shield the rich by not arresting their high-carbon lifestyle and using the poor just for that purpose.
M.S. Danish, Delhi
Apropos of Sunil Khilnani’s review of Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History (Nov 2). Albert Webber, an Englishman and self-professed expert in religious studies, postulated that the Mahabharata and the Bhagwad Gita were heavily influenced by Christian thought. This moved Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya to say: “The celebrated Webber was no doubt a scholar, but I am inclined to think it was an unfortunate moment for India when he began the study of Sanskrit.” Perhaps Doniger is Webber reborn. Shiv Adiseshan, ChennaiDoniger says the Bhagwad Gita was by no means the most important book for Hindus; it became central only because it was the first book to be translated from Sanskrit to English. That’s absurd. Doniger may note what Adi Shankaracharya has said in his commentary on the Gita. Moreover, Shankaracharya himself says he isn’t the first to comment on the Gita. So, if it wasn’t important enough, why such extensive commentaries by such an important personage? To claim that the Gita became central to Hinduism only because of the British is like saying that Indians took an interest in number theory only because the British brought the western university system to India.
Mysore N. Prakash, Dallas, US
Getting outraged at reading just a few sentences about Sita shows how unaccommodative we have become. There are many interesting things Doniger’s book brings out that its critics overlook. For instance, she points out how there are temples to Sita in Maharashtra which do not include an idol of Rama; how Sita is held in reverence in different parts of India both for obeying her husband and for disobeying him.
Ahmad Pasha, on e-mail
Lakshman certainly called Dashrath ‘kamasakta’, but does Doniger take into account the context? He does it in a sudden burst of emotion, not as a result of hatred accumulated over time. Also, Lakshman did not know of Dashrath’s suffering at having to send Ram away or of his many pleadings with Kaikeyi. Doniger has taken a sentence out of context and interpreted it.
Rajendra Patidar, Shyampur
Eklavya could have refused when Dronacharya asked for his thumb, but his readiness to offer gurudakshina—a great concept, unique to Hinduism—ennobled him. Hindu-baiters and Brahmin-haters have been wrongly portraying this as a cruelty inflicted by a Brahmin against a tribal.
R. Subramanian, Waterloo, Canada
I’d like to address two of Sunil Khilnani’s concerns. He wonders how Hindu plurality meshes with the rigidity of Hindutva. The answer: the two are separated by millennia. The times of Khajuraho were pre-Islamic, when multiple strains and philosophies of Hinduism thrived without fear. The rigidity in Hindu thought is a reflection of Muslim invasion, conquest and oppression. As for the contradictions in the Mahabharata about karma and chance, a fundamental feature of the epic is the divine nature of Krishna, his transcendence of the laws of karma, his engagement with the world through the medium of lila. If the Mahabharata is analysed with the rigid rules of Western logic, it will take people like Doniger nowhere.
Amit, on e-mail
I read with amusement the casteist comments of Neelabh Mishra about the Nobel awards (What Caste Is Nobel, Oct 26). It’s high time the obc (creamy layer) leadership in Tamil Nadu took steps to persuade the Nobel committee to have a policy of reservation for the award. The first step might be a 12-hour bandh on an auspicious day.
G. Vijayaraghavan, Chennai
Anwar Alikhan’s Chicken Natwarlal (Nov 2) was a scrumptious read. A bit of a shocker in these recessionary times, but when you compare it with the Bentley and Gucci crowd’s shenanigans, the price seems like peanuts. But pray, who would wait a day to eat when you are really hungry? Manu Kumar Lal, GurgaonWith divorces increasing, and fewer women ready to cook at home, no wonder there are people out there trying to make the best money during chow time.
Partha, Chennai
This only proves the maxim, “There’s a mug born every minute!”, and also that some have more money than sense.
Charu Khopkar, Sydney
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you pay gold guineas, you still get monkeys.
Manish Banerjee, Calcutta
Only people with moolah will splurge in such an extravagant way. Let them do it, if they get the bang for their rupees.
Scaria Varghese, Melbourne
Typical Indian thing to do. As long as there is greed, there will be conmen out to make bakras out of you.
Mihir, London
What does a bowl of curry for Rs 6,000 say about today’s India? Well, quite clearly that India has a market for every kind of product, from staple to ultra-luxury. Why hold a grudge against the marketers? Anyway, this chicken certainly isn’t for the chicken-livered.
Sarvesh Srivastava, Gurgaon
Instead of wasting time criticising the taste, the exorbitant price or the consumerist society we must encourage people who are successful in selling new ideas. India needs more entrepreneurs.
DC, New York
Well, with that kind of price tag, I would expect a Bollywood starlet to personally deliver the curry at my doorstep.... Hmm, that’s not a bad deal!
Rajiv Malhotra, Aligarh
Unscrupulous providers and devious consumers. How are these techies different from women willing to provide sex for money? They are not cheating either; they are providing a service because someone is buying.
Ramana, Hyderabad
Apropos of Mary Roy’s column Macaulay’s Oranjuss (Oct 26), it’s well established that a child who begins learning in his/her mother tongue is more likely to succeed academically. A recent view of cost-benefit analyses for the 2006 African education ministers’ meeting shows that education programmes that start with the mother tongue, gradually moving to other languages, lead to cost savings compared to monolingual programmes.
A. Giridhar Rao, Hyderabad
Apropos of The Cookout (Nov 2), what would the price of a meal of three kababs, two rotis and an onion salad plus coffee be? That’s all I can afford. Gayatri Devi, DelhiTake the seekh kabab and haleem away from the sidewalks and put them in regular restaurant settings, and you lose something indescribable!
Anwaar, Dallas
The key researcher on the issue of Tagore’s association with Victoria Ocampo, their writings and their correspondence is Ketaki Kushari Dyson. It’s not clear why your article Ripples In The Waterfall (Oct 26) refers extensively to Sunil Gangopadhyay’s book on Tagore and Lady Ranu Mukherjee, who has not researched this area at all. Dyson threw light on this unusual friendship, and it is through her compilation of their correspondence and translations with notes on Tagore’s poetry and from Ocampo’s essays that we have a clear idea of the relationship. Dyson researched in three continents, working in archives and interviewing people, and is the only scholar who has worked in Argentina in this connection. She was also the first person to analyse specific paintings of Tagore and link them to his Argentine friend. Moreover, the story for Pablo Cesar’s movie is unrealistic, and a bit tacky. Which researcher with even a grain of common sense would fall in love with a petty thief?
Tarini Sharma, Ahmedabad
“Women, mothers and teenagers in plastic slippers and armed with bows and arrows are getting ready to take over our mighty republic,” says Vinod Mehta in his Delhi Diary (Nov 2). Bows and arrows? What about the landmines used routinely to blow up police jeeps, buried deep into the ground, just like Mr Mehta’s head? Kiran Bagachi, MumbaiMr Mehta is right about the 5,000-odd Maoists that are the hard core not shown in any photographs. This is the core the CPI(M) nurtured and nourished to retain hold of West Bengal. They have now turned on their benefactors and are seeking political power through the barrel of a gun. They deserve the violence of the state against them. If you live by the sword, then you should learn to perish by the sword too.
Devindra Sethi, Noida
It’s a pleasant surprise to see Jharipani figure again in Outlook, this time in Ruskin Bond’s Mussoorie Diary (Oct 26). Jharipani is synonymous with the 121-year-old Oak Grove Railway school, where Ruskin Bond’s mother studied. My mother, Nirmal (Duggal) Mohindru, taught there for 36 years. My father, Subhash Mohindru, established an sbi branch there in 1980. People are surprised when I tell them I started school only when eight. This is because Oak Grove starts with Standard III. More importantly, Oak Grove has a place in history because of the number of Olympic hockey gold medallists it produced.
Sameer Mohindru, Singapore
Thank you for appreciating the Naxal menace in a right perspective (On War Footing, Oct 26). However, I have issue with your labelling the CRPF (the biggest paramilitary force in the world) as “an ill-equipped and ill-trained force”. As a serving officer of the force, I can tell you that as far as weaponry is concerned we are at par with the best in the business, with INSAS, AKMS, LMGS, MMGS, mortars, AGLS, CGRLS. Modern communication and navigation gadgets are extensively being encouraged in operations. The troops, having been trained in various specialised colleges of the CRPF and the Counter-Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism school, are shouldering the responsibilities of internal security with elan in various theatres of low-intensity conflicts. Abhiram Pankaj, Assistant Commandant, CRPFIt is pathetic that the full might of the Indian armed forces will be deployed against impoverished, defenceless, bedraggled villagers. Recall what the activist/academic statement (co-authored by Chomsky) said: “We fear that the government’s offensive seeks to crush popular resistances in order to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions.... KILL THE POOR, NOT THE POVERTY, seems to be the implicit slogan of the Indian government.” And it seems the scheme is based on US advice on counter-insurgency measures, given to Chidambaran when he visited the US.
Eddie, London
Jai ho Manmohan Singhji, first your economic reforms created this yawning chasm between rich and poor and now you don’t even want them to be alive?
Aravind Madala, Hyderabad
The last few cover stories have been tremendous. Good to see Outlook fighting the intellectual kwashiorkor it seemed to have been afflicted with.
Sumant Bhattacharya, Gurgaon
Indian democracy touched its nadir during the Emergency (Ghost Writers of 1975, Nov 2). Indira Gandhi was consumed by the human failings of arrogance and vanity. She took her personal setbacks as setbacks to the nation. Nothing could convince her otherwise. People close to her only fuelled her ego; voices of dissent had no place in her scheme of things. Unknowingly perhaps, she also gave rise to the personality cult in Indian politics. Neither devi nor demon, Indira turned out to be only too human in the end. Sunil Kumar, DelhiA pathetic attempt to deflect the blame from the source of the crisis. Indira Gandhi was captive to her own arrogance and ambition. Some people say Sonia doesn’t even come close to Indira. Thank god for that.
Anil Kumar, Toronto
If she had really lost confidence in her advisors, why did Indira carry on with them?
Aditya Mookerjee, Belgaum
It does not take rocket science to deduce that all decisions—major or minor—are suggested and influenced. Corporates take a collective decision, but the accolades or blame for a decision accrue to the ceo; this is true in the business of running the country too. The Emergency will always be Indira’s cross to bear.
Aleya Jung, New York
Nice try. Outlook is such a slave of the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family that it will go to any extent to defend them. In this magazine’s brand of history, the villains will always be the others. Who doesn’t know that nothing moved in the Congress unless Indira wished it to. Barooa, Rajni and Ray were simply used by her.
Ashok Joshi, New Delhi
As Ram Guha points out in his book India After Gandhi, the Emergency engendered dynastic politics. That, more than anything else, makes me judge it as evil. For instance, it was the coercive nature of the idea that worked against the sterilisation campaign. Had people been encouraged to come forward on their own, it may have garnered some support. But the humiliation of being forced to do it led to its undoing.
Mascon, New Delhi
S.S. Ray may say that “I had declared that nobody would be arrested in Calcutta” in his interview to your magazine, but I had a very frightening experience as the editor of the Caldust English Weekly published from Calcutta in 1976. The police visited my office to confiscate all the copies of the weekly dated September 12, 1976, which carried a political story captioned, ‘West Bengal Scene: Hectic political activities’ about Ray losing the support of the Congress high command and the likelihood of him being replaced by Pranab Mukherjee as the West Bengal CM at the instance of Sanjay Gandhi. Ray’s press secretary, Pritin Bhattacharyya, made threatening phone calls reminding me about the Emergency and censorship. The police was after me. I was saved from being arrested due to the intervention of the then Union petroleum minister, K.D. Malviya. It is well-known that two senior journalists, namely Barun Sengupta and Gourkishore Ghosh, were put behind bars for months during the Emergency. Sitaram Sharma, CalcuttaIt is no service to your readers that you should now try and prove that Indira Gandhi was an innocent victim of her circumstances. It would have been better work if you had instead unearthed the remains of the Shah Commission report, which was buried mischievously and untimely. The all-round corruption we can see today can be directly attributed to the unceremonious burial of Emergency crimes.
M. Kapoor, New Delhi
There is hardly anything ‘explosive’ in S.S. Ray’s letter; their role is known well enough to be any ‘revelation’ now.
P. Prasad Thampy, Thiruvalla
The poem B.G. Verghese attributes to Domingo Ortega in his book extract (The Last Waltz in Williamsburg) was written by Robert Graves based upon something the bullfighter had said. It was written extemporaneously when a journalist rang him up in Spain to congratulate him on his being chosen/elected as professor of poetry at Oxford, 1961. President John F. Kennedy then quoted it for his own purposes at his press conference but attributed it in error to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset.
Dr Rajeev Ardey, on e-mail
The death of PF scam kingpin Asthana (Judging from this Case..., Nov 2) can only lead back to those who would have benefited from such an eventuality. In this instance, it’s the high and mighty in the judiciary and the executive. A.K. Biswas, CalcuttaThe media should give out the names of all the 33 judges involved so that a clearer picture emerges of who all have been ‘infected’.
B. Prabhu, Mangalore
Asthana was a key witness in a case which involved half of UP’s judiciary and an SC judge. Now the same courts have ordered an inquiry into his death! Very touching.
Rajesh, Phoenix, US
The hand may well hold the reins in Maharashtra, but it is Raj Thackeray who is riding the media-propelled high horse (Return to Palm Springs, Nov 2). Mickie Sorabjee, on e-mailBrave hopes and braver words...both failed the BJP in the assembly polls. The blunt truth is that the party simply failed to enthuse the voters. This is more a comment on the party’s leadership than on its agenda of governance which, tragically, appears increasingly immaterial. The loss of direction at the top is affecting the less organised state units also.
P. Arihanth, Hyderabad
It is unfortunate that things have come to this pass in Pakistan (Chevalier of the Undead, Nov 2). Somehow, the whole idea of religion being the base for founding a separate state seems to me—an atheist—as flawed. The fact is that Pakistan had started with better ideals than what actuates it now. One just feels sorry for the sane, normal people there. Prakash, San FranciscoYou need a diamond to cut a diamond, a thorn to remove a thorn. Mehsud’s rise could well be a lesson for the Pak army.
Vijay, Bangalore
I was associated with Basava Premanand for a long time and really appreciated Rahul Singh’s tribute (The Spell Breaker, Nov 2). We have lost a human being who devoted his life to one of the toughest careers anyone can follow—without benefit or monetary reward. All he wanted to do was bring out in us that most uncomplicated of faculties—plain common sense. Margaret Bhatty, on e-mail‘Rationalist’—one with a rationed sense of reason—is an apt name for people who can’t think beyond their noses and go only by facts and principles. The outright condemnation of godmen and spiritual gurus by the likes of Basava Premanand is because they can’t understand the miracles of people like Sathya Sai Baba.
Lt Col Shanti Prakash Karir, Noida
In the death of Basava Premanand, India has lost a great fighter against exploitation through the use of superstition. Premanand was a simple man. A chance meeting at a Karol Bagh bus stop once made me invite him to my flat in Mayur Vihar, where he spoke to a small audience I managed to gather. He spoke so convincingly that all of them were influenced by him.
N. Kunju, New Delhi
Basava Premanand’s death is a loss to India, where so many well-educated people flock to watch the miracles of so-called godmen! One man called such blind followers “literate illiterates”—that was Osho!
Sudhir Sharma, Bangalore
There are societies propagating the belief that the earth is flat and I do not know of any harm they’ve caused anyone. People like Abraham Kovoor and Basava Premanand may have written some books and articles but I haven’t heard of a single person bailed out of misery by them. I care two hoots if Sathya Sai Baba is a fraudster; all I know is that his ashrams and other institutions have brought benefits to thousands—rationalists included.
M. Srinivasulu, Hyderabad
India needs to have binding emission cuts precisely because it, and not the US, would be the one to bear the brunt of climate change (Charcoal Sam Was Here, Nov 2). It must not only aggressively cut its own greenhouse gas emissions, but push others to do the same. India wants to continue on its policy of environmental profligacy in the name of development of its millions of people, but life gets better for only a select few. High emissions by this group look small when represented as per capita for the whole population. India just wants to shield the rich by not arresting their high-carbon lifestyle and using the poor just for that purpose.
M.S. Danish, Delhi
Apropos of Sunil Khilnani’s review of Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History (Nov 2). Albert Webber, an Englishman and self-professed expert in religious studies, postulated that the Mahabharata and the Bhagwad Gita were heavily influenced by Christian thought. This moved Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya to say: “The celebrated Webber was no doubt a scholar, but I am inclined to think it was an unfortunate moment for India when he began the study of Sanskrit.” Perhaps Doniger is Webber reborn. Shiv Adiseshan, ChennaiDoniger says the Bhagwad Gita was by no means the most important book for Hindus; it became central only because it was the first book to be translated from Sanskrit to English. That’s absurd. Doniger may note what Adi Shankaracharya has said in his commentary on the Gita. Moreover, Shankaracharya himself says he isn’t the first to comment on the Gita. So, if it wasn’t important enough, why such extensive commentaries by such an important personage? To claim that the Gita became central to Hinduism only because of the British is like saying that Indians took an interest in number theory only because the British brought the western university system to India.
Mysore N. Prakash, Dallas, US
Getting outraged at reading just a few sentences about Sita shows how unaccommodative we have become. There are many interesting things Doniger’s book brings out that its critics overlook. For instance, she points out how there are temples to Sita in Maharashtra which do not include an idol of Rama; how Sita is held in reverence in different parts of India both for obeying her husband and for disobeying him.
Ahmad Pasha, on e-mail
Lakshman certainly called Dashrath ‘kamasakta’, but does Doniger take into account the context? He does it in a sudden burst of emotion, not as a result of hatred accumulated over time. Also, Lakshman did not know of Dashrath’s suffering at having to send Ram away or of his many pleadings with Kaikeyi. Doniger has taken a sentence out of context and interpreted it.
Rajendra Patidar, Shyampur
Eklavya could have refused when Dronacharya asked for his thumb, but his readiness to offer gurudakshina—a great concept, unique to Hinduism—ennobled him. Hindu-baiters and Brahmin-haters have been wrongly portraying this as a cruelty inflicted by a Brahmin against a tribal.
R. Subramanian, Waterloo, Canada
I’d like to address two of Sunil Khilnani’s concerns. He wonders how Hindu plurality meshes with the rigidity of Hindutva. The answer: the two are separated by millennia. The times of Khajuraho were pre-Islamic, when multiple strains and philosophies of Hinduism thrived without fear. The rigidity in Hindu thought is a reflection of Muslim invasion, conquest and oppression. As for the contradictions in the Mahabharata about karma and chance, a fundamental feature of the epic is the divine nature of Krishna, his transcendence of the laws of karma, his engagement with the world through the medium of lila. If the Mahabharata is analysed with the rigid rules of Western logic, it will take people like Doniger nowhere.
Amit, on e-mail
I read with amusement the casteist comments of Neelabh Mishra about the Nobel awards (What Caste Is Nobel, Oct 26). It’s high time the obc (creamy layer) leadership in Tamil Nadu took steps to persuade the Nobel committee to have a policy of reservation for the award. The first step might be a 12-hour bandh on an auspicious day.
G. Vijayaraghavan, Chennai
Apropos of Mary Roy’s column Macaulay’s Oranjuss (Oct 26), it’s well established that a child who begins learning in his/her mother tongue is more likely to succeed academically. A recent view of cost-benefit analyses for the 2006 African education ministers’ meeting shows that education programmes that start with the mother tongue, gradually moving to other languages, lead to cost savings compared to monolingual programmes.
A. Giridhar Rao, Hyderabad
Anwar Alikhan’s Chicken Natwarlal (Nov 2) was a scrumptious read. A bit of a shocker in these recessionary times, but when you compare it with the Bentley and Gucci crowd’s shenanigans, the price seems like peanuts. But pray, who would wait a day to eat when you are really hungry? Manu Kumar Lal, GurgaonWith divorces increasing, and fewer women ready to cook at home, no wonder there are people out there trying to make the best money during chow time.
Partha, Chennai
This only proves the maxim, “There’s a mug born every minute!”, and also that some have more money than sense.
Charu Khopkar, Sydney
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you pay gold guineas, you still get monkeys.
Manish Banerjee, Calcutta
Only people with moolah will splurge in such an extravagant way. Let them do it, if they get the bang for their rupees.
Scaria Varghese, Melbourne
Typical Indian thing to do. As long as there is greed, there will be conmen out to make bakras out of you.
Mihir, London
What does a bowl of curry for Rs 6,000 say about today’s India? Well, quite clearly that India has a market for every kind of product, from staple to ultra-luxury. Why hold a grudge against the marketers? Anyway, this chicken certainly isn’t for the chicken-livered.
Sarvesh Srivastava, Gurgaon
Instead of wasting time criticising the taste, the exorbitant price or the consumerist society we must encourage people who are successful in selling new ideas. India needs more entrepreneurs.
DC, New York
Well, with that kind of price tag, I would expect a Bollywood starlet to personally deliver the curry at my doorstep.... Hmm, that’s not a bad deal!
Rajiv Malhotra, Aligarh
Unscrupulous providers and devious consumers. How are these techies different from women willing to provide sex for money? They are not cheating either; they are providing a service because someone is buying.
Ramana, Hyderabad
Apropos of The Cookout (Nov 2), what would the price of a meal of three kababs, two rotis and an onion salad plus coffee be? That’s all I can afford. Gayatri Devi, DelhiTake the seekh kabab and haleem away from the sidewalks and put them in regular restaurant settings, and you lose something indescribable!
Anwaar, Dallas
The key researcher on the issue of Tagore’s association with Victoria Ocampo, their writings and their correspondence is Ketaki Kushari Dyson. It’s not clear why your article Ripples In The Waterfall (Oct 26) refers extensively to Sunil Gangopadhyay’s book on Tagore and Lady Ranu Mukherjee, who has not researched this area at all. Dyson threw light on this unusual friendship, and it is through her compilation of their correspondence and translations with notes on Tagore’s poetry and from Ocampo’s essays that we have a clear idea of the relationship. Dyson researched in three continents, working in archives and interviewing people, and is the only scholar who has worked in Argentina in this connection. She was also the first person to analyse specific paintings of Tagore and link them to his Argentine friend. Moreover, the story for Pablo Cesar’s movie is unrealistic, and a bit tacky. Which researcher with even a grain of common sense would fall in love with a petty thief?
Tarini Sharma, Ahmedabad
It’s a pleasant surprise to see Jharipani figure again in Outlook, this time in Ruskin Bond’s Mussoorie Diary (Oct 26). Jharipani is synonymous with the 121-year-old Oak Grove Railway school, where Ruskin Bond’s mother studied. My mother, Nirmal (Duggal) Mohindru, taught there for 36 years. My father, Subhash Mohindru, established an sbi branch there in 1980. People are surprised when I tell them I started school only when eight. This is because Oak Grove starts with Standard III. More importantly, Oak Grove has a place in history because of the number of Olympic hockey gold medallists it produced.
Sameer Mohindru, Singapore
“Women, mothers and teenagers in plastic slippers and armed with bows and arrows are getting ready to take over our mighty republic,” says Vinod Mehta in his Delhi Diary (Nov 2). Bows and arrows? What about the landmines used routinely to blow up police jeeps, buried deep into the ground, just like Mr Mehta’s head? Kiran Bagachi, MumbaiMr Mehta is right about the 5,000-odd Maoists that are the hard core not shown in any photographs. This is the core the CPI(M) nurtured and nourished to retain hold of West Bengal. They have now turned on their benefactors and are seeking political power through the barrel of a gun. They deserve the violence of the state against them. If you live by the sword, then you should learn to perish by the sword too.
Devindra Sethi, Noida
Thank you for appreciating the Naxal menace in a right perspective (On War Footing, Oct 26). However, I have issue with your labelling the CRPF (the biggest paramilitary force in the world) as “an ill-equipped and ill-trained force”. As a serving officer of the force, I can tell you that as far as weaponry is concerned we are at par with the best in the business, with INSAS, AKMS, LMGS, MMGS, mortars, AGLS, CGRLS. Modern communication and navigation gadgets are extensively being encouraged in operations. The troops, having been trained in various specialised colleges of the CRPF and the Counter-Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism school, are shouldering the responsibilities of internal security with elan in various theatres of low-intensity conflicts. Abhiram Pankaj, Assistant Commandant, CRPFIt is pathetic that the full might of the Indian armed forces will be deployed against impoverished, defenceless, bedraggled villagers. Recall what the activist/academic statement (co-authored by Chomsky) said: “We fear that the government’s offensive seeks to crush popular resistances in order to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions.... KILL THE POOR, NOT THE POVERTY, seems to be the implicit slogan of the Indian government.” And it seems the scheme is based on US advice on counter-insurgency measures, given to Chidambaran when he visited the US.
Eddie, London
Jai ho Manmohan Singhji, first your economic reforms created this yawning chasm between rich and poor and now you don’t even want them to be alive?
Aravind Madala, Hyderabad
The last few cover stories have been tremendous. Good to see Outlook fighting the intellectual kwashiorkor it seemed to have been afflicted with.
Sumant Bhattacharya, Gurgaon
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