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[Bharatvarsh]

Viren much of Prithviraj-Sanyogita story is based on later legends but there is no doubt that swayamvaram was present in later times though not very common, I am trying to remember where I read about it but can't, perhaps others can pitch in.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lately an Internet Matrimonial Company called BharatMatrimony.com conducted one such event called the Mega Swayamvaram <b>2007</b> in Chennai, India. It was a huge success and over <b>10,000</b> singles from various castes of the Tamil speaking community attended.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> link

[acharya]

<b>Its an Hindu trait.</b>


Naviette and absence of shrewdness have been the biggest curses of Hindus down the centuries. Dozens of incidents come to mind, from Prithviraj Chauhan who was hoodwinked by Ghuri in calling for a fake truce, to the medieval Hindu king of Kashmir who was killed by the Muslim courtiers he had hired, to Nehru who ran to the UN on Kashmir invasion and trusted the Chinese, to Mahatma Gandhi who did not allow transfer of population despite handing over on a platter 1/3rd territory to Muslims, to Indira Gandhi who retained thousands of POWs but gave back all the land to Pakis, to these BJP clueless entities who handed over the only copy of the CD to the Congress pimps at CNN-IBN.

Child-like innocence is a shameful Hindu trait. It is as if they are perpetual teenagers who refuse to join the world of men. Many foriegn historians have commented on this strategic cluelessness and insightlessness of the Hindus. According to William Todd, the mid-19th-century writer of Rajput history, the traits of political blindness and magnimity with the enemies makes Hindus a race "unfit to preserve its liberties." Aurobindo Ghosh (or was it Tagore) called this a "trait of idiocy" that runs through Hindu blood. Just see Paswan attending Dalit conferences in US and swearing there to launch a Dalit liberation movement in India. The signs of idiocy are everywhere which make the Hindu male unfit to protect his land or women.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->to these BJP clueless entities who handed over the only copy of the CD to the Congress pimps at CNN-IBN.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Where did you get this?

[acharya]

Oxford's Indian history chair gets head after 3 yrs
14 Mar 2007, 0028 hrs IST, Rashmee Roshan Lal,TNN




OXFORD: Seven years after the Indian government's unprecedented £1.8 million gift to Oxford to create the University's first chair of Indian history and culture, the project is only just getting off the ground in a scandalous story of the NDA government's misjudged great expectations, mismanaged government grants and academic inertia at others' expense.

The chair was finally filled eight weeks ago after being vacant for nearly three years, raising questions about why the former NDA government and its successor, the UPA government, appear neither to have expected nor demanded a return on Indian money.

Though the new occupant of the chair, the earnest, erudite, utterly determined and charming professor of early modern Indian history Rosalind O'Hanlon has taken charge with an ambitious and "exciting" agenda for academic action, highly-placed Indian sources admit that even now, there is no guarantee of India recovering its generous investment any time soon with pioneering work on image-building through an Oxford view of history.

"The Indian bequest may seem generous to us but it is at least £3 million less than needed to properly fund such a chair," the sources told this paper.

When the then foreign minister Jaswant Singh announced the Indian endowment here in November 2000, he said the chair was the personal fulfilment of an old "dream".

But the generous Indian bequest got off to a creaky start by failing to appoint the first Oxford Indian history chair, S Subrahmanyam, for nearly two years after New Delhi handed the money over.

O'Hanlon and other senior Oxford academics in South Asian history, defend Subrahmanyam's record as chair, citing his work on "the early modern Indian period".



O'Hanlon, who insists she has "a scholarly agenda and not a right-wing cultural studies agenda" as suspected by some when the NDA broke new ground by instituting the chair.

She generously says she will continue in Subrahmanyam's footsteps "and neither of us have worked on Vedic glories".

But informed Indian sources suggest the first chair produced nothing of much consequence for the two years he notionally occupied the post, even as he spent much of his time at the UCLA in America.

Observers say it is shocking that there has been no significant demonstrable academic work from the chair in seven years, which could be relevant to the world's historical view of India and India's own understanding of its past.

They say this reinforces the impression of a shameful waste of Indian money at a time universities at home are struggling to find cash to survive.

The Indian history chair is only the third instance of any government, from anywhere in the world, funding a post at Oxford University.

[acharya]

Sardesai and his wife (dauther of ex-DG of Doordarshan Bhaskar Gosh) are nothing but Congress pimps just like NDTV is a CPI-M pimp. (There is no better word to denote their professional ethics.) Even ordinary viewers like us can easily discern this.

BJP "strategists" must have had their head up where the sun doesn't shine to have thought of handing over the crucial CD to CNN-IBN. One, it has CNN investment and the Goras sitting in US direct them on day-to-day editorial policy and which stories to drum up and which to give a quite burial to.

The innocence and naivette of Advani is shocking. (He is afterall the same man who stood on Pakistani soil and called Jinnah secular.) My respect for this man has gone down quite a few notches. There is no worse quality in the leader than naivette and allowing himself to be taken for a ride.

BJP should have chosen either Zee TV or India TV of Rajat Sharma or even Aaj Tak to air the CD. Best of all, they should have made five or six CDs and personally handed over to all news channels. Many of them would have fallen over themselves to telecast it first and rake in some ad revenue.

Shame on the innocent babies of BJP. Such insightless and naive people deserve what is happening to them. If BJP was smart, it should have at least kept anothe copy of the CD and released it on YouTube for us to see. The dimwits did not even bother to make an extra copy of the CD and just handed over the original CD to that Sardesai charlatan who is nothing but a Congress pimp wearing the mask of a journalist.

[acharya]

I believe many people understand Hinduism but are unable to define the Hindu collective - the Hindu organism.

The Hindu organism has a common thread (or many threads) running through it. Or the Hindu organism may merely be several sets connected by a series of non overlapping circles in my Venn diagram analogy.

That commonality is the Hindu identity that nobody (on here) has defined exactly. One of the confounding factors is that many non Hindus by religion consider themselves Hindu in many ways and they, like Hindus are ambiguous about religious affiliation.

The topic is a "real bugger". I am just posting a few thoughts.


<b>
THE COMMON BASES OF HINDUISM - Swami Vivekananda</b>

On his arrival at Lahore the Swamiji was accorded a grand reception by the leaders, both of the Arya Samaj and of the Sanatana Dharma Sabha. During his brief stay in Lahore, Swamiji delivered three lectures. The first of these was on "The Common Bases of Hinduism", the second on "Bhakti", and the third one was the famous lecture on "The Vedanta". On the first occasion he spoke as follows:

This is the land which is held to be the holiest even in holy Aryavarta; this is the Brahmavarta of which our great Manu speaks. This is the land from whence arose that mighty aspiration after the Spirit, ay, which in times to come, as history shows, is to deluge the world. This is the land where, like its mighty rivers, spiritual aspirations have arisen and joined their strength, till they travelled over the length and breadth of the world and declared themselves with a voice of thunder. This is the land which had first to bear the brunt of all inroads and invasions into India; this heroic land had first to bare its bosom to every onslaught of the outer barbarians into Aryavarta. This is the land which, after all its sufferings, has not yet entirely lost its glory and its strength. Here it was that in later times the gentle Nanak preached his marvellous love for the world. Here it was that his broad heart was opened and his arms outstretched to embrace the whole world, not only of Hindus, but of Mohammedans too. Here it was that one of the last and one of the most glorious heroes of our race, Guru Govinda Singh, after shedding his blood and that of his dearest and nearest for the cause of religion, even when deserted by those for whom this blood was shed, retired into the South to die like a wounded lion struck to the heart, without a word against his country, without a single word of murmur.

Here, in this ancient land of ours, children of the land of five rivers, I stand before you, not as a teacher, for I know very little to teach, but as one who has come from the east to exchange words of greeting with the brothers of the west, to compare notes. Here am I, not to find out differences that exist among us, but to find where we agree. Here am I trying to understand on what ground we may always remain brothers, upon what foundations the voice that has spoken from eternity may become stronger and stronger as it grows. Here am I trying to propose to you something of constructive work and not destructive. For criticism the days are past, and we are waiting for constructive work. The world needs, at times, criticisms even fierce ones; but that is only for a time, and the work for eternity is progress and construction, and not criticism and destruction. For the last hundred years or so, there has been a flood of criticism all over this land of ours, where the full play of Western science has been let loose upon all the dark spots, and as a result the corners and the holes have become much more prominent than anything else. Naturally enough there arose mighty intellects all over the land, great and glorious, with the love of truth and justice in their hearts, with the love of their country, and above all, an intense love for their religion and their God; and because these mighty souls felt so deeply, because they loved so deeply, they criticised everything they thought was wrong. Glory unto these mighty spirits of the past! They have done so much good; but the voice of the present day is coming to us, telling, "Enough!" There has been enough of criticism, there has been enough of fault-finding, the time has come for the rebuilding, the reconstructing; the time has come for us to gather all our scattered forces, to concentrate them into one focus, and through that, to lead the nation on its onward march, which for centuries almost has been stopped. The house has been cleansed; let it be inhabited anew. The road has been cleared. March ahead, children of the Aryans!

Gentlemen, this is the motive that brings me before you, and at the start I may declare to you that I belong to no party and no sect. They are all great and glorious to me, I love them all, and all my life I have been attempting to find what is good and true in them. Therefore, it is my proposal tonight to bring before you points where we are agreed, to find out, if we can, a ground of agreement; and if through the grace of the Lord such a state of things be possible, let us take it up, and from theory carry it out into practice. We are Hindus. I do not use the word Hindu in any bad sense at all, nor do I agree with those that think there is any bad meaning in it. In old times, it simply meant people who lived on the other side of the Indus; today a good many among those who hate us may have put a bad interpretation upon it, but names are nothing. Upon us depends whether the name Hindu will stand for everything that is glorious, everything that is spiritual, or whether it will remain a name of opprobrium, one designating the downtrodden, the worthless, the heathen. If at present the word Hindu means anything bad, never mind; by our action let us be ready to show that this is the highest word that any language can invent. It has been one of the principles of my life not to be ashamed of my own ancestors. I am one of the proudest men ever born, but let me tell you frankly, it is not for myself, but on account of my ancestry. The more I have studied the past, the more I have looked back, more and more has this pride come to me, and it has give me the strength and courage of conviction, raised me up from the dust of the earth, and set me working out that great plan laid out by those great ancestors of ours. Children of those ancient Aryans, through the grace of the Lord may you have the same pride, may that faith in your ancestors come into your blood, may it become a part and parcel of your lives, may it work towards the salvation of the world!

Before trying to find out the precise point where we are all agreed, the common ground of our national life, one thing we must remember. Just as there is an individuality in every man, so there is a national individuality. As one man differs from another in certain particulars, in certain characteristics of his own, so one race differs from another in certain peculiar characteristics; and just as it is the mission of every man to fulfil a certain purpose in the economy of nature, just as there is a particular line set out for him by his own past Karma, so it is with nations--each nation has a destiny to fulfil, each nation has a message to deliver, each nation has a mission to accomplish. Therefore, from the very start, we must have to understand the mission of our own race, the destiny it has to fulfil, the place it has to occupy in the march of nations, and note which it has to contribute to the harmony of races. In our country, when children, we hear stories how some serpents have jewels in their heads, and whatever one may do with the serpent, so long as the jewel is there, the serpent cannot be killed. We hear stories of giants and ogres who had souls living in certain little birds, and so long as the bird was safe, there was no power on earth to kill these giants; you might hack them to pieces, or do what you liked to them, the giants could not die. So with nations, there is a certain point where the life of a nation centres, where lies the nationality of the nation, and until that is touched, the nation cannot die. In the light of this we can understand the most marvellous phenomenon that the history of the world has ever known. Wave after wave of barbarian conquest has rolled over this devoted land of ours. "Allah Ho Akbar!" has rent the skies for hundreds of years, and no Hindu knew what moment would be his last. This is the most suffering and the most subjugated of all the historic lands of the world. Yet we still stand practically the same race, ready to face difficulties again and again if necessary; and not only so, of late there have been signs that we are not only strong, but ready to go out, for the sign of life is expansion.

We find today that our ideas and thoughts are no more cooped up within the bounds of India, but whether we will it or not, they are marching outside, filtering into the literature of nations, taking their place among nations, and in some, even getting a commanding dictatorial position. Behind this we find the explanation that the great contribution to the sum total of the world's progress from India is the greatest, the noblest, the sublimest theme that can occupy the mind of man--it is philosophy and spirituality. Our ancestors tried many other things; they, like other nations, first went to bring out the secrets of external nature as we all know, and with their gigantic brains that marvellous race could have done miracles in that line of which the world could have been proud for ever. But they gave it up for something higher; something better rings out from the pages of the Vedas: "That science is the greatest which makes us know Him who never changes!" The science of nature, changeful, evanescent, the world of death, of woe, of misery, may be great, great indeed; but the science of Him who changes not, the Blissful One, where alone is peace, where alone is life eternal, where alone is perfection, where alone all misery ceases--that, according to our ancestors, was the sublimest science of all. After all, sciences that can give us only bread and clothes and power over our fellowmen, sciences that can teach us only how to conquer our fellow-beings, to rule over them, which teach the strong to domineer over the weak--those they could have discovered if they willed. But praise be unto the Lord, they caught at once the other side, which was grander, infinitely higher, infinitely more blissful, till it has become the national characteristic, till it has come down to us, inherited from father to son for thousands of years, till it has become a part and parcel of us, till it tingles in every drop of blood that runs through our veins, till it has become our second nature, till the name of religion and Hindu have become one. This is the national characteristic, and this cannot be touched. Barbarians with sword and fire, barbarians bringing barbarous religions, not one of them could touch the core, not one could touch the "jewel", not one had the power to kill the "bird" which the soul of the race inhabited. This, therefore, is the vitality of the race, and so long as that remains, there is no power under the sun that can kill the race. All the tortures and miseries of the world will pass over without hurting us, and we shall come out of the flames like Prahlada, so long as we hold on to this grandest of all our inheritances, spirituality. If a Hindu is not spiritual I do not call him a Hindu. In other countries a man may be political first, and then he may have a little religion, but here in India the first and the foremost duty of our lives is to be spiritual first, and then,if there is time, let other things come. Bearing this in mind we shall be in a better position to understand why, for our national welfare, we must first seek out at the present day all the spiritual forces of the race, as was done in days of yore and will be done in all times to come. National union in India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune.

There have been sects enough in this country. There are sects enough, and there will be enough in the future, because this has been the peculiarity of our religion that in abstract principles so much latitude has been given that, although afterwards so much detail has been worked out, all these details are the working out of principles, broad as the skies above our heads, eternal as nature herself. Sects, therefore, as a matter of course, must exist here, but what need not exist is sectarian quarrel. Sects must be, but sectarianism need not. The world would not be the better for sectarianism, but the world cannot move on without having sects. One set of men cannot do everything. The almost infinite mass of energy in the world cannot be managed by a small number of people. Here, at once we see the necessity that forced this division of labour upon us--the division into sects. For the use of spiritual forces let there be sects; but is there any need that we should quarrel when our most ancient books declare that this differentiation is only apparent, that in spite of all these differences there is a thread of harmony, that beautiful unity, running through them all? Our most ancient books have declared: "That which exists is One; sages call Him by various names." Therefore, if there are these sectarian struggles, if there are these fights among the different sects, if there is jealousy and hatred between the different sects in India, the land where all sects have always been honoured, it is a shame on us who dare to call ourselves the descendants of those fathers.

There are certain great principles in which, I think, we--whether Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shaktas, or Ganapatyas, whether belonging to the ancient Vedantists or the modern ones, whether belonging to the old rigid sects or the modern reformed ones--are all one, and whoever calls himself a Hindu, believes in these principles. Of course there is a difference in the interpretation, in the explanation of these principles, and that difference should be there, and it should be allowed, for our standard is not to bind every man down to our position. It would be a sin to force every man to work out our own interpretation of things, and to live by our own methods. Perhaps all who are here will agree on the first point that we believe the Vedas to be the eternal teachings of the secrets of religion. We all believe that this holy literature is without beginning and without end, coeval with nature, which is without beginning and without end; and that all our religious differences, all our religious struggles must end when we stand in the presence of that holy book; we are all agreed that this is the last court of appeal in all our spiritual differences. We may take different points of view as to what the Vedas are. There may be one sect which regards one portion as more sacred than another, but that matters little so long as we say that we are all brothers in the Vedas, that out of these venerable, eternal, marvellous books has come everything that we possess today, good, holy, and pure. Well, therefore, if we believe in all this, let this principle first of all be preached broadcast throughout the length and breadth of the land. If this be true, let the Vedas have that prominence which they always deserve, and which we all believe in. First, then, the Vedas. The second point we all believe in is God, the creating, the preserving power of the whole universe, and unto whom it periodically returns to come out at other periods and manifest this wonderful phenomenon, called the universe. We may differ as to our conception of God. One may believe in a God who is entirely personal, another may believe in a God who is personal and yet not human, and yet another may believe in a God who is entirely impersonal, and all may get their support from the Vedas. Still we are all believers in God; that is to say, that man who does not believe in a most marvellous infinite Power from which everything has come, in which everything lives, and to which everything must in the end return, cannot be called a Hindu. If that be so, let us try to preach that idea all over the land. Preach whatever conception you have to give, there is no difference, we are not going to fight over it, but preach God; that is all we want. One idea may be better than another, but, mind you, not one of them is bad. One is good, another is better, and again another may be the best, but the word bad does not enter the category of our religion. Therefore, may the Lord bless them all who preach the name of God in whatever form they like! The more He is preached, the better for this race. Let our children be brought up in this idea, let this idea enter the homes of the poorest and the lowest, as well as of the richest and the highest--the idea of the name of God.

The third idea that I will present before you is that, unlike all other races of the world, we do not believe that this world was created only so many thousand years ago, and is going to be destroyed eternally on a certain day. Nor do we believe that the human soul has been created along with this universe just out of nothing. Here is another point I think we are all able to agree upon. We believe in nature being without beginning and without end; only at psychological periods this gross material of the outer universe goes back to its finer state, thus to remain for a certain period, again to be projected outside to manifest all this infinite panorama we call nature. This wavelike motion was going on even before time began, through eternity, and will remain for an infinite period of time.

Next, all Hindus believe that man is not only a gross material body; not only that within this there is the finer body, the mind, but there is something yet greater--for the body changes and so does the mind--something beyond, the Atman--I cannot translate the word to you for any translation will be wrong--that there is something beyond even this fine body, which is the Atman of man, which has neither beginning nor end, which knows not what death is. And then this peculiar idea, different from that of all other races of men, that this Atman inhabits body after body until there is no more interest for it to continue to do so, and it becomes free, not to be born again, I refer to the theory of Samsara and the theory of eternal souls taught by our Shastras. This is another point where we all agree, whatever sect we may belong to. There may be differences as to the relation between the soul and God. According to one sect the soul may be eternally different from God, according to another it may be a spark of that infinite fire, yet again according to others it may be one with that Infinite. It does not matter what our interpretation is, so long as we hold on to the one basic belief that the soul is infinite, that this soul was never created, and therefore will never die, that it had to pass and evolve into various bodies, till it attained perfection in the human one--in that we are all agreed. And then comes the most differentiating, the grandest, and the most wonderful discovery in the realms of spirituality that has ever been made. Some of you, perhaps, who have been studying Western thought, may have observed already that there is another radical difference severing at one stroke all that is Western from all that is Eastern. It is this that we hold, whether we are Shaktas, Sauras, or Vaishnavas, even whether we are Bauddhas or Jainas, we all hold in India that the soul is by its nature pure and perfect, infinite in power and blessed. Only, according to the dualist, this natural blissfulness of the soul has become contracted by past bad work, and through the grace of God it is going to open out and show its perfection; while according to the monist, even this idea of contraction is a partial mistake, it is the veil of Maya that causes us to think the soul has lost its powers, but the powers are there fully manifest. Whatever the difference may be, we come to the central core, and there is at once an irreconcilable difference between all that is Western and Eastern. The Eastern is looking inward for all that is great and good. When we worship, we close our eyes and try to find God within. The Western is looking up outside for his God. To the Western their religious books have been inspired, while with us our books have been expired; breath-like they came, the breath of God, out of the hearts of sages they sprang, the Mantra-drashtas.

This is one great point to understand, and, my friends, my brethren, let me tell you, this is the one point we shall have to insist upon in the future. For I am firmly convinced, and I beg you to understand this one fact--no good comes out of the man who day and night thinks he is nobody. If a man, day and night, thinks he is miserable, low, and nothing, nothing he becomes. If you say, yea, yea, "I am, I am", so shall you be; and if you say "I am not", think that you are not, and day and night meditate upon the fact that you are nothing, ay, nothing shall you be. That is the great fact which you ought to remember. We are the children of the Almighty, we are sparks of the infinite, divine fire. How can we be nothings? We are everything, ready to do everything, we can do everything, and man must do everything. This faith in themselves was in the hearts of our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation; and if there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my words, you will find that degradation to have started on the day our people lost this faith in themselves. Losing faith in one's self means losing faith in God. Do you believe in that infinite, good Providence working in and through you? If you believe that this Omnipresent One, the Antaryamin, is present in every atom, is through and through, Ota-prota, as the Sanskrit word goes, penetrating your body, mind and soul, how can you lose heart? I may be a little bubble of water, and you may be a mountain-high wave. Never mind! The infinite ocean is the background of me as well as of you. Mine also is that infinite ocean of life, of power, of spirituality, as well as yours. I am already joined--from my very birth, from the very fact of my life--I am in Yoga with that infinite life and infinite goodness and infinite power, as you are, mountain-high though you may be. Therefore, my brethren, teach this life-saving, great, ennobling, grand doctrine to your children, even from their very birth. You need not teach them Advaitism; teach them Dvaitism, or any "ism" you please, but we have seen that this is the common "ism" all through India; this marvellous doctrine of the soul, the perfection of the soul, is commonly believed in by all sects. As says our great philosopher Kapila, if purity has not been the nature of the soul, it can never attain purity afterwards, for anything that was not perfect by nature, even if it attained to perfection, that perfection would go away again. If impurity is the nature of man, then man will have to remain impure, even though he may be pure for five minutes. The time will come when this purity will wash out, pass away, and the old natural impurity will have its sway once more. Therefore, say all our philosophers, good is our nature, perfection is our nature, not imperfection, not impurity--and we should remember that. Remember the beautiful example of the great sage who, when he was dying, asked his mind to remember all his mighty deeds and all his mighty thoughts. There you do not find that he was teaching his mind to remember all his weaknesses and all his follies. Follies there are, weakness there must be, but remember your real nature always--that is the only way to cure the weakness, that is the only way to cure the follies.

It seems that these few points are common among all the various religious sects in India, and perhaps in future upon this common platform, conservative and liberal religionists, old type and new type, may shake hands. Above all, there is another thing to remember, which I am sorry we forget from time to time, that religion, in India, means realisation and nothing short of that. "Believe in the doctrine, and you are safe", can never be taught to us, for we do not believe in that. You are what you make yourselves. You are, by the grace of God and your own exertions, what you are. Mere believing in certain theories and doctrines will not help you much. The mighty word that came out from the sky of spirituality in India was Anubhuti, realisation, and ours are the only books which declare again and again: "The Lord is to be seen ". Bold, brave words indeed, but true to their very core; every sound, every vibration is true. Religion is to be realised, not only heard; it is not in learning some doctrine like a parrot. Neither is it mere intellectual assent--that is nothing; but it must come into us. Ay, and therefore the greatest proof that we have of the existence of a God is not because our reason says so, but because God has been seen by the ancients as well as by the moderns. We believe in the soul not only because there are good reasons to prove its existence, but, above all, because there have been in the past thousands in India, there are still many who have realised, and there will be thousands in the future who will realise and see their own souls. And there is no salvation for man until he sees God, realises his own soul. Therefore, above all, let us understand this, and the more we understand it the less we shall have of sectarianism in India, for it is only that man who has realised God and seen Him, who is religious. In him the knots have been cut asunder, in him alone the doubts have subsided; he alone has become free from the fruits of action who has seen Him who is nearest of the near and farthest of the far. Ay, we often mistake mere prattle for religious truth, mere intellectual perorations for great spiritual realisation, and then comes sectarianism, then comes fight. If we once understand that this realisation is the only religion, we shall look into our own hearts and find how far we are towards realising the truths of religion. Then we shall understand that we ourselves are groping in darkness, and are leading others to grope in the same darkness, then we shall cease from sectarianism, quarrel, and fight. Ask a man who wants to start a sectarian fight, "Have you seen God? Have you seen the Atman? If you have not, what right have you to preach His name--you walking in darkness trying to lead me into the same darkness--the blind leading the blind, and both falling into the ditch?"

Therefore, take more thought before you go and find fault with others. Let them follow their own path to realisation so long as they struggle to see truth in their own hearts; and when the broad, naked truth will be seen, then they will find that wonderful blissfulness which marvellously enough has been testified to by every seer in India, by every one who has realised the truth. Then words of love alone will come out of that heart, for it has already been touched by Him who is the essence of Love Himself. Then and then alone, all sectarian quarrels will cease, and we shall be in a position to understand, to bring to our hearts, to embrace, to intensely love the very word Hindu and every one who bears that name. Mark me, then and then alone you are a Hindu when the very name sends through you a galvanic shock of strength. Then and then alone you are a Hindu when every man who bears the name, from any country, speaking our language or any other language, becomes at once the nearest and the dearest to you. Then and then alone you are a Hindu when the distress of anyone bearing that name comes to your heart and makes you feel as if your own son were in distress. Then and then alone you are a Hindu when you will be ready to bear everything for them, like the great example I have quoted at the beginning of this lecture, of your great Guru Govind Singh. Driven out from this country, fighting against its oppressors, after having shed his own blood for the defence of the Hindu religion, after having seen his children killed on the battlefield--ay, this example of the great Guru, left even by those for whose sake he was shedding his blood and the blood of his own nearest and dearest--he, the wounded lion, retired from the field calmly to die in the South, but not a word of curse escaped his lips against those who had ungratefully forsaken him! Mark me, every one of you will have to be a Govind Singh, if you want to do good to your country. You may see thousands of defects in your countrymen, but mark their Hindu blood. They are the first Gods you will have to worship even if they do everything to hurt you, even if everyone of them send out a curse to you, you send out to them words of love. If they drive you out, retire to die in silence like that mighty lion, Govind Singh. Such a man is worthy of the name of Hindu; such an ideal ought to be before us always. All our hatchets let us bury; send out this grand current of love all round.

Let them talk of India's regeneration as they like. Let me tell you as one who has been working--at least trying to work--all his life, that there is no regeneration for India until you be spiritual. Not only so, but upon it depends the welfare of the whole world. For I must tell you frankly that the very foundations of Western civilisation have been shaken to their base. The mightiest buildings, if built upon the loose sand foundations of materialism, must come to grief one day, must totter to their destruction some day. The history of the world is our witness. Nation after nation has arisen and based its greatness upon materialism, declaring man was all matter. Ay, in Western language, a man gives up the ghost, but in our language a man gives up his body. The Western man is a body first, and then he has a soul; with us a man is a soul and spirit, and he has a body. Therein lies a world of difference. All such civilisations, therefore, as have been based upon such sand foundations as material comfort and all that, have disappeared one after another, after short lives, from the face of the world; but the civilisation of India and the other nations that have stood at India's feet to listen and learn, namely Japan and China, live even to the present day, and there are signs even of revival among them. Their lives are like that of the Phoenix, a thousand times destroyed, but ready to spring up again more glorious. But a materialistic civilisation once dashed down, never can come up again; that building once thrown down is broken into pieces once for all. Therefore have patience and wait, the future is in store for us.

Do not be in a hurry, do not go out to imitate anybody else. This is another great lesson we have to remember; imitation is not civilisation. I may deck myself out in a Raja's dress, but will that make me a Raja? An ass in a lion's skin never makes a lion. Imitation, cowardly imitation, never makes for progress. It is verily the sign of awful degradation in a man. Ay, when a man has begun to hate himself, then the last blow has come. When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. Here am I, one of the least of the Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of your unworthy servants. I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the descendants of the sages, you the descendants of the most glorious Rishis the world ever saw. Therefore have faith in yourselves, be proud of your ancestors, instead of being ashamed of them. And do not imitate, do not imitate! Whenever you are under the thumb of others, you lose your own independence. If you are working, even in spiritual things, at the dictation of others, slowly you lose all faculty, even of thought. Bring out through your own exertions what you have, but do not imitate, yet take what is good from others. We have to learn from others. You put the seed in the ground, and give it plenty of earth, and air, and water to feed upon; when the seed grows into the plant and into a gigantic tree, does it become the earth, does it become the air, or does it become the water? It becomes the mighty plant, the mighty tree, after its own nature, having absorbed everything that was given to it. Let that be your position. We have indeed many things to learn from others, yea, that man who refuses to learn is already dead. Declares our Manu: "Take the jewel of a woman for your wife, though she be of inferior descent. Learn supreme knowledge with service even from the man of low birth; and even from the Chandala, learn by serving him the way to salvation." Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others. Do not be dragged away out of this Indian life; do not for a moment think that it would be better for India if all the Indians dressed, ate, and behaved like another race. You know the difficulty of giving up a habit of a few years. The Lord knows how many thousands of years are in your blood; this national specialised life has been flowing in one way, the Lord knows for how many thousands of years; and do you mean to say that that mighty stream, which has nearly reached its ocean, can go back to the snows of its Himalayas again? That is impossible! The struggle to do so would only break it. Therefore, make way for the life-current of the nation. Take away the blocks that bar the way to the progress of this mighty river, cleanse its path, clear the channel, and out it will rush by its own natural impulse, and the nation will go on careering and progressing.

These are the lines which I beg to suggest to you for spiritual work in India. There are many other great problems which, for want of time, I cannot bring before you this night. For instance, there is the wonderful question of caste. I have been studying this question, its pros and cons, all my life; I have studied it in nearly every province in India. I have mixed with people of all castes in nearly every part of the country, and I am too bewildered in my own mind to grasp even the very significance of it. The more I try to study it, the more I get bewildered. Still at last I find that a little glimmer of light is before me, I begin to feel its significance just now. Then there is the other great problem about eating and drinking. That is a great problem indeed. It is not so useless a thing as we generally think. I have come to the conclusion that the insistence which we make now about eating and drinking is most curious and is just going against what the Shastras required, that is to say, we come to grief by neglecting the proper purity of the food we eat and drink; we have lost the true spirit of it.

There are several other questions which I want to bring before you and show how these problems can be solved, how to work out the ideas; but unfortunately the meeting could not come to order until very late, and I do not wish to detain you any longer now. I will, therefore, keep my ideas about caste and other things for a future occasion.

Now, one word more and I will finish about these spiritual ideas. Religion for a long time has come to be static in India. What we want is to make it dynamic. I want it to be brought into the life of everybody. Religion, as it always has been in the past, must enter the palaces of kings as well as the homes of the poorest peasants in the land. Religion, the common inheritance, the universal birthright of the race, must be brought free to the door of everybody. Religion in India must be made as free and as easy of access as is God's air. And this is the kind of work we have to bring about in India, but not by getting up little sects and fighting on points of difference. Let us preach where we all agree and leave the differences to remedy themselves. As I have said to the Indian people again and again, if there is the darkness of centuries in a room and we go into the room and begin to cry, "Oh, it is dark, it is dark!", will the darkness go? Bring in the light and the darkness will vanish at once. This is the secret of reforming men. Suggest to them higher things; believe in man first. Why start with the belief that man is degraded and degenerated? I have never failed in my faith in man in any case, even taking him at his worst. Wherever I had faith in man, though at first the prospect was not always bright, yet it triumphed in the long run. Have faith in man, whether he appears to you to be a very learned one or a most ignorant one. Have faith in man, whether he appears to be an angel or the very devil himself. Have faith in man first, and then having faith in him, believe that if there are defects in him, if he makes mistakes, if he embraces the crudest and the vilest doctrines, believe that it is not from his real nature that they come, but from the want of higher ideals. If a man goes towards what is false, it is because he cannot get what is true. Therefore the only method of correcting what is false is by supplying him with what is true. Do this, and let him compare. You give him the truth, and there your work is done. Let him compare it in his own mind with what he has already in him; and, mark my words, if you have really given him the truth, the false must vanish, light must dispel darkness, and truth will bring the good out. This is the way if you want to reform the country spiritually; this is the way, and not fighting, not even telling people that what they are doing is bad. Put the good before them, see how eagerly they take it, see how the divine that never dies, that is always living in the human, comes up awakened and stretches out its hand for all that is good, and all that is glorious.

May He who is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Protector of our race, the God of our forefathers, whether called by the name of Vishnu, or Shiva, or Shakti, or Ganapati, whether He is worshipped as Saguna or Nirguna, whether He is worshipped as personal or as impersonal may He whom our forefathers knew and addressed by the words, -"That which exists is One; sages call Him by various names"--may He enter into us with His mighty love, may He shower His blessings on us, may He make us understand each other, may He make us work for each other with real love, with intense love for truth, and may not the least desire for our own personal fame, our own personal prestige, our own personal advantage, enter into this great work of the spiritual regeneration of India!

[Capt M Kumar]

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Yoga lessons for Congressmen in US
23 Jul 2008, 2142 hrs IST,PTI
HOUSTON: Noted yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who recently laid the foundation stone for a USD 20 million yoga and ayurveda research centre here, has been invited by US Congressmen to display his yogic exercises before them.

Congressman Nick Lampson, who attended Ramdev's five-day yoga camp held here, invited him to Washington DC.

Republican Lampson, whose congressional district includes Fortbend County where the yoga and research centre is being constructed, said the traditional Indian exercises can indeed benefit healthcare industry in USA.

The Houston centre, which will be based on the model of 'Pathanjali Yog Peeth' of Haridwar, founded by the yoga-exponent 15 years ago, has already raised over USD 5 million for the project, expected to be complete in 2009.

"When the Haridwar centre was established, Rs 20,000 was borrowed to start the project. But in Houston, one-fourth of the needed funds were raised on the very first day," Ramdev said.

"Majority of the people in India cannot afford healthcare and rising costs of treatments, medicine and doctor visits and for those people yog will be a best alternative for having good health without paying anything," said Ramdev, who wants to "revolutionize healthcare in India and around the world".

The presence of a large Indian community prompted the spiritual guru to chose Houston as the place for establishing the centre, which will be set up in a sprawling 94-acre land in Rosenberg, about 25 miles from here.

The project includes a clinic to treat chronic ailments, a training centre for yog teachers, housing for active seniors and retirees, a herbal garden, retreat centre, vedic gurukul school for young children and a university.

[acharya]

<b> The big fat Indian wedding is getting fatter
</b>
Bageshree S.

Hi-tech lighting and fibreglass decorations; inflation has not sobered down the Indian wedding

The cost of a wedding has gone up by 20 per cent

The biggest spending is on food



Costly affair: The austere South Indian wedding now has mehendi parties and tacos and fondues as part of the food spread.

Bangalore: The rate of inflation is inching close to the 13-per cent mark. But the big fat Indian wedding this season — which has begun with the month of Shravana — shows no signs of slimming down. If the scale of weddings being planned is anything to go by, it only shows signs of unabashedly putting on a few more kilos.

According to one estimate, holding a wedding has grown pricier by about 20 per cent this season.

“There is always an escalation from one year to the next. But this year, it is significantly higher because the price of all commodities and services has shot up,” says Eshwar Bhonsle, who has been running the marriage portal kalyanaindia.com for eight years.
Simple explanation

Mr. Bhonsle has a simple explanation for why skyrocketing prices have not brought any sense of moderation into weddings: “Just as people don’t stop driving cars because petrol prices go up, no one cuts down on wedding costs either.”

The cost of a standard Indian wedding can be no less than Rs. 5 lakh now, putting together wedding hall rent, printing of invitation cards, catering service, photographers, orchestra, decorators, guest accommodation and transport.

This is apart from trousseau and jewellery. Those who hire event managers to take charge of everything will have to foot that bill too. But there is no cap on how much it can go up to, depending on the cash flow, both white and black.

In fact, people do not hesitate to shell out a couple of lakhs of rupees on floral arrangements and interior decorations, says Ravi Kumar M.N., proprietor of Prasanna Ganapathi Enterprises, who does everything from setting the stage to decorating the entrance and putting up the name board.

“It is possible to make a simple arrangement for Rs. 5,000. But these days, people want everything special. They want orchids, that too in a specified shade,” he says. The days when chrysanthemums and marigolds made up stage decoration are gone.

“Some of the exotic imported flowers cost between Rs. 20 and Rs. 30 a bunch,” he adds. Hi-tech lighting and fibreglass decorations are in, he adds. There are also those who want rustic-style wooden doors and are willing to pay extra for the “ethnic chic.”

While usual wedding cards are priced anywhere between Rs. 15 and Rs. 50 a piece, there are many takers for “designer style” cards which cost over Rs. 200, says Rajesh Devarajan, who has a printing establishment in Sultanpet.
Prices up by a third

The biggest spending is, however, on food. Raghavendra Aithal, who caters to middle-class clientele, says that minimum food expenses per person per day ranges between Rs. 100 and Rs. 200. “Prices of everything from gas cylinders to pulses have shot up. So has the catering prices by about 30 per cent,” he says.

Expenses on food multiply when it comes to glamour weddings at the Palace Grounds or in five-star hotels. Pankaj Kothari of Sagar Caterers, for example, serves up a lavish spread of 300 to 400 items spread across 28 counters.

It encompasses cuisine from across the world, from South Indian dosas to Mexican tacos and from matka kulfi to chocolate fondue. Whether or not people can eat so much is not the point in Mr. Kothari’s worldview. “Food is not just for eating. It is to be relished by the eye and enjoyed by the heart,” he says in defence of his “artistry.” Not all may be in Mr. Kothari’s league, but the aspiration is to reach there if what is on the menu in an average wedding these days is an indication.

South Indian weddings, which were austere and serving chiroti was regarded the ultimate in luxury, have been through a makeover. An average middle class wedding reception meal involves north Indian food spread across six counters, complete with the paanwala.

There is a pan-Indianisation of wedding rituals too, which adds to the costs. “A traditional South Canara wedding would get over in one hour flat. Now most people have not only added Old Mysorean rituals like varapuje, but also north Indian ceremonies like mehendi,” says Lakshmisha Adiga, a retired bank employee whose daughter got married recently.

While the groom’s party wanted an additional varapuje ritual, the girl wanted a “fun mehendi party” with cousins and friends.

“Try building a house, try arranging a wedding,” goes an age old Kannada proverb. The scale of constructions and weddings happening in Bangalore indicate that people have not stopped trying. And harder by the year, price tag notwithstanding.

[ramana]

Deccan Chronicle 28 Aug., 2008

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->New-age pujas take over
 
<img src='http://www.deccan.com/Hyderabad%20Chronicle/28hc2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Om Ganeshaaya namaha — No this isn’t a pujari chanting hymns on Ganesh Chathurthi, it’s your tape recorder that’s playing all the chants required to perform your puja. From CDs to quick rituals to online darshans, Bengalureans are opting for new-age convenient pujas in order to adjust with this fast-paced life.

Gone are the days when we used to call pujaris home on a festival, says teacher Viraja S. "Earlier, we would have pundits come home on every Ganesh Chathurthi or Varmalakshmi to perform pujas for us. <b>But now we prefer to use a recorded cassette that has all the mantras in it." It’s also a matter of convenience for her. "If we call a pujari home, our schedules have to be adjusted according to his. But when we use a cassette, we can play it whenever ever we want to conduct the puja."</b>

Homemaker Gowri Narayan talks about how CDs are preferred over priests. "<b>Pundits these days hardly have any time because of their busy schedule. They just finish off the rituals in half an hour, while a CD contains the entire two-hour puja."</b> says Gowri who’s been following this system for the past 18 years on festivals like Janmashtami, Ganesha Chathurthi and even Anantha Chathurdhashi.

However, there are some people who still believe in calling a pundit home during festivals. Entrepreneur Neha Shekhawat says, <b>"We have a family priest who comes home during Diwali and other special occasions." </b>A lot of people prefer to have shortened pujas, says Neha who adds, "Many finish off the puja within an hour and request the pundit to do so due to time constraints. The fact is that no one has time these days- the pundit or the people who call him. <b>Sometimes people call priests home because they are superstitious about such things and they end up playing a cassette to perform the rest of the puja after the pundit makes a quick exit."</b> The Internet too is a paradise for the religious and spiritual lot who want to perform pujas or have darshans of their favourite Gods. Sites like onlinemandir.com and spritualpuja.com offer devotees a chance to perform online aartis and have virtual tours.

These are just fashionable in today’s world, says pujari K.Y.Subramanya. "Nowadays, pundits and gurus aren’t given that much like in the olden days. It’s just that people don’t have enough time to call for pujaris who themselves are busy these days. But it’s not right that pundits cut short a puja just to save time, a puja cannot be performed this way."

When it comes to online pujas, he says, "I don’t approve of it although it suits this tech-savvy age. You get real satisfaction only if you perform a live puja." Life in the fast-lane has certainly changed the way Bengalureans perform pujas, but namma festivals still live on!

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This has happened in US already due to lack of poojaris in earlier days. Now after the dotcom boom the poojaris demand too much. They are called ony for rituals whihc need their intervention.

Maybe its a good thing as the pooja ritual was supposed to be an individual effort and not require a poojari. The poojaris was need for homas and archanas in the temple. ou see the rise of the poojari with the riseof Islam as traditonal occupations were barred for the raja was now a sultan.

[ramana]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jul 24 2008, 06:02 PM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jul 24 2008, 06:02 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Viren much of Prithviraj-Sanyogita story is based on later legends but there is no doubt that swayamvaram was present in later times though not very common, I am trying to remember where I read about it but can't, perhaps others can pitch in.
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Bharat, Do you read pure Telugu? If you do there is a pdf online called "Guptarajulu Evaru" by Kota Venkatachalapati. Try to read it and summarize please.

[Bharatvarsh]

[/quote]Bharat, Do you read pure Telugu? If you do there is a pdf online called "Guptarajulu Evaru" by Kota Venkatachalapati. Try to read it and summarize please.
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[/quote]
Ramana I checked, ya i can read and understand it but it will take a bit of time as i am busy with some other stuff, but I will post a summary when I finish it.

[acharya]

Evolution vs creation

The British Royal Society’s proposal that creationism be taught in science classes in school (September 19) will open a Pandora’s box.

Different religions preach different stories of creation — Hinduism calls it Brahma’s creation. If Prof. Reiss’ view is considered, would teachers be so mature to answer when a young person raises the issue of creation in a science class? Would they be in a position to examine why the student’s question does not stand up to scientific investigation?

P. Alwarappan,

Annur

[ravish]

An interesting article on contemporary Indian Society from the International Herald tribune :-

Quote


A feminist revolution in India skips the liberation
By Anand Giridharadas
Thursday, September 25, 2008
MUMBAI: Arshi's India is not your (or her) grandmother's India.

She is 25 and saucy, a public-relations executive in New Delhi, a daughter of divorce who lives with a cocktail-mixing woman named Topsy. She and her circle exchange wet kisses with their boyfriends in the privacy of their cars, relish both loving and loveless sex, and smoke a cigarette every few minutes. They pride themselves on rolling joints with that perfect-sized marijuana nugget, "the size of the Nokia switch-off button."

Two generations after a sexual revolution gusted through the West, a new generation of urban women in repressive societies like this one would appear to be riding that revolution's second wind.

But appearances lie, and feminism, Indian-style, can be so accommodating, so eager to please and appease, that it is sometimes scarcely feminist at all.

Arshi is a literary invention, the protagonist of a book on the increasingly crowded shelf of Indian chick-lit. But she is really a composite of the young, educated women whom you meet by the brigade today in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and whose identification with the book has made it a publishing success: women whose sexual revolution is more sexual, less revolution.

The novel, "You Are Here," by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, is a voyage into the heads of urban women, and a portrait of the sometime shallowness of their modernity. With brutal honesty and an acute eye, Reddy Madhavan chronicles twenty-something women who pay lip service to Women's Lib, do the tequila shots to prove it, but who still conceive of themselves, deep down, as orbital moons to the planets of men.

Arshi and her female friends smoke, drink and fornicate their way through life. But if liberation is defined more sweepingly, as the freedom to do whatever men do, and to define oneself other than by one's relationships to men, then Reddy Madhavan's heroines are less liberated than they think.

Like many educated Indian women whose credit-card bills transfer seamlessly from a father to a husband, Arshi and her friends have good jobs and toil at them, but have a somewhat recreational view of work. When Arshi walks into a Delhi fashion designer's home, enchanted by his white sofas and plasma television, she does not think, "I should go buy this stuff." She thinks of marrying him, "just so I could make that house my home."

Arshi's mother tells her to save men for later, take the admission test for graduate school, move to America, get a second master's degree. But Arshi, having kissed a new love interest just once, rules it out: "I'd definitely not want to leave him." Never mind that he stands her up most nights, "leaving me fancy-underweared and cleavage-perfumed and miserable."

Reddy Madhavan said in a telephone interview that her characters reflected the real dualities that Indian women straddle. Arshi's liberties make her a feminist of a kind, she said. But Arshi also sees men as emotional and financial feeding tubes.

"If she were a true feminist," the author added, "she wouldn't need him to define her."

In some ways, Arshi is just an Indian Bridget Jones. But in the West, that kind of post-feminism was possible because feminism came first. India, which has produced a female president, prime minister and business tycoons and whose universities are filled with brilliant women, has had its elite rebels. But it is leapfrogging into "Sex and the City" post-feminism without having had a broader-based women's revolution.

Indian women are trading regular bras for push-up bras, bypassing the phase of burning bras.

The earlier feminism trashed bras, not as a fashion statement, but because it signified rupture. The lattice of attitudes, prejudices, customs and religious doctrines that kept women in place would not just step aside. The entrenched ways needed to be fought, deoxygenated, purged.

Indian women have fought plenty of battles, but in a country not shy about demonstrations and revolts - by so-called untouchables, the landless, the indigenous, Hindus, Muslims - there has never been an inclusive, game-changing feminist movement.

If protesters can stop the world's cheapest car from being built and light themselves on fire over low-caste affirmative action, where are the women marching against millions of female feticides and widespread rape in Kashmir?

In the West, too, militancy has drained out of mainstream feminism, but only after making gains. You cannot fast-forward to the Carrie Bradshaw phase of man-woman relations without a stint of Betty Friedan.

Indian feminism is the feminism of compromise. It is the feminism of daughters who press their parents for late curfews, but would never hurt them by dating a man of another religion. It is the feminism of women who collect big paychecks by day, but do not question husbands who treat them like maids by night. It is the feminism of women who cope privately with workplace harassment, but never see it as a systemic phenomenon to be fought.

It is the feminism of small victories.

"I have super-feminist friends who will conform to gender roles with their partners, like they'll take it upon themselves to be more nurturing than their partner would be, taking care of them when they're sick, cooking and stuff like that," Reddy Madhavan said.

"I find myself doing this every now and then," she added. "It's partly fear that if you spend your entire life bucking the norm and being different, I might end up alone and eaten by my cat."

Scratch the surface, and Women's Lib means little more than sex, cigarettes and alcohol to Arshi's urban demographic. In starkly different corners of India, other groups of women remind us what a more saturating feminism can look like.

Millions of near-destitute village women are joining microcredit cooperatives, handicraft-making networks like the Self-Employed Women's Association and elected village councils. Meek, abused wives are turning into go-getters, turning male regimes on their heads.

Not a few village husbands have become stay-at-home dads, a phenomenon still rare in the big cities.

But because these women don't sleep around, don bug-eyed sunglasses or down mojitos, it is Arshi's demographic that is deemed "liberated."

Modernity involves more than sin. It demands irreverence. How many urban young women chop off their hair, or choose not to procreate, or dine out alone? How many, despite their modern garnishes, believe in prospering alongside, and not through, a man?

"If we are put on this planet with the aim of figuring out who we are," Arshi muses one day, "and the only way we can figure out who we are is through someone else - either the person we wind up with or the person we create - then what hope does my generation, my we-don't-need-nobody-dude generation, really have?"

Unquote

[Husky]

Mostly opinion, but contains something on Rome (skip down to big quoteblock).


About post 254:
<!--QuoteBegin-ravish+Sep 25 2008, 08:56 PM-->QUOTE(ravish @ Sep 25 2008, 08:56 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Arshi is a literary invention[right][snapback]88452[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Of course she is.
Foreign countries as well as internal 'psecular' orgs are very interested in diverting and subverting subsets of the Indian population. They use the leveraging principle (since India's too big to reach down into every part and mess with): brainwashing people through bombardment with junk and through buying up strategically placed people like editors and presenters in print and visual media. It's all part of the grand experiment: Indian media including magazines like Femina, movements like the self-proclaimed feministas, drab books written by clueless characters purporting to explain the 'real' lie of the land to the ignorant Hindoo woman, etcetera. Other conditioned (or bought-and-paid-for) minions in India write pieces taking it out on Hindu epics and literature - like the oddity discussed at http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx...EID=6769&SKIN=C

Indian feminism is a foreign insert that has been artificially introduced with the intention of creating cultural amnesia and confusion in Hindu women, and in the hope of creating misandry against Hindu men. Men and women are - respectively - seen as a threat and as a resource or means. Heathen men are considered the threat, heathen women can be made into temporary allies, though usually they are just considered easy pickings. Creating gender enmity is a valuable tool in subverting a population. The usual means are to portray the society as patriarchal and the males as either oppressive, not being able to provide security, not progressive (not liberated enough), and even more trivially as not attractive enough compared to whoever. The aim is to instill a certain *perception* that will create distrust and resentment in the hope that this will help in fracturing a society (in addition to that achieved by other subversions).

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Meanaxe) Reddy Madhavan said in a telephone interview that her characters reflected the real dualities that Indian women straddle.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->There will always be some trivial people (see also McCabe excerpt below) - and how humorous could life be without them anyway, who will the rest of the world poke fun at? But the statement that Meanaxe's imaginings represent "the real dualities that Indian women straddle" is too general a remark to be taken the least bit seriously.

Who elected her to be spokesperson for 50% of the Indian population? What Indian women is she talking about? Possibly only those that spook around in her head. Meanaxe's readership could easily consist of many (wo)men who accidentally pick up her book, find it hysterical and pass it on to other Indian (wo)men as a peek into the mental vacuity of some entities. That is, she and her work may merely be thought 'interesting' as an atrocity exhibition. Because, going by the article above (post 254), her opinions and ideas are certainly not worthy of any other sort of recommendation, nor are they conducive to giving any food for thought. Anyone may write better and make more relevant statements/more meaningful observations.

Never understood why such characters appoint themselves to speak for others. Actually, no, I think I do understand - it's the monotheistic tendency again: like every other subverted (controlled) kind, feministas have their absolutist monotheistic missions to "save" others - women in this case. They're bored, they need something to do, someone to save. There's always some mission the monotheistic ideologies have. And if they can't find one, they'll manufacture one.

In any case, Hindu women - and moreso the urban ones that Meanaxe has presumed to play the mouthpiece for here - can represent themselves and explain their own life's situation (if they feel the need for explanation) without needing recourse to another's intervention on their behalf - particularly the uninvited kind. And especially when that other is so alien in mental makeup to themselves. But if it turns out to be necessary, am sure they can find a more representative instance than the Meanaxe sort.


An example of the eternal existence in society of silly people - was also the case in history.
McCabe, I think:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Apart from intercourse with a married woman, a man was free in Roman (and all other) law. But there is no evidence that the middle and wealthy class of Rome were more free in practice than they are today. <b>There was always a "fast set," and it grew larger under the bad emperors.</b> These men gave, in their marble mansions with cedar ceilings, banquets which were orgies of choice wine and naked Syrian girls, while slaves in the roof poured perfume and flowers on the intoxicated guests. There is no reason whatever to think that this set was more numerous, proportionately, than the corresponding set which patronizes actresses and chorus-girls today, and sets up mistresses in luxurious apartments.
<b>But these are just the things which "get into the papers." Virtue, which we so much admire, is uninteresting. Vice, which we deplore, fascinates us; and the more picturesque it is, the more readily we read about it.</b>

Any real student of Roman literature will conclude that the great body of the men and women of Rome were as temperate and regular as we are. Really intimate and reliable pictures are best afforded by private letters, which reflect the character of the circle to which they belong. We have several volumes of such: the letters of Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, and Symmacbus. Every single letter could have been read without a blush by Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan would have been disappointed in them. They reflect, in different centuries, circles in which vice is ignored, as a thing not done by gentlemen.

I have already said that the Stoic philosophy had a wonderful influence in Rome. Emperors were Stoics. Crowds followed Stoic orators like Dion Chrysostom, or read Stoic moralists like Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Most of the famous Roman jurists, the creators of European law, were Stoics: humanitarians of the highest character. A kind of blend of sober Stoicism and Epicureanism was the philosophy of life of the gentlemen of Rome. Their letters, and such works as the "Saturnalia" of Macrobius, a slave author who describes what is under his eyes in his master's house, give us the true measure of Roman character. lt was generally fine.

The two leading authorities of our time on the subject are Gaston Boissier ("La religion romaine"), and Sir Samuel Dill, a Protestant ("Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius," "Roman Society in the Last Centuries of the Western Empire"). They agree in this verdict. Dill, in particular, analyzes the whole Roman literature for the first, fourth and fifth centuries, and he comes to the same conclusion that I have. The middle- and wealthy-class Romans, as a body, were as decent as we are. Another Protestant writer, a close student of Rome, Dr. Emil Reich, breaks into indignation when be notices ("The History of Civilization, p. 371) how his religious colleagues slander Rome. "The average Roman gentleman," he says, "was a firm believer in the pure doctrines of the Stoic" and he writes a long and glowing eulogy of what he sarcastically calls "these rotten Romans."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Don't think we need to panic when some characters in India choose to be trivial either. In a country of nearly a billion, there's bound to be some extreme oddities. They do not make up the core of the population nor are they representative of it. And the sad output of their limited 'intellect' will mostly invite scorn rather than producing any considerable effect on society.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Arshi's liberties make her a feminist of a kind, she said. But Arshi also sees men as emotional and financial feeding tubes.
"If she were a true feminist," the author added, "she wouldn't <b>need</b> him to <b>define</b> her."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->How deep that is. How well-observed. arcasm
Tsss, the kind of banal statements that some people keep spouting as if these were insightful observations...

"Defining"
People are always affected by the presence of others in their lives. Your parents, siblings, family, choice of friends, choice of spouse/lover, offspring - define you. As do the strength and depth of relationships you build with them and which they build with you. Your interests, the things you are willing to expend effort and time on, your thoughts, experiences, also illustrate your character.
In particular, the sort of people you *choose* to be with (friends, spouse) - as opposed to those you can't choose (family) - betrays a lot about you to the rest of the world.

"Needing"
Except for children and people with some serious physical or mental disability, no one *needs* others when you have a steady income and are able to strike up casual conversations with anyone when you feel like it. Yet, daily, people still *choose* to get married or to enter into some kind of serious relationship, including regular friendship. Why does Meanaxe single out the man as not being required for 'defining' a woman? What about regular female/male friends - why not protest to their presence/interference? Why not suggest ditching them as well since they are also crowding the individualist's character? Oh, but I forget, Meanaxe was talking about feminists here; there's no room for general misanthropy, only for misandry. But Meanaxe has her work cut out for her in trying to squeeze society to conform to her distorted views, since by far most women don't see men as a separate/distinct group, and vice-versa. When it comes down to it, we're just animals. And there's no telling animals to get liberated from the 'other' either. We don't hear her, because the entire topic of her conditioned monologue is alien and irrelevant to us.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"I have super-feminist friends who will conform to gender roles with their partners, like they'll take it upon themselves to be more nurturing than their partner would be, taking care of them when they're sick, cooking and stuff like that," Reddy Madhavan said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Super-feminist friends". How super.

All relationships involve sacrifice. But only unprincipled entities would make themselves do something when they don't have to/don't want to ("conform to gender roles with their partners, they'll take it upon themselves to be more nurturing than their partner would be".) You get what you put in. If people have to fake their life and feelings, they have only themselves to blame when they get nothing out of it. They can choose to stay alone or choose to be in a relationship. People should quit whining about their own choices. They can always unmake them. The world these people are living in is a free one, where no one is twisting their arm to stay with their partner. Only their fear of "ending up alone" is keeping them there. Not the best of reasons by a long shot.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"I find myself doing this every now and then," she added. "It's partly fear that if you spend your entire life bucking the norm and being different, I might end up alone and eaten by my cat."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Meanaxe wants that "different" tag, bet it makes her feel special. She is special in a way - in that she is uniquely forgettable. Her thoughts are inconsequential, uninspiring, not worthwhile; she's not even an original thinker. At best, someone in the future may bring out her book or name as an example of a social conditioning experiment gone wrong. Eewww. Wouldn't people rather be forgotten altogether than remembered as a failure? Or maybe feministas, like communistas, are *aiming* for the latter: infamy as the price of immortality. Go for it, I say.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas reports: Indian feminism is the feminism of compromise.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Ugh, no. Please no. Not another affected truism to toss out there as if it was oh so profound. If people *wanted* such deep-sounding lines that are meant to pass for insight, we would all be writing our own random sentence generator rather than hearing an insipid bot compose one.

Feminism in general merely hijacked the earlier movements for women's rights in the west; movements which started as a consequence of the enlightenment and which had gone on to encompass the suffragette movement (equal pay for equal work), agitations for entry into universities and of course voting rights. These were all meaningful issues - very necessary in the western world where christo misogyny had refused these basics to western women for so long until they finally woke up and demanded their rights.

[Husky]

Continues on from the above looong post with even mooore opinion.

Still about #254:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: Indian women have fought plenty of battles, but in a country not shy about demonstrations and revolts - by so-called untouchables, the landless, the indigenous, Hindus, Muslims - there has never been an inclusive, game-changing feminist movement.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->First: Hindus *are* the indigenous in Bharatam.

But why is Anand advocating a feminist movement/demonstration/revolt? When none had revolted in Europe for 8 to 9 million women being burnt at the stake, why would 50% of Bharatam's population revolt where we've never had a tyranny that was even remotely comparable?
Very subversionist proposal by Anand.
Why has he avoided asking the more obvious questions altogether? For instance, why has Britain not suffered a violent anti-class/anti-aristocracy revolution when it *deserves* it? Or, another reasonable question: why isn't he advocating that women in UK and US do large-scale anti-corporation demonstrations? (At least some 5-10 years ago - and perhaps still today - many women in CEO positions in those two countries were earning considerably less than their male counterparts. Why is no one inciting people in Britain and US to shake things into shape?) And oh yeah, where are the calls for native American demonstrations against the land stolen and occupied by the terrorist christosettlers? In America's case, we <i>can</i> certainly speak of the *indigenous* versus the murdering alien christo-invaders who don't belong.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: where are the women marching against millions of female feticides<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->As I understand it, in the regions of India where this happens, women are just as complicit in these feticides - many have been conditioned to choose to abort the foetus. Unless and until they and their husbands change their mindset on this, things are unlikely to change. But why only *women* are expected to march against female feticides is beyond me... This is a human issue in India.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"If we are put on this planet with the aim of figuring out who we are," Arshi muses one day, "and the only way we can figure out who we are is through someone else - either the person we wind up with or the person we create - then what hope does my generation, my we-don't-need-nobody-dude generation, really have?"<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Who in the world would write such meaningless and contrived junk? And why would they get published?

- "we are put on this planet with the aim of figuring out who we are" is an assumption. The general religiously-unaffiliated answer is: Who knows what - if any - purpose there may be. For all we know, life on Earth (which includes humanity) is just a random coincidence.
- "only way we can figure out who we are is through someone else" - again, an assumption. You can figure out a lot of things about yourself through knowing what you're interested in doing and doing it. You can write, or read books, you can express whatever ideas you have in different ways, you can ask yourself questions and try to answer them, and better understand yourself/the world around you. So another person is not the "only way".
- "either the person we wind up with or the person we create" - there are many people in everyone's life, in addition to one's spouse/lover or children. There's also family and friends.
- "what hope does my generation, my we-don't-need-nobody-dude generation, really have?" - What cheese.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Meanaxe: "If she were a true feminist...."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That reminds me of something funny. As I recall, the Danish (?) movie <b>Tillsammans</b> (Together) is about a bunch of communists living together in one place. Among them is a separated/divorced husband-and-wife non-couple: the wife felt so deeply about communism that she believed her feminism should not be lived in halves, and so she decided she ought to become lesbian <b><i>on principle</i></b>. <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I thought it a very good observation on the silliness of communism/feminism. People are often infatuated with ideas rather than actually having those ideas be a natural part of their being/who they are. That is, the difference between
- ideas for which one has to go out of the way to live it/incorporate it into one's life (even involving forcibly changing/sacrificing oneself for said idea),
- versus living principles that come natural to one or growing naturally in a direction of illuminating, expanding thought.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: But because these women don't sleep around, don bug-eyed sunglasses or down mojitos, it is Arshi's demographic that is deemed "liberated."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Deemed liberated by whom? Themselves? Opinions on self are inherently biased.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: Modernity involves more than sin. It demands irreverence. How many urban young women chop off their hair, or choose not to procreate, or dine out alone?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Use of "sin" with reference to "sleeping around" <- meaning the christo concept of sin is being referred to here. Alien dialogue.
Anyway, why suggest that modernity 'involves sin and, more than that, irreverence'? Why can't people be allowed to move forward without either of these; why insist that the way forward should be tied up with a violent turn against the existing society? Why can't people be allowed to introduce any improvements in the natural and unobtrusive way, the way changes have always happened in natural traditionalist cultures? And why advocate that urban women chop off their hair, dine out alone, not procreate (etcetera) <i>just for the sake</i> of showing "irreverence" to achieve "modernity"? Why should lives be lived/wasted merely to prove trivial points? Is life to be made into a mere statement? No sane person would argue so.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: How many, despite their modern garnishes, believe in prospering alongside, and not through, a man?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Prospering alongside" is the way it's always been in natural traditions. The ultimate reason parents there are driven to get their kids married is in order for their children to have someone for company/look after them in their old age. No one asks their daughters to get married in order for these daughters to gain access to their husband's bank account. Still, natural traditionalists have this (incomprehensible) sense of automatically sharing everything with their spouse, but it is not the *reason* why they get married.
But sure, just like in the larger mammalian family, the female instinctively seeks in her mate the promise of resources and protection for offspring. She's looking for safeguards for the future. That's just the way it is. Get used to it. Only those who lack the most basic of understanding will try to write articles to change Nature. Very funny that, "revolt against Nature". Why not. Every other type of revolt has been suggested already.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anand Giridharadas: The earlier feminism trashed bras, not as a fashion statement, but because it signified rupture. The lattice of attitudes, prejudices, customs and religious doctrines that kept women in place would not just step aside. The entrenched ways needed to be fought, deoxygenated, purged.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->As I learnt in history class, the real women's movement - which was one of the effects of the enlightenment - was opposed to the corset since it was actually bad for one's torso including back (this was long before the angry bra burning phase). Back then the movement just wanted comfortable wear for women, and to make this more acceptable and mainstream. That was their point. Seems very sensible and practical to me.

It makes sense to be opposed to detrimental things/societal strictures as there are actually worthwhile gains to be made in taking a stand against such things. But what's the point of raising so much sound and fury about ultimately meaningless issues that only 'betoken' something. Fighting about symbolic matters is just trivialising the real problems out there. It is what people who have no life and no real purpose (except complaining for the sake of complaining) do. And then these whiny characters insist on being heard too, as if what they say has any weight. They need to stop cheapening life by monotheistically reducing everything to a dichotomous struggle (for example, class struggle or man-woman struggles) - and doing so all over the globe too, even there where these dichotomies don't apply. The humanity on this planet is ~50% men and ~50% women. Those who can't deal with such unforgivable, blatant statistics may choose to follow Epictetus' advice on Permanent Premature Voluntary Retirement; and then the rest of us can finally fix any problems in our society in our own way, without having to hear all the useless complaining and theorising.


Indian women imitating or treading the path of western feminism makes no sense. The Indian experience is not the same as the christowestern experience, just as the Chinese or African or other people's experience is different yet again. Therefore, to then state that Indian women should make the same journey as christowest has made - merely so that they can then come to the same stage where western women are now - is to propose the ridiculous. Why do they think Indians are meant to arrive at the same outcomes? Our history is different, our path leads us elsewhere. Our future is not the same as the modernity of the west; no sense in artificially trying to induce a situation through which we end up at the same point as the west, as if that is all that the future can hold for humanity.
Am quite incapable of contemplating the sort of utterly trivial mindsets that come up with such 'clever' suggestions. Do they actually even think through what they are saying before speaking their thoughts aloud? Do they know they are an embarrassment to themselves and that on the other end I, and doubtless many another, are undergoing fits of laughter at their expense? Am not complaining - I welcome their inanity, have ever been intensely entertained by the inconceivable depths of unintentional human hilarity. And what's more, I have long been in need of jesters, especially the kind that will work without pay. People playing the fool without knowing that they are doing so is just <i>so</i> fetching. Therefore, welcome.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Married to lifelong misery</b>
pioneer.com
Shailaja Chandra
The charade of child marriage unabashedly ignores the sexual, emotional and legal rights of adolescent brides and teenaged mothers. It exacerbates the cycle of malnutrition and birth of underweight children, thus compromising their right to survival and growth

Marriage is perhaps the oldest institution in India. Live-in relationships were unheard of among the middle class until the other day <b>when young US-bound Indians returned on vacation, occasionally bringing in tow a live-in partner. Doting parents had perforce to put up a brave face and suffer the situation for fear of losing filial bondage. Talk about marriage cut no ice and was in fact balked at by the duo.

Around the same time the software boom and the shift syndrome of call centres planted young, well-paid executives of both sexes in each other’s company, night and day.</b> Too young to marry, but finding togetherness irresistible, couples threw open their prison doors and began nesting together as live-in partners. The trend has since spread to all the metros, even to the last bastion of orthodoxy, conventional Chennai.

<b>Living-in was always common among the very rich where the ‘woh’ regularly surfaced as mistress, second wife or plaything, to shatter domestic peace and upstage the legal spouse. Among the poor, it is quite common for a man to bring in another woman, live with her as a spouse, get her to beget children in the presence or absence of the first wife.</b> But patriarchal cultures and economic dependency have forbidden women, rich or poor, from reacting overtly for fear of public ridicule and immediate withdrawal of rights such as they remain.

In 2008 the Supreme Court conferred virtual legitimacy on live-in arrangements giving the unwed companion wifely status, with authenticity to be determined by the duration of living together. The specific context of the apex court’s order has unfortunately been lost sight of. The common understanding, thanks to misleading headlines and all-knowing blogs, is that the Supreme Court has equated all long live-in relationships to the status of marriage. Such fallacious presumptions have their own fallout — raising bogeys about bigamy — for starters. The greater pity is that in zeal to defend every woman caught in an assortment of predicaments, the real issues confronting an overwhelming majority have been left in the lurch.

Take for example the 2006 Supreme Court direction to register all marriages. Since no marriage can be registered if the girl is less than 18 and when the majority of marriages in the Hindi belt States are performed before 18, registration of marriage can never become a reality. NFHS-3 told us that in the Hindi belt States 65 per cent of the girls were married before 18. Now the district level health survey released last month shows that things have improved a little at places but even then 69 per cent of girls in Bihar got married before 18 and became mothers soon thereafter. This is a blatant denial of a woman’s rights. It is all the more sacrilegious when a pregnancy is imposed on an anemic adolescent — unprepared as she is for even a sexual encounter. Such girls living at the mercy of feudal traditions will never be able to get an underage marriage nullified as the 2006 Prevention of Child Marriage Act so virtuously expects. That only 12 States have notified the rules needed to implement the Act in the last two years speaks for itself.

Infinitely more might have been gained by now if simple, efficient ways of actually preventing underage marriages had been pursued. Himachal Pradesh has achieved this through strict enforcement. According to the latest DLH survey, rural Himachal Pradesh has just 1.9 per cent of girls and 6.4 per cent of boys married before the legal age between 2004 and 2007. Compare that with of Uttar Pradesh where 37 per cent girls and 48 per cent boys were married before the legal age in the same period.

So what do we have today? A Supreme Court that demands registration of all marriages. A majority of the northern States that brazenly connive at child marriages perpetrated by parents, politicians, Government functionaries and onlookers. District collectors in 200 odd districts in the laggard States that have failed to establish a workable system to register marriages at the block level. This charade unabashedly ignores the sexual, emotional and legal rights of adolescent brides and teenaged mothers. It exacerbates the cycle of malnutrition and birth of underweight children, compromising their right to survival and growth.

Women’s deprivation also continues on another plane. The Hindu Succession Act 1956 has been with us for over five decades. In four decades US society absorbed the tenets of the Civil Rights Act and managed to lay the ground for America’s first Black President to assume office. In India despite equal property rights having been conferred by law, boys are even today conditioned to believe that they are the sole inheritors of property. Likewise girls are conditioned to be content with dowry and end things there. It is then no wonder that families wilfully opt for female foeticide to keep the family property intact.

The need of the hour is to get priorities right. First, stop marriages before 18. Even in Delhi 24 per cent of the girls are married before 18.<b> In West Bengal 45 per cent of girls were married before 18 in the last three years.</b>

<b>Second, since registration of marriage is compulsory, instruct 200 odd District Collectors in the Hindi belt to publish the number of marriages solemnised and registrations documented in the last two years. The difference will show where the reality lies.</b>

Third, as far as the live-in business is concerned, in our current situation we should treat the phenomenon as the wish of two consenting adults but the myths about the Supreme Court order should be clarified to lift the hubris that surrounds lay thinking about the import of the order.

<b>The need of the hour is to stop playing dumb charades and get priorities right.</b>  <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bodhi]

Why not throw out the ridiculous clauses of monogamy from the Hindu Personal Law / Marriage act? When did the christian law of monogamy become the Hindu norm? Thanks to this, many Hindus convert to Islam and take the next wife. (e.g. actor dharmendra who became mohammad dilawar to marry hema malini, or recently bhajan lal's son Chanra mohan becoming chand mohammed)

(Now, I am not suggesting the promotion of polygamy... just pointing that "Law", especially "Hindu Law" has to have no role in this.)

[Guest]

<!--emo&:devil--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /><!--endemo--> फिल्लौर सतलुज नदी के किनारे बने शनिग्रह शांति केन्द्र एवं शनि मंदिर में शनि जयंती बड़ी श्रद्धापूर्ण व उत्साह के साथ मनाई गई। सबसे पहले 80 किलो का केक काट कर प्रसाद बांटा गया। केक काटने की रस्म श्री आभीत आचार्य संस्थापक शनि गांव ने की। इसके बाद भजन कीर्तन व हवन यज्ञ करवाया गया।
This can only happen in Punjab, they great influenced by west. <!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<img src='http://l.yimg.com/ki/epaper/jagran/20090525/10/Jal24cty-1p-c-2-1_1243227807.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Here they are doing Sani puja, and fake Acharya is cutting cake.
Somebody enlighten these Murakh.

[Guest]

<b>Thread ceremony for Thane girl</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
MUMBAI: A family in Thane revisited a long-forgotten Vedic practice on Thursday when they put their eight-year-old daughter through the thread 
ceremony, ordinarily considered a male rite of passage, at the hands of the city’s famed women priests. Her father, Amod Ketkar, a 40-year-old employee of the Bombay High Court, says he was merely following a family tradition—his own sister had undergone the initiation rite as a child.

<b>Impish and moody, Sejal Amod Ketkar, who has just been promoted to class three in the Marathi-medium Bedekar Vidyamandir, sat through the hour-long upanayan or yagnopavit ceremony, reciting the Gayatri Mantra and Sanskrit shlokas with practised ease. “Her grandmother has been training her for a few weeks,’’ says her mother Asmita who works with Kale Consultants in Seepz. She laughs and adds, “It has all turned out so picture perfect, I wish I had invited more people in a more elaborate ceremony. But my daughter had never seen the ritual being performed for a girl before, so she insisted she would do it only if we had a small private function at home.</b>’’

Apart from the child no one else in the Chitpavan Kokanastha Brahmin family had <b>any doubts. In fact, Ketkar insists he is part of the orthodoxy. “Would I believe in rituals otherwise? The upanayan is one of the 16 sanskars that are part of Sanaatan Dharma, and the mantras are known to help the child concentrate on her education through her scholarly life. As I did for my teenage son when he was little, I want my daughter to benefit from the power of the Gayatri Mantra and chart the correct path,’’ he says. Pre-empting any doubts, Ketkar clarifies that the ritual will not affect the child’s daily routine, let alone lead her towards renunciation. </b>

Still, this departure from convention did come up when they went looking for a priest. “We asked around Thane and travelled all the way to Pune but male priests were reluctant to perform this sanskar (ritual) on a girl,’’ says Asmita. “We finally got lucky when the local purohitas led by Vaishali Kale agreed to our request.’’

<b>Citing examples from the Vedic period, the priestesses of Thane note that sages like Gargi and Maitreyi underwent the thread ceremony and became proficient in the scriptures. “It was after the decline of this egalitarian period that the practice of upanayan gradually became restricted to males,’’ says Purohita Kale, who initiated Sejal by whispering the Gayatri Mantra in her ear. However, instead of the holy thread worn by boys, the girl will wear a necklace of fine tulsi beads.</b>

Interestingly, apart from the feeble opposition that the priestesses encountered from the Thane clergy, the girl’s thread ceremony has not invited undue comment. The chief priest of Siddhivinayak Temple, Guruji Gajanan Modak, says, “While each household devises its own spiritual barcode, there is nothing in the scriptures that prevents girls from undergoing the thread ceremony. The upanayan signifies that a child is now mature enough to follow a guru and learn the scriptures. In the olden days, it was performed when children left home to join the gurukul.’’ Devdutt Pattanaik, another authority on Hinduism, has not heard of such a precedent but says it is entirely a matter of individual choice.

A stickler for conclusive evidence, Amod Ketkar, however, is looking for the ‘Harita Smriti’, the scripture that is believed to sanction the ceremony for girls. “The Asiatic Library does not have a copy, but I’ll hunt it out and spread the word,’’ he promises.

The Ketkars had broken the mould earlier too when they requested wedding guests to shower blessings written on chits of paper instead of uncooked rice or akshata. “Sadly, emancipation is a slow process,’’ says Ketkar.
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It is still practiced in my family. Yes girls wear Jenou.