Too much prejudice

Some months back, V. S. Naipaul was asked by a journalist, whether India was becoming too materialistic. Naipaul snarled back, “Yes, the poor need it!”

Chadda and her husband Paul Berges have written what they probably assumed to be a clever piece of dialogue in Bride and Prejudice. Aishwarya Rai in a fit of fury – while enjoying the luxury of five star comfort in Goa – lambasts Darcy for trying to buy a luxury resort there.

In a typical exhibition of middle class left-wingism, she scorns FDI (foreign direct investment) for unexplained reasons. What is worse, is that the gent being lambasted - for desiring to invest in India, no less – does not have an adequate zinger. Lalitha's is the same kind of elitist thinking that made some Indians assemble in Mumbai for another one of those irrelevant get-togethers last year, the pompously named, ‘World Social Forum' – where they protested the presence of multinationals in India.

If only Chadda had read up on Naipaul. If only Darcy had read up on his Bhagwati.

By the way, the film is a piece of trash. Give it a miss.

I had shared this with friends on August 15th.

On India's independence day, a tribute to a naked gay Jewish Iranian mystic who has a dargah in Delhi. Let us celebrate the independence of thought.

In "The Jew in the Lotus', Rodger Kamenetz accompanies various hues of Jewish rabbis to India where they discuss deep religious concepts with many Buddhist teachers, including the Dalai Lama. This experience transforms him from being an agnostic to being an agnostic who is proud of his Jewish identity.

Kamenetz narrates a wonderful story of an Armenian Jewish naked sufi saint called Sarmad who collaborated with Dara Shikoh to write the Jewish chapter of his interfaith book. Sarmad was deeply in love with a Hindu (male) called Abhi Chand and when the authorities forced them to part, Sarmad shed all his clothes and lived naked from then on. Some believe that he converted to Islam while others believe that he did not [1]. After Aurangzeb murdered his brother, he began rounding up his associates and sure enough, Sarmad was one of them. He was called before Aurangzeb and asked to recite the shahadah (la ilaha illa-lahu - There is no God, but God) and Sarmad recited the first half (There is no God). When Aurangzeb asked him to continue, Sarmad said, "Forgive me, but I am so caught up in the negative, that I cant not yet come up to the positive.I cannot tell a lie." Of course, he was invoking the kabbalistic conception of God, Ain Sof. He was beheaded. Later, the Jama Masjid coopted him after Aurangzeb's contemporaries embellished the story with incredible stories about Sarmad's severed head narrating the remaining part of the shahadah.

Kamenetz visited Hazrat Sarmad's dargah in Delhi where he is still revered today. The irony is that he might have been a sufi mystic, neither fully Jewish, nor Hindu, nor a Muslim. Some, like the Italian visitor Manucci believed, perhaps mistakenly according to modern researchers that he was an atheist since he saw him praising 'Islam with Mohammedans, Hinduism with Hindus" and after Aurganzeb imprisoned him, "he had a wonderful relationship with Jesuit fathers". So, this 'hazrat', who might have been all or none of the above is worshipped as a saint today.

Kamenetz - remember, he was an agnostic - went to his tomb and said kaddish. He wrote, "It all felt quite right, a recognition of our predecessor in dialogue - or a martyr to intolerance, take your pick. That there was such a thing as a Jewish Muslim saint who opened yet another door"

[1]
The Identity of a Mystic: The Case of Sa'id Sarmad, a Jewish-Yogi-Sufi Courtier of the Mughals by Nathan Katz - Access this paper at http://www.jstor.org

[2] Maulana Azad was an admirer of Sarmad. You can read his essay 'Sarmad Shahid' and Sarmad's rubaiyat here

Add a comment

Bhrigu's question

कभी जो याद भी आता हूँ मैं तो कहते हैं के आज बज़्म में कुछ फ़ित्ना-ओ-फ़साद नहीं - मिर्ज़ा ग़ालिब

View comments