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Showing posts with the label Religion

Temporarily Lost Forever

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Once, we walked to a friend’s door. Now, we hesitate to call. Two months ago, I called a friend I have known for twenty years. He didn’t answer. We still haven’t spoken. I don’t know why he hasn’t called back. But I know the hesitation myself: seeing an old friend’s name on the phone, wanting to talk, and somehow not feeling ready for what should be a simple conversation. I remember a time when visiting a friend meant going to his house without knowing whether he would be there. Mobile phones weren’t part of our lives, and even a landline wasn’t something every household had. You went, knocked, and found out. There was anticipation on the way, disappointment if he was absent, excitement if he was home. If you missed him, you might try again the next day. None of this felt like too much trouble. Now, the same friend is an instant message away. Yet we can go months without speaking. ...
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Turning up(on!) with a bindi

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I had to check the title twice so that I did not end up adding an 'h' somewhere that could result in a vegetable. The whole meaning of the post would have been lost. But, Google has always helped my cause to verify things instantaneously, and here goes the post to convey the right meaning. Bindi is a symbol anyone from India would be familiar with. In South India, it is referred to as Pottu or Bottu , and since I am from the South, my first reaction would be to associate that tiny dot on a woman's forehead as Pottu . I do not want to write about the religious significance of a bindi since a significant lot has been written about that. I have always wondered how that tiny addition to the forehead of women serves as a nice decorative item. A bindi comes in different sizes and shapes associated with a myriad of decorative features thus answering a big question Why do girls spend hours and hours of their time selecting a bindi? But today it is different. It is no m...
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Religious Conversion

Innumerable controversies seem to hound the topic when it comes to conversion. Is it a state of mind or is it something more complex? I have often wondered and reflected upon the merits and de-merits of religious conversion. Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and other religions are beset with issues of conversion. It also creates a topic for further conversation with fellow friends and beings, when someone takes the step of conversion. The gossip mills work overtime to find the exact cause and reason for this step. I have often wondered how knowledgible are we to judge a religion. Take the instance of a person who converts from Hinduism to Christianity. On what basis does this transformation take place? Has he gone through all the vedic scriptures? Has he mastered the Bhagavad Gita? Has he studied the Upanishads and the other sacred verses? On the other hand, how much of the Bible is he comfortable with? The obvious answer to all these questions would be a...
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Avani Avattam

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Hey! Wondering what this mysterious word is? It is nothing but one of the most sacred and religious ceremony of the Brahmins. It is the Upakarma. Belonging to the Yajur veda , the thread changing ceremony ( to be simple) fell today and the three of us in our room were ready with our waishtee ( dhoti ), vivudhi ( sacred ash) on our forehead, dharbe, new poonal ( thread ), pancha pathra ugruni , arisi ( rice) or to be appropriate akshadhai and of course water. A scanned copy of the Kanchi madam upakarma copy was there on my lap and with great vigor and challenge, I was reciting the Sanskrit words written in Tamil. Never easy to get a good foothold in the subject if you've never read it before. All the time we are involved in science and technology that you realise what you've been missing in the long run. Vedic knowledge has always been a boon not for a particular community but for the whole wordly sphere. It encompasses all that we can think of and a lot more. Life gets too...
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