The Brave Pedestrian

We of the modern mechanistic civilization seek to define all things and phenomena as ‘it’, as against he or she. We objectify (as against personify) the world when we refer to it as ‘it’, and not he or she. By contrast, we personify our country as ‘she’, ‘Bharat Mata’ etc. Some decades earlier, when people referred to India as  Bharat Mata , they meant it literally. Those who participated in the freedom struggle were inspired by the feeling that they were risking their lives for an entity that mattered a lot more than ordinary mortals, and yet was intimately connected to them and their families. Today, we don’t think that way. We think of India as ‘it’. India is beautiful as long as the the GDP, forex reserves and Sensex look sexy, and as long as the world is cheering it lustily as the new, rising BRIC nation. We don’t love India the way we loved  Bharat Mata. I think objectifying impoverishes us. Objectifying is fine when you’re dealing with micro-realities a...

For me, Ganesha is there-yet-not-there. I don’t worship God in the form of Ganesha. I probably never will. Ganapati idols and pictures evoke no reverence or feelings of sanctity in me. And yet… and yet… This happened on 18th September 1998: Back then, I was fanatically regular about my daily morning swim, driving to a nearby club in my little green Maruti 800. Dad and Mom often accompanied me. That day, Dad was terribly busy and wouldn’t come. Neither would Mom. “Krish, won’t you stay home and help me out?” Dad pleaded. He isn’t someone who normally asks for help. He isn’t the sort of  guy who would ask me to cancel my swim, knowing how much it meant to me. But that day, he asked, he pleaded. “No, Dad… sorry. I can’t miss my swim.” Blunt refusal. Somewhere inside me, a little niggling voice was asking whether I was doing the right thing, but I brushed it aside. As I drove out of our neighbourhood, its narrow link to the highway was totally blocked, all du...