pic: http://www.hinduwisdom.info/images/couple_hindu.jpgevery year as the world celebrates the valentines day in its own way, the sena in maharashtra "celebrates it their way by breaking up a few shops and burning a few effigies" as one of my friends put ( not quoting, but the idea....)
arguably, the v-day has quite a christian/western influence on it, ...
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/holidays/valentines_day.htm
in fact, i should rather rephrase it as , its another of the lovely native traditions, taken over and christianised by the church .. even the commie run "The Hindu" admits that
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/yw/2003/02/08/stories/2003020800020200.htm
The association of St. Valentine's Day with love and courtship rose from coincidence of the date with the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The festival is believed to have been in honour of Faunus, the Roman god of flocks and fertility. Also known as Lupercus, he was worshipped in a temple on the Palatine Hill, and the festival was celebrated on February 14. The festival survived until the 5th Century A.D. The Christian church ended the feast of Lupercalia, transforming it into the feast of St. Valentine
That doesn't surprise me, for the church is known for such take overs..... some people believe that even Dec 25 was some kind of local festival, which was taken over by the church...
---------------------------------
anyways, the point is, for the sena, how good (or rather bad) is it to oppose a festival celebrating love ? amongst youngsters... even from a cultural perspective is it not better to indianize the day .. start organizing something special for couples in nice, safe and culturally acceptable community places.. never mind how many come in the first few yrs... if you make it attractive enough people will eventually shun bars and dance clubs .. those who still go to the latter places, well you can't change them anyways...
or may be pick another day - hindus have so many festivals anyways, and many celebrating love- and make it popular as an occasion for couples and young lovers...........
to put it in short, i never got the logic behind senas breaking up shops ....
******************************
and now, even more enigmatic is the demand to ban orkut..... !!
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jun/08spec.htm
lol, what kind of logic is that ?! ... in one go, you are going to create thousands of young enemies... minus may be some who spend way too much on orkut to the level of addiction, and will be thankful to u for saving their lives :-)
how do these people manage to completely miss the pulse of the youth every time ? why don't they gettit ?
I wonder, how the party continues to get support, even from among the youth ? may be they do lot of good work otherwise, especially in cleaning up the filth of mumbai .. or may be the threat given by the islamists in trying to turn mumbai (and parts of mumbai i hear has already been) into numerous mini-pakistans, is so grave and poeple there see the sena as the only force which can stand up against it....
or is their some other reason ? that indeed people are seeing through the commercialism and the westenrisation motives behind the v-day ? am i the one not getting it ??
*******************************************
talking about orkut, its interesting to see some people (and this includes my friends and relatives) put "spiritual but not religous" .... "religious humanism" and so on in the religion column ! interestingly some of these "spiritual but not religiuous" people are hardcore temple goers !! and i bet those who put "religious humanism" have know clue what it means(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_humanism ) ... its just a fashion at best !!
but then, i would not fully blame them either, for over the years the media and the intelligentsia and our dear p-sec politicians have managed to create a psyche that calling oneself a hindu is a matter of shame..... alas they forgot to teach us that hinduism is indeed the basis for all spirituality, that it encompaasses all humanism and that it indeed is "right-liberalism" , an option that orkut fails to give !! much as it fails to recognise sanskrit as a spoken language !!!
happy weekend
1 comment:
Liberal attitude in itself may be fine. But today's youth want to do certain things purely because the west does them - that is disconcerting. For instance, they want Indian society to be more permissive. Then why don't they take it to their logical end and demand with similar agitation that the western society become still more permissive? The westerners don't make as much of a hue and cry about their society. This means that all this call for being more liberal is merely based on what westerners do, and not arising from inherent free thinking.
That apart, I too don't agree with what the Sena activists do : not because I like Valentine's day but because this way they end up alienating youngsters from hindu organizations. san.gh takes a lot of flak for things that other organizations do.
Post a Comment