Friday, March 25, 2005

the knights templars of today

Hey..

The Da Vinci Code is a very interesting work of fiction. Dan Brown brought to light the alleged hidden facts that almost shake the very foundation of Christendom. The Kinghts Templars or the Poor Knights of the Solomon Temple swore allegiance to recover the hidden truth buried under the Solomon Temple and protect it for generations together.

Unfortunately a few of our generation seem to have misunderstood the history and have taken up the task of breaking down monuments to recover old temples. The self proclaimed knights templars of today roam about the entire Union of India searching for old temples and mosques that have been demolished and currently housing mosques or temples and claiming ownership of the place. The Babri Masjid - Ram Mandir is a complete mockery of Hindutva, Democracy and above all the sanctity of religion. While the Dec 06, 1991 is still an unforgotten incident and is almost a national holiday in many sensitive parts till day, a new templar has woken up suddenly in Lucknow giving voice to reclaim another temple.

This savior of the Hindu religion has declared that Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva Temple called as Tejo Mai Mahal. He is also planning to assemble a Shankar Sena to reclaim the Taj Mahal. Pardon me for being blunt, but, what an idiot !!

Let us assume for a second that the Taj Mahal was indeed originally the Tejo Mai Mahal - so how does it matter ? Every place was always someplace before. We have sufficient temples and mosques already and a good percentage of them need renovation and support. So Mr. Vinay Katiyar - if you have lots of time and/or money and dont know what to do with it, please find temples that are in ruin & shambles and renovate them. There are aplenty of them needing attention in India. Or better, donate it to social organizations to help feed the hungry, 'cause the God Himself would like that.

The BJP is a National party and has headed a full government term. It needs to pull itself together and realise that India is a land of diversity and unless there is a respect to sensitivity, peace cannot be attained. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. The party members should refrain from making such ridiculous religious claims in search of attention. Furthermore, if BJP wants to promote Hindutva there are multimillion constructive ways to do that - construct Hindu Mission hospitals, schools, colleges and universties which research and propogate Hinduism; sponsor poor kids to school, feed the needy; ... ; This is not the time to pick quarrels with other religions and engage in a bloodbath over a temple that possibly existed hundreds of years ago. Cheap gimmicks wont promote religiousness or faith. They prmote fanatics.... and fanatics promote catastrophe.

(adapted from Burt Bucharach)

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

Lord we don’t need another shrine
There are temples and mosques
Enough to pray
There are Churches and Mutts
Enough to preach, Enough to last
’till the end of time

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

Chao..

4 comments:

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Siva,

Ironically enough, the topic is about a 'Siva Temple' :-)

My comments are on the premise..that requests for peace via a so called 'secular' response to a communal instigation is simply unreasonable. It is as unreasonable as expecting a peaceful response to a theevaravadhi thaakudhal. Look at the world's response to attack on soverignity of countries ! you should see a common pattern.

"unless there is a respect to sensitivity, peace cannot be attained."

You've hit the nail on the head....but alas, your own! ;)
Respect to sensitivity is NOT and can NOT be a 'one-way traffic'. It needs two hands to get a clap going. Whatever happened to 'respect to sentivity of the victimised' ? If attempt to instill confidence is mutual, everyone loves it. Cricket trips can't be political.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Peace for eye ? yeah whatever...

eyeStreet times said...

Shiva...guess now u are now among the pseudo secularist ilk. You are one of those kind that always expect the hindus to exercise restraint but never expect the otherside to chip in.

Here is a news flash for you. The hindus have been , to use your words "respectfull to sensitivity" of other faiths for the past thousands of years. We dont need pseudo secularist to come and lecture us on restraint.

We have welcomed and have allowed other religions to florish in the great land of Bharath varsha for nobody knows how long. Compare this hospitality with other nations who have routed out any and every other faith in their land.

What you are asking us to do is like asking a land lord not to evict a tenant inspite of the tenant not paying his rent, inspite of the tenant asking for and getting a portion of YOUR land and inspite of being treated equal to the land owners own family members.

And now...one of the land owners own family member is turning against him. Oh! what a shame!

Anyways to put a spin around your own words.."Every place was always someplace before"...so I guess the corollary of this would be "Every place today will always become some other place tomorrow". So, it should be fine if we pulled down the white building today and restore the old temple tomorrow !!

eyeStreet times said...

"My comments are on the premise..that requests for peace via a so called 'secular' response to a communal instigation is simply unreasonable. It is as unreasonable as expecting a peaceful response to a theevaravadhi thaakudhal."

...Arvind, bull's eye !!

Karthik said...

This is Karthik Josium.
To illustrate how our priorities are totally screwed up, I will give u an example. In Gujarat, during the riots 2000 people died. People talk about it even after 3 years. But everyday 250 women aged between 20-40 die during child birth i.e. 500 deaths/100,000 births. In US, it is 1 death/ 100,000 births. Since Gujarat riot, around 270,000 women have died during pregnancy. But how many articles have been written about this. How many visas have been cancelled for this genocide. When the English Media and the psuedo secularist could go on and on about the 3000, I could never understand why they could not raise their voice against this genocide.

The 800 million + indians are not worried about the secularism and all the funda.. It is the talk which the so called intellectuals have after a heavy dinner.

What people are worried is to put food on table, roof over their head and clothes to cover themselves. The problem with both the so called secularist as well as the so called facist is that they both think they know what is right for the people. But they never ask if they agree with their thinking.

I believe strongly in the Liberalatarian principle of Live and Lets Live. It was beautifully illustrated in the movie "Outlaw Joyse Wales" when Clint EAstwood and 10 Bears will agree to live peacefully besides each other even though they come from different background.

Overall, in India people are very peaceful and live without troubling each other. Secularism or Islam or Christianity is not the real problem. It is the pitable state of our healthcare, lack of economic activity, that is the real problem.