Pakistan is in doldrums. It has fallen into bad times. It is being labeled as everything from a failed state to a global headache. Many have been asking this question: What is wrong with Pakistan?
In My opinion the picture below answers the question very well.
It is picture of Pakistani women's cricket team praying on cricket field after defeating Srilankan team recently in a world cup match. Some comments on a popular Pakistani blog, Pakistaniat, pretty much summaries why this picture is symbolic of all that is wrong with Pakistan:
One atheist says :
its not a good sign to bring religion into everything especially things like this cricket match which was between two countries and not two religions. thanking god is a good thing but that should have been a personal gesture and not in the middle of a stadium. sports and religion shouldn’t be clubbled. isn’t mixing the religion with _all_ aspects of life one of the biggest problem for the country ?
adeel writes:
there are two things in this picture
I am not sure what to make of this picture. I guess if the girls really do want to display their gratitude like this, it is their choice.
A wise man once said that the best form of service to God was not to make a show of it. One could infer that more subtle forms of showing thankfulness are desirous as Allah does not need to actually see us prostrate to accept it. By the way, the wise man’s name is Ali (r.a).
On the other hand, if the girls are saying one of their daily prayers, I guess a mosque or a prayer room is more suited for it than a cricket pitch - unless it was hot inside!
India is country of paradoxes. If it has generated some incredible spiritual thoughts in times when rest of world was walking around the planet naked and hunting deer, it has also at same time, produced some insanely stupid men in times when world has progressed from caves to computers.
One such men is one called Muthalik in Bangalore (or Bangaluru) . Now this Muthalik is a head of fringe group called Sri Ram Sene which nobody in this country knew until few weeks back. Until these guys walked into a pub in tow with TV cameras and beat up women present in the pub to protect Indian culture. Since then these guys have been making all kinds of comments on what they think Indian culture is and how they will beat anybody to protect this culture against any (perceived or real) corruption. Now I can analysis this logically and write a erudite piece here to explain this phenomenon, and how it is a tussle between India and Bharat, but that would be useless. Because neither these guys understand any logic or reasoning, nor do they deserve it. All they deserve is an answer in their own language which is one of violence and hatred. I hate people like Muthalik because he is as ugly as an asshole and he stink badly. He needs good thrashing. And that is what all of his so called supporters need as well. They need to be fought against in their own language. Using language of violence.
Muthalik is a pest. He cant be a Hindu because he is not even half a man. Just by wearing vermilion on his forehead he does not become a Hindu or its spoksperson. He is sort of guy who would not even respect his own mother. Because he thinks that beating women is Hindu culture, on one or other pretext. For me he is not any different than the Muslim Mullah who wants to marry 10 women and want to keep them covered in name of culture and God.
So I support all these protests against Muthalik and his fringe sex-starved (presumption but so be it) group of supports. There are women who want to send him pink chaddies this valentine's day, and I say, women, do it, by all means. There are people who want to hug publicly this valentines’ day and there are those who want to "pub bharo"... do all of this. But I say, go beyond it. If these people come in herds (like cowards usually come) to beat you, you retaliate. Beat them back. Break their heads. Hit them hard where it hurt the most. Don’t be afraid.
We need to do it now because these fringe groups, these Taliban like forces are spreading deep and wide and faster than we think. They are spreading like weed which needs to be uprooted now or else it will be too late.
So guys, stamp on them wherever you see them. Indian culture can do far better without these insane, half witted, men who use sacred vermilion to cover their own cowardice. So Mr. Muthalik , I am Hindu. I believe in God and I don’t. I celebrate Khajuraho as much as I celebrate messages in Gita. I will do all that which this country lawfully let me do. You keep out of my life, our life, and if you don’t like what we do, burry yourself in sand and if you coward come and want to fight with me, come like a man, alone, .........not with your cowards sena, not with your herd of impotent followers. And Muthalik did nobody tell you even that ...you look more like Ravana than Ram!!
An old debate of implementing sex education in Indian schools has raised its head again with couple of state government banning sex education in schools even before it could be implemented.We Indian have a strange connection to this topic of sex. On one hand we have produced masterpiece like Kamasutra, on other hand, we squirm in our seats at the very mention of word sex. The debate as such is not new and has been happening for quite sometime even in liberal western countries where topic of sex is not a taboo and where sex education has been implemented for quite sometime. Even after that, they have had their own problems with teen pregnancies and unwed young mothers and this is something we need to learn from. On the contrary, in our Indian society, which is largely conservative, we tend to take a very moralistic and idealistic approach even though we know that we hardly live in ideal conditions and that man by nature is fallible. As always, the solution could be somewhere in middle, but for that to happen there needs to be a healthy open minded discussion based on facts and reality and not on just moral and high sounding cultural arguments and preconcieved notions which are are set in distant past. We can not teach kids in school that go have sex and produce babies but we can not keep pretending that they think that it is really about birds and bees and that babies fall from sky. In the whole debate on whether sex education in Indian schools is needed or not, there are couple of arguments which are extremely annoying.Those who vehemently argue against implementing sex education in schools usually say that:
It is against Indian culture
We need to implement yoga education and not sex education.
1. My reservation against first argument is that it is a big debate killer. The moment we don't want to confront a subject or even want to talk about it, we hurriedly term it as against Indian culture and want everybody to keep quite. It could be anything. It could be a movie showing an ugly slice from our past or it could be a festival celebrated by young couples. And nobody, I mean really nobody can perhaps substantiate what this Indian culture is, especially those who use it at drop of their hat. Has this so called Indian culture documented anywhere, engraved anywhere? Is this Indian culture a solidified object which has not changed since it was created, whenever it was created! What is the starting point of this culture? 5000 year back or 100 years back? Has this culture not changed since then!I believe that culture is like a flowing river and not like a pond where water stagnates and starts stinking. If there is anything which is part of Indian culture, it is that we are argumentative. We induge in arguments, we question, reason and try to understand things. This is how our ancestors were able to create some magnificent piece of philosophical literature many thousands of years back. Why do we now don’t deal with the questions just because they are little uncomfortable to our sensibilities?Is khajurao not part of Indian culture! Is kamasutra not part of Indian culture? If Indian culture is about beating young couples who are merely holding hands in public,if it is about vandalizing shops which are selling cards and flowers because young couple wants to buy them, if it is about honor killings where daughters are killed by their own fathers in full view and support of village because they marriedguys from lower or other caste, if it is about dowry killings, if it is about wanting to have sons and killing unborn daughters, if it is about a being piously hypocritical, if it is about trying to be a saint and not being a human, if it is about being poor yogi sitting in Himalya then I will happily say that I would prefer to be a westerner.
2. What makes us think that Yoga education and sex education are complimentary! Do we think that yoga education in schools would turn all children into spiritual gurus and sex education would turn them into sexual perverts! One of self acclaimed protectors and flag bearers of Indian culture, Ashok Shingal of VHS said on TV, on debate on same subject that "In Indian culture, we should remain celibate (brahamchari) for first 25 years of life, The Virya (semen) needs to be saved and not wasted and through yoga this Virya can then be transported internally to the mind converting it into spiritual energy". Fantastic as his viewsmight sound to anyone, and without commenting whether there is really a truth in what he says about power of Virya, as I am sure he himself hasn't never tried that, I would have asked him if this is really what Indian culture is about, then how is that we are culture of 1 billion people! Obviously these many people could not have been born without Virya doing its bit.In fact on the contrary, it seems that we are in such large number because of over-active groins and juices that flow from there. In Hinduism, we have 33 million gods in the pantheon and some of them were sexually quite active. If one reads some of religious books, one soon gets confused about who was whose sons, like God A married God B and they had 4 children (they were also Gods obviously), A also had children fromZ but A never slept with Z and used his spiritual force to make Z pregnant, like Lord Surya (sun)made Kunti pregnant in Mahabharata and she gave birth to a son called Karna. I am not trying to belittle our mythology which for most part is about allegorical stories and rely heavily upon symbolism with deeper meanings. The whole notion of Virya being needed to be conserved and abstinence might be good for those who decide to tread on the path of Indian yogic traditions (sanyas) but it is a choice made by an adult at a stage in life when he/she has understanding of such abstract things as God, religion, nirvana etc. Not everybody in this country is trying to become sadhu and sanyasi. We can not expect that by teaching yoga to children in school, they will grow up into sexless spiritual beings. It is like saying that if we teach math to all the children in school, they will grow up to become mathematicians. There is no reason why children can not be taught both sex education and yoga education. Purpose of Sex education is to teach scientific facts about sex to children who are otherwise prone to acquiring false notions and impressions about sex in the world where (mis)information is available at drop of hat. Yoga education teaches them how to keep physical fit and control their mind. Later when they grow up to be adults, they would be equipped to make better, informed decisions. May be some of them would grow up to become Swami Vivekanandas and rest of them would be happier being lawyers, engineers, doctors and enjoying a healthy sex life.
In a way, this whole topic of sex education is intersting from another perspective, in the sense that it is perhaps only topic which unites people who are otherwise always at loggerheads. For example from the mullahs to padri to pundits, all three of them would speak vociferously against implementing sex education. In thier eyes, somewhere, sex is a sinful activity which takes a man away form path of God, and hence it is not to be spoken about or indulged in and certainly not to be taught in schools. The unity of all religions on matter of sex raises a very interesting question...Why is that? For a later post.
