Mumbai is Burning. Again!

It seems we’re finally tired of singing paeans to the resilient spirit of Mumbai, which, simply put, actually means nothing more than a daily fight for survival. We can glorify it all we want, but for a large number of people in this city, living from day to day itself is such a huge struggle, the threat of terrorism seems only like an occasional blip on their already busy radar. Last year, an office boy who worked with me in a fashion magazine lost his life falling off an overcrowded local train just outside Kandivali station as he was heading to work. He left behind a wife and three little children and it didn’t take any ammunition to snuff out his innocent existence. Life and death is mostly a matter of chance in this heartless city – now, not only for the teeming masses who can do little to determine their destinies, but also the privileged, who may put themselves at risk merely by stepping out for a five-star dinner.




There’s no logic to survival, beyond the realm of accidental choices, or the presence of a supreme force orchestrating our lives, depending on your personal line of belief. Ask all those who miraculously escaped the terror attacks and warded off death by mere seconds entirely on account of random decisions that somehow took them away from the war zones at the Taj and Oberoi-Trident hotels or kept them safe even in the face of extreme danger. Others paid the ultimate price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.




It’s only at times like these that we take a pause from our robotic existence to reflect on our inherent vulnerability. And naturally, it frightens us. For a long time to come, many of us will be looking over our shoulder wherever we go and will never feel safe no matter how much reassuring rhetoric flies around. We already know that our political system inspires absolutely no confidence, although we now have renewed faith in our security forces and brave police officers. Yes, the very same who, until days ago were being maligned for their communal bias, but were the first to go in and face the fire with their pathetic safety equipment.




Our politicians, on the other hand, are treading the thin line now it seems, and one hopes it is they, and no one else (especially not innocent citizens), who bear the brunt of the public backlash. Maharashtra’s chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s single largest achievement in office so far has been to hold on to his chair for as long as he has managed. He is, arguably, the least effective chief minister this state has ever known and it boggles the mind to imagine that such an uninspiring man is at the helm of affairs in times of crisis. Home Minister Shivraj Patil believes nothing that happens in the country has any reflection on his role as Home Minister, and hence, he can’t really be held accountable for such frequent and sustained terror attacks in several different cities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hasn’t been able to assuage the citizens with his muted rhetoric summoning the ISI Chief to Delhi. L K Advani keeps threatening to scream POTA, POTA , and only just stops himself. Narendra Modi goes around making a nuisance by meddling around in Mumbai when we all know it didn’t take any terror attacks to eliminate thousands of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Raj Thackeray, meanwhile, has either been hiding at home, or lauding the brave ‘Marathi’ policemen who lost their lives in the gun battles. The rest can go to hell for they’ve no business defending lives on his ancestral territory. Already, various politicians have put up hoardings around Mumbai saluting the policemen who lost their lives in the encounter – for a change, we don’t see their own smug mug shots plastered all over these unauthorized publicity hoardings.




We Mumbaikars have lived with the threat of terror for nearly two decades now, apart from innumerable other equally ominous situations like say, the annual rains or overcrowded public transport, or rash driving. Trains and buses have been targets of terror attacks at regular intervals. We all know that the country’s largest city is totally ill-equipped for crisis management of any sort and after each successive emergency situation, we’ve heard hollow promises from two-faced politicians, riding on the belief that people will forget all about what happened and get on with their lives in a matter of days. We’ve always proved them right by not asking questions, by not raising our voice, by not coming together towards a constructive citizens’ initiative to make the system accountable to us and not just in times of crisis, and actually getting on with our lives as though what has happened may never be repeated, or in fact, doesn't concern us at an individual level at all. It is up to us to make our elected representatives, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the media accountable for the way they function, because everything they do, does impact our everyday lives in some way. If we, the educated and privileged don't do it, who will?




Lighting a candle in the window is merely another variation of the tokenism we’ve seen from our political brass. For the candle is sure to burn down long before the scars and the wounds of the hundreds wounded and bereaved even begin to heal.

Cinematic Integrity

Is there such a thing as cinematic integrity on the Hindi screen? It's a question worth reflecting on with some seriousness. When did we last watch a film that challenged the boundaries of the medium? A film that blended a crafty yet intellectually honest narrative with depth of character, visual finesse, effective editing and pathbreaking performances? In effect, a film that has the strength to stand the test of time? Something that can at least aspire for visions of greatness?

I happened to watch 'Sophie's Choice' made by Alan J Pakula in 1982 and 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' made by Siddharth Anand in 2008 on the same day for no specific reason. Unfortunately, I watched the former first and was firmly under the spell of Meryl Streep's astonishing turn as Sophie when I started viewing the other film. I forced myself to sit through this piece of trash just to reaffirm my belief that great cinema is not possible in Bollywood until filmmakers start feeling shamed by their collective debauchery. We cannot continue justifying our contemptible mediocrity in the name of commercial pressures and popular demand. Nor can we keep harping on our uniqueness to avoid unfavourable comparison with the rest of the world. 

Cinema is the same medium everywhere and its exponents are all trying to attract audiences to their work. Nobody makes films for themselves and nobody works in isolation. Hence weighing our work against others in the field is not just inevitable but absolutely essential for the healthy growth of our cinema. I pick out 'Bachna Ae Haseeno', but all of Yashraj Films' dozen-odd productions of the last three years (with the possible exception of 'Chak De India', which had some spirit, even though it took jingoism to the extreme and works, at best, as a genre film) are symptomatic of the callousness and blatant disrespect for cinema that's plaguing the entire Hindi film industry, it seems. You run through everything from 'Bunty Aur Babli', 'Dhoom', 'Fanaa', 'Kabul Express', 'Laaga Chunri Mein Daag', 'Aaja Nachle' to 'Bachna Ae Haseeno', and you see a uniform indifference towards plot, character, screenplay, visual texture and direction. Yes, they were all films catering to the masses. They all were meant to be pulp entertainment and hence weren't expected to leave a lasting impact on anyone. But what about integrity within the form of popular entertainment? Many of Yash Chopra's best-known films were true to the mainstream format with a formulaic plot, melodramatic exposition and just about serviceable visual language -- from 'Waqt' to 'Chandni', via 'Deewaar', 'Kabhi Kabhie', 'Trishul' and 'Silsila'. 

Yet, all of these films had characters who've stayed with us down the years, plot devices that kept audiences hooked at every turn, dialogues and music that lent depth to the drama and a sense of cohesiveness to each work that didn't make it seem like a replica of something else, nor like a showcase for some star’s antics or a circus of assorted scenes and songs thrown together haphazardly. Why just the Yashraj Films banner, everything of Hindi cinema I’ve seen in recent years is largely indifferent work (barring notable exceptions like 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' and 'Johnny Gaddaar') either put together as a marketing project or then, presupposing its own grandeur without any justification. 

Even in well-made films, there’s little emphasis on the film form, scripts are routinely unimaginative and worse, plagirised versions of older works or of foreign films, actors are entirely out of tune with the demands of working into a character (‘Dil Chahta Hai’ did improve their attention to physical detail, but there’s no such thing in Bollywood as building the ‘emotional graph’ of a character – I haven’t even seen the so-called ‘thinking’ actor Aamir Khan do it in any film), and directors are first, and above all, merchandisers trying to sell a product at any cost. From Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ashutosh Gowariker to Karan Johar, Farah Khan, Vipul Shah, Aneez Bazmee, Rakesh Roshan and Subhash Ghai (apart from everyone making films for Yashraj), none have produced a work of any notable measure. 

Filmmakers working with smaller budgets are either too conscious of their limited resources to really try something different or just aren't allowed the freedom to do so. It's shameful to learn that films like 'Bheja Fry' and 'Aamir' which have, in some sense, provided an opening for off-mainstream cinema are themselves derived from foreign sources.  Yet, we march along, scratching each other’s backs for sub-standard work that wouldn’t stand any critical evaluation, slam critics for not understanding cinema and being dismissive without a cause and pay actors salaries and attention they don’t deserve. Neither the Oscars, nor Cannes, Berlin, Venice or any other international film festival of any repute is likely to honour a Hindi film, leave aside finding it award-worthy, anytime in the future. So let’s just continue jumping in our tiny little puddle and pretend we’re splashing around in the ocean. And let others around the world celebrate cinema in all its glory and create works of art that’ll vindicate the medium, over and over again. 

Is This Why We Wanted Freedom?

Woke up this morning to hear the news that Raj Thackeray has been arrested in the middle of the night from Ratnagiri (why couldn’t they do it in broad daylight, one wonders) and is being brought to Mumbai to be produced in court. This is an event that shouldn’t really affect my life in any significant way, for, other than being the leader of just another political party with a handful of seats in the state assembly, he has absolutely no locus standi and clearly isn’t the guardian of ‘Marathi asmita’ as he’d have us believe. I don’t support his politics, nor endorse his divisive, myopic and wholly opportunistic modus operandi – a mere photocopy of his uncle’s ‘sons of the soil’ propaganda of four decades ago! He’s just another hypocritical Thackeray (funny these followers of Shivaji spell their family name after a famous British novelist of the Victorian era called William Makepeace Thackeray!), who proclaims his righteousness by bullying people while moving around in fancy imported cars, going hunting with the filmi brat pack when not extorting and grabbing property in the city by all means possible and sending his children to a fancy, upper-crust English medium school (no Marathi schools for sons of this Marathi manoos).

Sadly, anything Raj Thackeray does, or anything that’s done to him, tends to disrupt my life. For, this self-styled ‘inheritor’ of Shivaji’s guerrilla warfare tactics has an army of goons who hunt in packs and evidently, carry out their business of sabotage with the blessings of the state government and the police machinery. For the Congress-NCP alliance, Raj is a weapon against the increasingly toothless Shiv Sena. For the Sena, his violent agenda is a provocation that must be met by an equal show of strength. For the media, he’s a constant source of entertainment – hence his every move is chronicled in meticulous detail, which further feeds his purpose. For the common Marathi man, he’s perhaps the guy who will get them the jobs they may or may not deserve and by dint of force if necessary; and for the non-Marathi population, he’s a nuisance and terror that just can't be wished away. So Mumbai has come to a standstill again today. Some hapless taxi drivers will get beaten up and their vehicles smashed about, a few shops will be stoned and damaged (naturally, nobody except the owners themselves are going to pick up the tab), many schools in the city are closed as a matter of precaution (and in some, like my daughter's school, exams were abandoned midway and children despatched home in panic), while the public will exercise caution in sensitive areas like Dadar and prefer to defer their Diwali shopping. The media will blare sensational headlines all day, panel discussions will speculate on the implications of Raj’s arrest, journalists and members of other parties will spout sagely wisdom on the matter, his own spokesperson will rant about the injustice being meted out to this great Marathi leader and so on. In a matter of hours, Raj Thackeray will be out on bail, and, emboldened by the attention being showered on him, go on to bigger challenges and cause greater damage. 

I am not an authority on politics. Yet, the atmosphere of our vastly polluted democracy is increasingly incensing me. It’s not just the malaise of Raj Thackeray and his ilk that worries me as a citizen of this country. It is the shallow political environment which allows thugs and goons to bully their way around (virtually in every state), where no institution, party or individual is incorruptible. Where development, like secularism, is a dirty word tossed around casually. Where people are mere statistics of castes, communities, religious groups and vote banks, all cleverly pitted against each other. Where neither the judiciary, nor police, nor state can administer justice to those that need it most. Where the large mass called the middle class (of which, I shamefully admit, I too am a member) are too dazzled by their life of comfort and brain-numbing reality television to protest about anything. Where the poor have no choice but to get trampled. Where the rich have no concern for anything except the next cocktail party. Where sacrifice is foolish, principles are redundant and money is god. Is this really the India we so desperately wanted, an ideal for which scores sacrificed their lives, and many more underwent tremendous untold hardships? If this be freedom, did we really need to oust the British? As Sahir Ludhianvi aptly put it half a century ago: “Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahaan hai? Kahaan hai? Kahaan hai? Kahaan hai?” Deepa Deosthalee

Mumbai Meri Jaan

Every once in a while, unexpected joys sneak out of life’s crevices to lighten the weary heart. Like this afternoon, I found catharsis in the form of a writer of Pakistani origin called Kamila Shamsie. Last year, I’d given her book Broken Verses to a dear student as a parting gift after her post-graduation, since I liked what the back-cover said and because I’m partial to women writers and curious about Pakistan. This year, it came right back to me as the only fitting present she could think of on our first meeting after her move to Dubai. “Read it. I think you’ll like it,” she smiled.

And I did -- much more than like it too. Enough to comb bookshops for Shamsie’s other works and come upon Kartography, which, in turn brought on the epiphany that my befuddled brain desperately longed for. Both books speak of everlasting, fated love; but that’s not why the coin suddenly dropped. It’s the fact that both are as much about the city of Karachi as the characters that live in it -- its own story flowing through their blood streams and, in more ways than one, defining who they are and what they are destined to become. 

By the time the second book was over, not only had I fallen in love with Karachi (a city I’ve never seen), I’d found a mirror being held up to the only place on earth I can call home, Bombay (Mumbai, Bambai, call it what you like; name don’t change the place). Of course Shamsie’s Karachi is far bloodier than I’ve ever seen my hometown being – gunfire and random killings being a matter of routine occurrence (in between civil war and ethnic cleansing) and curfews and deserted streets a norm. 

Or at least it was, in 1971 and 1995, (if Kartography bears any resemblance to facts) when the lives of two generations of friends unfold amidst torrid times and for most part, the primary agent of upheavals in their lives is the city, tearing them apart while burning in its own misery. Both cities seem like soul sisters – port towns, symbols of their respective nations’ prosperity, melting pots pock-marked with innumerable scars of petty bigotry, plundered and pulverised by millions and yet pulling along with undue resilience. 

I’ve feared for some time now that Bombay is dangling over a precipice. And when it goes down, it’ll take me with it. Mawkish as this sounds, it is the truth. I’ve grown up here. I know the city inside out – and many of the cities within. I can differentiate between the wide-ranging smells of its filth and myriad sounds of its hysterical pace like they are a part of my own being. I’ve hung out of crowded trains to suck in the breeze, been ensconced in anonymity amongst swarming crowds at Churchgate and Dadar, watched the sun drowning behind the Haji Ali mosque from my car window, exulted at the sight of a B.E.S.T. bus at Chembur after just a week’s absence from the city and even grinned gleefully to myself aboard airplanes approaching touchdown over Dharavi after vacations in far, far cleaner, greener, safer and fancier lands. 

But I can't bear to romanticise my city. I don’t love it for what it is – nor what it was when I was growing up in a relatively quiet suburban neighbourhood and revelling in its indestructible spirit as a child or as a youth full of dreams that my beloved hometown promised to fulfil. If the western world lost its innocence in 2001, Bombay lost hers in 1992-93 (at least for me, it did), when self-righteous right-wingers stalked the streets, systematically burning up Muslim establishments and dragging people out of their homes and buildings like ours, to ascertain their faith and punish them, ostensibly for ‘wrongs’ committed by their ancestors and later, when the first bombs exploded in her face (an equally mindless act of alleged retaliation, but plainly put, the city’s first official terrorist attack) and ripped apart much more than the lives of 1000 people who were either killed or maimed in their wake and their loved ones.

I still remember getting up every morning through the riots of 1992-93 and nonchalantly boarding a train to college, unmindful of the tension in the city, or standing on the building terrace and watching tongues of flames bursting forth from burning shops in the neighbourhood, a gentle gust floating towards us with the smoke and the heat of those fires and scorching our eyes with collective guilt. 

It’s not just the senseless violence that shattered the myth. It’s the feeling of being lost in your own home, battered past recognition by forces beyond one’s control – deplorable politicians, crumbling infrastructure, unsafe roads, apathetic policemen, unbearable pollution, opportunistic scamsters… The list goes on and on. But most distressing of all is the much-vaunted resilient spirit of the citizenry – their eyes either too dazzled by the possibility of winning that one big lottery or too numbed by the drudgery of a lifelong struggle to survive at any cost whatsoever. The incongruity of gleaming shopping malls standing right across the road from slums, wretched beggars pecking at your complacency on every traffic signal, ugly skyscrapers blocking out more and more of the skies, the weight of a million immersions reducing the sea to a stinking discoloured mass and the entire city gasping and reeling under the aspirations of 15 million people – and slipping away from my grasp. 

I’ve sometimes been tempted to walk away from it all – more now than ever before. The colony of my childhood is now like an old people’s settlement, most of the children I grew up with, long gone in search of better opportunities. I too have tried imagining a life away from this madness, in tranquil climes relatively untouched by the brutality and inequity of human life. I’ve closed my eyes and conjoured images of being someplace else and instantly snapped them open, feeling disorientated under unfamiliar skies. It doesn’t look like I have a choice in the matter. My parents were born here, as was my daughter. And somehow, the city is as irrevocably tied to me as the umbilical chord. No place on earth can make me put Bombay out of my mind, and there’s nowhere else I can put my head on a pillow and feel like I’m home. 

A Marriage Of True Minds

In the middle of a perfectly harmless online chat, a journalist friend popped a snap poll question for an article she is writing: "If you had to choose between being bored out of your mind in your marriage and your husband's infidelity, which one would you prefer?" It was a no-brainer. I'd choose the latter option with or without its qualitative comparison with lifelong boredom (which, I'm afraid, is a logical inevitability in any long-term relationship, but especially marriage -- considering the floozy, faulty premise on which it's often based). She was taken aback and I asked her why. "You are the only one who's chosen this option," she said. "Most people I spoke to (and they're all 'people like us'!), are mortified at the mere idea of their spouse's infidelity."

I'm not surprised. Most people grow up with fairy tales that inevitably end in "And they lived happily ever after", watch Hindi films (or their Hollywood equivalents) where the hero and heroine walk into the sunset having overcome all odds against their undying love, read Romeo And Juliet (or Mills and Boon, depending on their literary leanings) and have dreamt of eternal love. They may never actually have seen a perfectly happily married couple (I confess, I haven't, and am beginning to suspect it's merely a fictional concoction), but believe that they have the will, the capacity, and most of all, the patience, to build that one exceptional marriage which makes the rest of us believe fervently in this institution and plunge headlong into it with foolhardy bravado. I did too. But this article isn't a confessional about my relationship (which isn't any better or worse than any other I've seen from close quarters -- which, I might add, is almost a huge relief, considering my own impatient temperament!), but rather about the very nature of marriage and the idea of infidelity.  

It is not, therefore, with cynicism, that I believe monogamous relationships between woman and man (or woman and woman, or man and man) are a mythical idea we are desperately trying to cling to, because of generations of brainwashing and lack of other practically suitable alternatives. As a point of argument, I'd invite anyone who's ever got married (or even been in a long-term relationship) to stand up and declare she/he was never maddeningly attracted to another member of the opposite sex (movie stars and tennis players included, because they're far easier to embed in our fantasies than real people who have the potential to complicate matters), or wistfully imagined being with someone/anyone else, or contemplated the hypothetical possibility of not being in marital bondage and hence free to exercise choice without guilt. Naturally, none of the above has anything to do with eternal love. If anyone were to actually try being in love with another human being with single-minded devotion forever, they wouldn't have the time to do anything else, and would eventually start slipping into boredom. Guaranteed. Remember, Romeo and Juliet died long before they could find out. 

Marriage is a practical option to keep the human race better organised and easier to manage, just as prisons are a sensible way of keeping errant elements isolated from society to minimise their nuisance. So instead of exercising our free will in accordance with our animal instincts and mating without moral inhibition, which in turn may lead to innumerable social inconveniences, we choose to 'settle down' in matrimony, and like all good creatures of habit, soon forget that it's possible to even conceive living any other way. Then we turn this practical necessity into a virtue and swear by its near-religious sanctity like hard-core fanatics. Obviously then, infidelity must seem equivalent to complete blasphemy. We expect our spouses to be utterly 'faithful' (like our friends of the canine variety), no matter what, and can accept almost anything else, but the thought that perhaps we aren't actually entirely equipped to fulfil their needs on a lifelong basis (nor is it our cardinal duty to do so at any cost) and hence, they are well within their right to look elsewhere. Infidelity generally isn't about 'us'. It's about 'them', and their tendency to stray from the straight road, while we continue to trudge along, despite the odds and the temptation -- which also gives us the higher moral ground. Mostly we do it because we're reined in by our upbringing and because it's too much trouble to rock the boat and live with the consequences. 

If there really were an 'ideal' relationship (marital or otherwise), it would be one that has no room for 'ifs' and 'buts'. Where two people didn't live in dread of each other's choices and actually encouraged each other to live to the fullest, irrespective of its impact on their own lives. That would, I suspect, also be the relationship that's truly based on love, where no risk is too high; and not the conditional contract we seem to mistakenly refer to as the real thing.As my beloved Sting aptly put it, "If you love somebody, set them free." 

Children Of God

I am an atheist. And am acutely aware that it's not a very nice thing to be, considering the alarming level of intolerance to dissidents and freaks within the human race. All the more reason to be grateful to my parents and grandparents who taught me about honesty, hard work, simplicity and compassion, without ascribing any covert or overt divine significance to them. I was never told to speak the truth because god says so or because god will punish me if I don't. These values are their own virtue and a measure of our being 'human'. I was allowed the freedom to form my own ethical framework for living and to practise it without fear of divine retribution. 





I admit I don't have too many answers about the evolution of the universe, but am entirely unconvinced about the idea of a supreme entity that may have created the world. It could have come about instead, through a series of accidents beyond human comprehension. Because after all these million years of evolution, humans can't claim to have understood the story of their evolution and that of all those who came before them, with exactitude. Which is perhaps where god comes in.

It is my belief that god didn't create man, man created god -- to help understand all the complexities of the world he was living in, and the worlds beyond that he hadn't yet explored, and all the natural phenomena that overwhelmed him and threatened his race, and all the strokes of good luck he couldn't explain rationally (it had to be a man, because women have been obliterated from human history for most part, so nobody really knows if they could think back then -- today, we know that they are allowed to think, but only just and so long as they behave themselves within the realm of man-made morality).

It is possible then, that god was born of human weakness. 

It is also possible to believe that food and water cause human strife, because they are essential for the survival of the species. All animals kill for their own survival -- humans may be intellectually better of, but that doesn't necessarily dull their primitive natural instincts. So they fight for the most fertile land, negotiate for exchanging their goods and services for money, hack each other for profit etc. without much gumption. But the human race has also invented this mammoth monster called religion and further divided it into a million 'gods' of the mythical and super human variety, most of whom apparently preach the same thing, but according to their subjects, each is holier and more relevant than its predecessors and contemporaries -- be truthful, be kind to your neighbours, love is god, wisdom is divine, work is worship, don't be greedy, desire is the root cause of all suffering, etc. The vocabulary may differ, but the message is always the same.

You don't need new gods to tell you this, but we invent them anyway -- just in case they have some ready answers to questions we haven't cracked yet. I haven't seen a single follower who worships their gods with such astounding fervour, actually adopting their preaching in their own lives -- because there is a direct conflict between being a child of god, and fighting for survival, and these days even more, sacrificing the lure of material comfort. Most times, you can't achieve both. But you can pray earnestly, break innumerable coconuts, take pilgrimages, sing praises of your god, do elaborate rituals to atone for your sins and hope that all this adds up and is taken into account with the 'final judgment' is delivered; or if you don't believe in such hogwash, at least alleviate your guilt about being human and therefore, shamefully flawed. It's far easier than giving up a cushy life and being simple in thought and action, stepping out of the competitive environment and not lying to make a fast buck, being the sole judge of your own worth and actually spending time reflecting on the human condition and the meaning of life -- let's just wait for some god to tell us what to do while we go about our business of making lots of money, so that we don't have to think and stand up for our beliefs, irrespective of whether the rest of the world agrees with them or not. 



The beauty of the idea of god is that it's so vague, anyone can interpret it in any way and claim a copyright on its absolute superiority. For some reason, this entity which no one has actually seen or experienced (except in their dreams -- and that too perhaps because it's so much a part of their daily consciousness, it's bound to visit them in their dreams too) has become such an overwhelming aspect of human life that now, we don't kill each other for food, we kill each other to prove the superiority of our god! We decide the worth of a human life based on what religion it's affiliated to. If it's not the same as ours, it has no value -- and worse, is a threat to us because if its tribe grows, our superiority comes under threat.

Then there are the decent sort, who don't actually pull out a knife and stab people to uphold the supremacy of their deity. Instead, they build temples and erect idols and worship them at every street corner and then find unique ways of spreading their religion -- remember the Christian missionaries who came to India and offered bread to the poor in exchange for undying devotion to Jesus Christ? Something like that -- the Parsi Panchayat provides free housing to those who keep the faith and throws out those who've 'dissented', the church builds schools for its own, gurudwaras feed the poor, as do shopkeepers who distribute leftovers to beggars lined up outside the Mahim dargah; various gurus float socially beneficial schemes and their devotees go around doing the 'good work' with one hand and handing out photographs and memorabilia with the other, lest the poor beneficiaries forget where the charity came from -- it's a bit like corporate branding; only because it's attached to god, you can be struck down for calling it that.



I've yet to see a religious group that goes about helping the poor without telling them who their benefactor is, i.e. merely for the cause of doing good to society. For that you don't need god, you need the spirit of men like Baba Amte -- who never sat on a celestial throne, never gave lectures to his subjects about how they should live their lives, never claimed moral and spiritual superiority, but stuck his hands in the muck no one else was willing to touch and didn't get carried away by his own greatness. Baba Amte would also be the kind of god who had his own human weaknesses (which he wouldn't need to hide in the garb of divinity), who wouldn't want his followers to worship him -- he'd exhort them instead, to keep the good work going, without attaching a 'deity' to it. I am convinced there must be others like him around the world, doing things for others in their own little ways. I've heard of a doctor couple in rural Maharashtra who don't eat in restaurants because they believe the money spent there can be put to better use to treat their poor patients. Only, given their lack of flashiness or visions of immortality, they don't proclaim themselves gods, don't expect their followers to pray to them for salvation, don't allow them to build temples for them, nor promise deliverance through charity.

In short, they are the losers who've understood the essence of human existence, and have forgotten to move with the times and advertise their methods for maximum exposure. They're the people nobody wants to know because they don't qualify as achievers -- they're probably all poor, having emptied their pockets to benefit others, don't dress for the part of god men and can't act like they've understood something lesser mortals can only dream of. 



Give me these nameless, faceless gods any day and I'll worship them with all my heart -- and no, I won't need temples or idols or banners all around to remind me of their existence or the value of what they stand for. They live in my conscience and pinch me when I err and help me tell right from wrong. That's all there really is to it all.