Gods and Godmen of India Read Free

was evidently after the Marxists. But to describe the godless as immoral is a gratuitous falsehood. Most men and women who deny God are to my knowledge more truthful, helpful, kinder and more considerate in their dealings with others than men of religion. What surprised me most was that the youngest and the comeliest of the participants, Thangam Jacob, was also immersed in Christianity. I decided to question her on the quiet during a coffee break. After I did so, she exposed me in front of the full assembly causing me much embarrassment. Of that later.
    In the discussion several suggestions were made about the kind of religion that people should have and the limits to its ritualistic observance so that it did not become an imposition on others. One suggestion which no one took very seriously at the time when it was made by environmentalist Zafar Futehally who described himself as nominally a Muslim. He said, somewhat feebly I thought, that the religion of the future must be concerned with ecology. But the more I thought about it later, the more convinced I was that there was a lot to what he was saying. If we go on destroying our forests, polluting our streams with noxious wastes and fouling our air with poisonous fumes of petrol and coal, we are in fact destroying all that has been given to us – by God or some yet undiscovered power. No amount of temple going, chanting mantras and recitations of scriptures is going to help us from committing mass hara-kiri.
    We have had religious movements which, like the Secular Greens Movement in the west, were primarily concerned with the preservation of natural phenomenon but they did not make the kind of impact they should have made. The outstanding example are the Bishnois who are fiercely dedicated to saving trees and animal life. I have enormous respect for all Bishnois with the exception of Bhajan Lai, who I regard as the most mischievous politician of post-independent India. If the Bishnois could also include the preservation of human life (they have high incidence of crimes of violence among them), we would have a ecological religion going on a national scale.
    Coming back to Thangam Jacob. As I said I conerzed her at a coffee-break and asked her: “How does a young and pretty girl like you get so deeply involved in the clap-trap of religion?” A few minutes later she announced to the whole assembly, “Mr Singh asked me why a young and beautiful girl like me had turned to religion. I told him that I was young and beautiful because my religion had made me so.” Moral: Never make a private pass at a girl who publicly proclaims her adherence to God.
    3/9/1989

The Believer and the Agnostic: their Religion for Them, Our Doubts to Us
    L ast month I wrote an article on why I am an agnostic for the Weekly of the Malayala Manorama group of papers. I got much greater response than expected: we Indians have a consuming interest in matters of the spirit. Understandably, most of the letters refuted my contention that since we know nothing about God, belief or disbelief in his existence has little or no bearing on a person’s character. We should not waste time in prayer or worship. Of the innumerable letters, one written by N. Mahadevan living in retirement in a Senior Citizens’ Home near Kovalam impressed me with its lucidity and approach to the problem. He wrote:
    “In the year 1938, one evening, I was going up a hill near Matunga in Bombay, sunk in thought, quite oblivious of the surroundings, with rain pouring on my head. There was a purple flower in a plant in a cleft in a rock: the eye registered it but the brain didn’t, being otherwise engaged. I sat on a rock and looked back at the flower.
    “Why,” I pondered “does a plant have a flower?” The flower is the sexual part of the plant. Like some animals, flowers exude a powerful and seductive odour when ready for mating. This attracts a multitude of bees, birds and butterflies to join in a Saturnalian rite of