On Semitic Upswing ‘n Hindu Downturn

 Walter Mendez’s ad, branding Kerala as God’s Own Country, in the land of Hindu gods and goddesses, intended or otherwise, was as much an advertising gimmick as a Semitic statement, for India’s tryst with the monotheistic faiths began there – first with the Jewish traders in the 6^th century BCE, then with the Christian evangelists in 52 CE, followed by Arab Muslims around 629 CE. However, as the pre-Islamic Arab traders too were polytheists like them, and their monotheistic Jewish cousins chose to keep their religious wares to themselves, the Hindu Keralites have had no inkling of the Christian evangelic agenda or the Muslim Dar-al-Islam obsession.

However, having imbibed the Hindu philosophy of ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly), presumably, the Keralites would have assumed that all religions affirm the same (still the refrain of the naive Hindus without hindsight) without a clue to the Christian credo that “salvation is only through Christ". It’s that erroneous presumption that might have led the Hindus then to let the alien evangelists to convert the native souls without any let or hindrance. Whatever, it is seldom appreciated that Jesus was, as is evident from his Sermon on the Mount, in essence was a Jewish social reformer, eager to ease the rigor of the unremitting Mosaic Laws, with no provisions for penitence or clemency in Judaism. That apart, had not Jesus, unambiguously told the Commissioned Twelve – “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep. Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure the lepers, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!”

All the same, but for Peter, the rest of the apostles, like ‘lost sheep’, instead of reaching out to the ‘people of Israel’, loitered everywhere else to spread his ‘message’ among the ‘prohibited’ gentiles. So, even as Paul, took it to the nearby Roman mainland, Thomas reached the distant Kerala shores, far-off Jesus’ radar, with the same. Not just that, the later-day Gospels of Mark, Mathews, and the others that followed, transformed Jesus the social reformer, into Christ the religious preacher, of divine descent, which in itself is a travesty of the Christianity. Whatever, the legend of Christ, cemented by the Gospels that followed, with additional miracles, became the handmaiden of the gospellers. But to what avail! In a ghastly irony of Christianity, some of the gentiles, brought into its fold against Jesus’ command, persecuted his ‘God’s lost sheep’ for centuries, by way of numerous pogroms, and eventually sought to exterminate them all in the holocaust!

Now, back to the Keralites; reared in the utopian, Sanatana credo of, Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (holds world all in one household), not only they let the eager Arab Muslim traders to settle down in their midst but also made them their moplahs (sons-in-law), thereby enabling the later to father their Islamic footholds in the Hindu motherland. Oh, how it was lost on the Keralites that for centuries, the very Arabs, in the pre-Islamic era, were uninclined to settle on their shores! Eventually, this thoughtless lapse proved fatal to their progeny as many of them were mercilessly massacred by the moplah descendants as if to demonstrate that it’s not just history, but irony too repeats itself!

If anything, the Northern princelings had fared worse on the Islamic front. So as to settle political scores with the fellow royals, some of them had entered into military alliances with the alien Muslim warlords, maybe failing to reckon that by then, the nations the Muslim armies overran, were all transformed into Islamic countries. But had they been privy to the Quranic credo - “It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land…”, arguably, they would have developed second thoughts, and the Islamic horror that followed in Hindustan would have been well averted.  

Whatever, Maryam Jameela, a Jewish convert to Islam,  lamented in her 1971 book, Islam and Orientalism - “If the Mughal monarchs had assumed their responsibilities as Muslim rulers and organized intensive tabliq or missionary work, the majority of Indians would have embraced Islam and hence the necessity for partition and all the disasters that followed in its wake, never would have arisen.”* If only she had realized that, if anything, Quran is more of a War Manual than a religious scripture, and thus tried to drive home that Islamic reality into the Muslim heads, she  would have done a world of good, not just for the Ummah. But then, that’s not the way with the competing Semitic faiths, for juxtaposing Maryam’s Islamic lament, Pope John Paul II, exuded his Christian hope in Ecclesia in Asia, of 1999, in New Delhi - "Just as the first millennium saw the cross firmly planted in the soil of Europe, and the second in that of America and Africa, so may the third Christian millennium witness a great harvest of faith on this vast and vital continent."

By the way, these very missionaries, invariably shy away from the Muslims, for Muhammad had taught his faithful how to shoo them away with Quranic quotes such as – “When Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? He saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I used say it, then Thou knewest it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in thy mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou art the Knower of Things Hidden”. So to say, by rechristening Jehovah as Allah and positioning Quran as a grand sequel to Torah and Bible, Muhammad had cleverly taken away the religious winds out of the Jewish and the Christian sails. Not just that, when it comes to religious marketing, he bettered all the Gospels put together, by telling Amr ibn al, upon his conversion into Islam - "Do you not know that Islam destroys that which came before it?" – implying that he can start his life afresh with a clean slate as Allah forgiveth all his previous sins. Call it poetic justice or treat it as a religious irony, this prophetic ploy that exploits the Gospel’s ‘sin overkill’ has become the Islamic conversion tool in the Christian west to its bane, that is even as it busies itself in ‘harvesting’ the Asian souls that include the gullible Hindus!   

However, owing to the Hindu demographic indifference and the ‘secular’ political chicanery, neither the Pope’s hope became a total dupe nor Maryam’s despair a complete dud. While the state sarkars in the south, run by ‘secular’ parties, tend to pay a blind eye to the insidious evangelism to forestall the Hindutva forces with the Christian votes, their counterparts in the eastern parts have been expanding their Muslim vote-banks through the infiltration of Bangladeshis, with a like motive. Now that the Christian closets are brimming with Hindu recruits and the Muslim influx became a deluge, both Paul and Maryam can really rest in ‘peaceful anticipation’ in their graves as India’s self-serving politicians are leaving no stone unturned to fulfill their wishes, paradoxically aided by the slumbering Hindus.

Whatever, after the religious partition of India, the Muslims who stayed put in its Hindu portion, have been handicapped when it came to effecting fresh conversions, owing to the contempt the long familiarity had already bred. Nevertheless, as the formation of Pakistan, instead of quenching their Quranic thirst, furthered their Ghazwa-e-Hind zeal, they took the procreative route to augment their Islamic numbers in the Hindu India. That apart, as if to further speed up the demographic change, they started a concerted ‘love jihad’ on unsuspecting Hindu and Christian females to convert them as Quranic ‘farm fields’ to augment the Islamic yields. Well, the other side of their ‘religious fertility’ coin is etched with the Muslim glee that the Imaran Khan - Jemima Goldsmith nikah elicited - One Jewess less! In spite of all that, but for the foresighted few, Hindus pay no heed to the Muslim ‘goings on’ amidst them, for they were so conditioned by Gandhi, who said, “Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus, we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives.” Oh, how ludicrous he was! Well, how naive are they he still awes!!

 

However, in the same vein, Gandhi had opposed the missionary practice of trying to convert others, especially through methods he considered coercive or based on material incentives, and philosophised as well - “I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another. My effort should never be to undermine another’s faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith”. But yet, when he, the ‘father of the nation’, made Nehru the ‘Son of India’, the latter set out to make his motherland, a Christian nursery as well as an Islamic Zannat on earth, which, in later years, Sonia, the Italian entrant into his dynasty, sought to turn into the Christian Paradise that is besides making it a sort of a Hindu Narak. Just recall the arrest of the revered Shankaracharya that Deepawali night, on a trumped-up murder charge, that too, lo, without a Hindu whimper, for the cast feathers remained unruffled!  

 

But at long last, like a ray of hope for the dispirited Hindus, Narendra Modi appeared on the Indian political firmament to hit the ground running to transform their nation in ways beyond dreams. Not resting on his decade-long laurels, he has even envisioned the Vikasit Bharat yagna, with the vikas - virasat mantra. However, realizing that his mantra would be ineffective in the existing Macaulay altar, he seeks to transform it into a Sanatana mandap over a decade. Though he hasn’t yet spelt out ‘the go abouts’ of his laudable project, given that he emotionally stands on the incompatible stools of Hindu Nationalism and Gandhian meandering, he is likely to fall in between them, failing in his mission, and that would be sad for India that is Bharat. Why, he castigates Nehru for truncating vande mataram but keeps mum about Gandhi’s debasement of raghupathi raghava rajaram; he cries hoarse over our virasat but bows before the very constitution that seeks to negate it in every which way. Besides, even as he extols Chhatrapati Shivaji, Lachit Borphukan, and such valiant Hindu warriors against the Islamic invaders, he inexplicably venerates Gandhi, the foremost Islamapologist and an inveterate Muslim appeaser.

 

That’s not all, while applauding the revolutionaries such as Netaji Bose, Veer Savarkar and Birsa Munda and others, who were the scourge of the British, he erroneously eulogizes Gandhi the pacifist of the freedom struggle, whose ‘Quit India’ role in gaining independence was described as ‘m-i-n-i-m-a-l’, in a drawling manner at that, by none other than Clement Attlee, who granted it. Likewise, he rightly condemns the anti-Sanatani Nehru but wrongly condones the nepotistic Gandhi, who knowingly promoted him, that too unethically. Thus, his inconsistent ‘virtue signalling’, devoid of moral base and ideological focus, besides being confusing, is bereft of any USP (for starters, unique selling proposition), so essential for the effective promotion of his mission Virasat. It's not as if Modi wouldn’t be unaware of these political aberrations that make him seem as a ‘hesitant nationalist’, for he, besides being extremely intelligent, is an extraordinary thinker.

 

But give it Nehru, for he was focussed, at least in advancing his self-interests, in that in the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination, he promoted the ‘martyr’ as an apostle of peace and targeted the nationalist forces, political and cultural, as votaries of violence. It’s his this USP, that he was the sole upholder of the Gandhian values (fabricated by his propaganda machinery) and only his congress party, read his fiefdom, that can bring peace and stability to the country. It’s thus, he kept the nationalist forces at bay for over fifteen years after Gandhi’s death, while his legacy, cleverly conjoined with that his mentor, served his dynasty for five more decades before the Hindu nationalist Modi overcame that false political barrier. However, it pays Modi to realize that Gandhi is a congress patent, pictured as a national asset, and the royalties of his promotions, if any, will go there.

 

However, is it is inconceivable that Modi may not privy to the universal truth that there are no half-measures for success. But yet, maybe reckoning that the prevailing nationalistic winds are not strong enough to subdue the Islamapologic currents within and to stall the Hinduphobic waves without, he, in a waiting game, is at facilitating a patriotic tide, over a period of time, for him or his successors to ride over its nationalist flood. Whatever, it takes a mean man to suggest that he too, like Gandhi and Nehru, has subserved the Hindu interests for international acclaim.

 

Be that as it may, It is not much appreciated that in the duty-bound era of yore, the gamut of Sanatana dharma, with the varna centric swa-dharmas, catered to the Hindu social diversity rather harmoniously, though, on the flip side, the lack of edictal unity, precluded the evolution of a unified Hindu polity. What’s worse, as times passed by, with the varnas splitting into sub-sects, castes and sub-cases, the swa-dharmas became redundant, enfeebling the Sanatana dharma itself. It’s thus the Hindu social structure became culturally feeble and politically vulnerable. If not, the Hindu-inimical congress dynasty could not have lasted in power for that long, leaving the then Jan Sangh and its reincarnated Bharatiya Janata party, in the political lurch all along. 

Whatever, now or never is the time for the Hindus to come out of their constitutional slumber to visualize the religious incongruities in the hybrid tome**, that was structured, devoid of hindsight and lacking in foresight, which facilitates the Semitic upsurge in India that is supposed to be Bharat. Why, as if to let India remain a country of perennial conversions, it jolly well grants its citizens, read the proselyting Muslims and the Christians, the ‘freedom of propagation of religion’, which, in effect, is the Semitic right to poach in the Hindu religious arenas. Maybe, seemingly, it hasn’t occurred, even to Modi, why an ordinary Indian citizen should be concerned about the propagation of his faith for the constitution to grant it to him. Besides, where does the right of an Indian citizen for propagation of his faith leave his fellow citizen’s cultural need for the preservation of his own order. Moreover, the right of propagation is but the right to spread one’s religion, and one cannot do that without coming into direct conflict with another’s religious faith. 

Well, the inevitable constitutional amendment has to wait, but what prevents the current Modi dispensation from bringing the questionable conversion tactics into the ambit of the Bharat Nyaya Samhita, with prohibitive fines and deterrent jail-terms, such as - of denigrating other faiths and derogating their followers (false faith, fake gods, heathens, kafirs) or offering monetary incentives and exploitation of vulnerable  human emotions, or through deceitful oracles / fake miracles / false attributions. Besides, to set right the distorted social order, each and every religious preaching or education involving the inculcation of enmity towards other faiths or its followers should also be treated as a criminal activity. That’s not all, faking religious identities in pursuance of hidden personal or religious agendas or non-disclosure of religious conversions to retain or obtain ineligible social or state benefits should also be accounted for, along with the above and such, under the hitherto side-lined sub-heads of our very conversion-friendly constitution.

 

Above all else, the social treatment of the Semitic plague lies in the mass education of the Hindus, more so the vulnerable ones, about the exclusivist, intolerant and expansionist precepts of Christianity and Islam. Needless to say, a comparative religious profile of the basic tenets of the Indian-origin religions and that of the alien Semitic faiths should be made part of the school curriculum, so that Hindus, for generations to come, won’t be falling prey to the Abrahamic deceptions. Last but not the least, Gandhi, the main hurdle to the Hindu upturn, must be brought down to earth from the Mahatma (ask Ambedkar) pedestals, in all our school grounds that is, as it is his falsified legacy that has been the root cause of the Hindu apathy of our times.     

* Analysed in Chapter 22, The Number Game, of the author’s free ebook ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n More)

** Detailed in the author’s article, 'Incongruities in Indian Constitution’ in this blog 

 

 

 

 Demographic Dynamics of Indian Democracy

If the body of a nation is formed by its people, its democratic soul gets shaped by its voters. However, in its nascent stages, it was not the case for the lesser souls were unfranchised, robbing it of its egalitarian ethos. But has the later-day all-adult franchise helped it acquire its representative character? Not necessarily, as the elaborate democratic exercise in India (a continuing civilization of over five millennia), involving a complex mix of over 990 million electorate, of regional and ethnic diversity (28 states and 8 union territories; 705 scheduled  tribes and 2,000 ethnic groups), religious and linguistic variations (six religions in the main and scores of tribal traditions; 121 languages and 19,000 mother tongues/dialects) besides social and economic disparities not to speak of the mindboggling caste divisions (3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes) across the regions, indicates.

Even though democracy, in any form, is a number game everywhere, its Indian version is numerically enormous, demographically divisive and politically fragmented like nowhere else. Even then, the competing political outfits spare no efforts to woo the electorate to the polling stations in what is arguably the most daunting of the daunting political exertions in the democratic world. It’s as if to prove itself equal to this herculean democratic task, the electoral apparatus of the state pulls out all the stops to maximise the franchise by way of its voter-friendly, state-of-the-art election process. But yet, some one-third, or so, of the rural and around half of the urban electorate invariably stays away from the periodic polls, characterised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the ‘festivals of democracy’. However, on the face of it, it may seem that nothing could be amiss in this sort of sub-par electoral show for the voting patterns of the absentee voters would have been in political consonance with the collective electoral will of the participative millions.

Nonetheless, a closer look at those who choose to vote and those who prefer to abstain would reveal that which the sizeable electoral numbers fail to bring to the fore - the demographic dynamics of the Indian democracy. In one of the many ironies of the Indian republic, even though the Muslim ummah far outstrips every Hindu caste group there is and the Christian converts (counting the closet characters) outnumber each of the Hindu sub-castes, yet both are prioritised as minorities in its ‘secular’ set-up! So, to put things demographic in the prevailing democratic order, one has to juxtapose the nearly unified 15% Muslim and 5% Christian mandate with around 80% caste-ridden Hindu franchise that the sub-castes and the tribals fracture further.  

More to the point, even as the bulk of the absentee voters happen to hail from the Hindu electorate, the Muslims and the Christians, given their religio-political attitudes, queue up to vote against the proponents of Hindutva, namely the advocates of the Hindu cultural renaissance, read Bharatiya Janata Party and its political associates. It’s thus, in India’s multi-party democracy that entails multi-cornered electoral contests, any one of the relatively populous caste groups, in cohorts with the one-fifth Muslim-Christian voters-combine, can become a dominant political force in a given region. What’s worse, making a mockery of the democratic level playing field, such an unhealthy political nexus can come up trumps at the hustings in conducive states by co-opting a few of the ‘one-or-two percent’ caste groups to the detriment of the rest of the populace, as exemplified by the infamous Muslim-Yadav combine in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.  

That happenstance is owing to the fact that in the rural electoral arenas, it is the socially dominant castes and the politically affiliated voters that turn up most at the polling stations to protect their social clout or to retain their political hedge, and/or both, in their respective domains. However, on the contrary, numerous miniscule castes and various sub-castes, with no socio-political turf of their own, and left to fend for themselves by the competing political outfits for the same reason, constitute the bulk of the rural electoral absentees. But when it comes to the urban electorates, their diverse socio-economic compositions render them unamenable for any large-scale rural-type caste consolidations, and that partly explains the abysmally low urban voter turnouts. Besides, as the urbanites are largely salaried or self-employed, ineligible subjects of the state’s politically expedient beneficial schemes, they fail to become the objects of the political wooing. It’s thus, besides being unaffected by the electoral outcomes, as they remain unsolicited by the political parties, they tend to give a short shrift to the polling process, and bring democratic disrepute to their adopted constituencies.  

That’s not all as political dynasties, false poll-eve promises, endemic mis-governance, pandemic mal-administration and unabashed corruption that came to characterise the Indian democratic order have given raise to widespread public apathy and attendant voter cynicism. So, such of those have come to see the periodic poll process as a futile exercise of choosing between a Tweedledum of a Gog cabal and a Tweedledee of the Magog gang. Not that all of them have no axe to grind, it’s just that they don’t have a grinding stone for that. But still, by not being a part any of the self-serving caste groups, they, with their cumulative votes, would be able to make a qualitative difference to the collective franchise. Hence, it is imperative to impress upon them that as their self-interest is entwined with the national interest, they must back only those political forces that are wedded to the nation’s good. However, though this holistic dictum is applicable to one and all, it is better spread among the poll-shy electorate, in every conceivable manner, by the well-meaning individuals, social entities and political outfits.

Now that Narendra Modi has managed to rekindle vande mataram’s nationalist flame, singed by Jawaharlal Nehru at the outset, it is left for social servers such as Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and political forces like Bharatiya Janata Party to take the lead in bringing the nation back on the patriotic path so as to put its voters on the right political track. No denying that given India’s putrid political state and its tattered moral fabric, it is no mean a task, but the need of the nation is that all its patriots must apply their minds to come up with ideas that could facilitate the same.  Needless to say, the ways of convincing the rural folks and the urban dwellers about the ill effects of caste politics on the nation and by extension on themselves would necessarily vary – personal interactions with the former and mass communication with the latter – the message being the same – Better our Bharat, better you are; so better vote to better Bharat.

 

 

 

 

     

 

On Pitfalls of Pre-marital Sex 

 When Roopa debunked the puranic tales of cock-pecked wives as perverse male stratagems to enslave women, her mother was truly alarmed.

“These tales of female fidelity have a purpose of their own,” said Janaki to Roopa. “Since nature made men promiscuous, it’s the female loyalty that holds the marriage in the long run, for the benefit of the family and the society as well. These tales have a moral for men as well for they underscore the fact that it’s the wife who sticks through thick and thin with their man and not the lascivious lasses with whom they come to stray.”

As Roopa remained unconvinced and minced no words about the fallacy of the proposition, Janaki realized that old wives tales were no longer a currency with the educated girls. So, she thought it fit to reason it out with her and Chandrika, her unmarried daughters, about the pitfalls of premarital sex and thus closeted with them one evening.

“I think it’s time I talk to you about the proclivities of youth,” Janaki began enigmatically. “To be drawn to boys at your age is but natural and desirable even. It helps the healthy development of your sexuality. Infatuation is the narcotic of the nascent youth, and if only the dosage is right, it could bring in small pleasures that delight. On the other hand, a thoughtless overdose could cripple your womanliness forever. While being friendly with the boys, beware of their attitudes and be aware about your vulnerabilities. They pursue for the final favor doggedly until they are dog-tired. Nature made them that way and for a purpose; female fulfillment is the purpose of male desire. It’s left for you to draw your own premarital lines. Do not get into those situations that might let you part with that for which they court you so fervently. If only you interact with easy virtue, your date could doubt your ability to resist a future seducer. Thus, if you favor your lover in a hurry, you might end up losing him besides that by which men measure women. And that would be enough to put you in a doghouse for life.”

Janaki extracted a promise from Chandrika and Roopa that they wouldn’t indulge in premarital sex.

An excerpt from the author's free ebook, Benign Flame: Saga of Love.

 

 

Ramaiah’s Matrimonial Advice to His Daughter   

“Why not look for another match?” said Roopa sounding pleading.

“But why reject this one,” Ramaiah seemed persuasive.

“No, he’s not my man,” said Roopa wishing that they spared her.

“Maybe, he’s a simpleton, but do realize that he’s young and has a long way to go,” said Ramaiah, who seemed to have read his daughter’s mind.

‘If something isn’t presentable at its ninety per cent, it wouldn’t be much different either at cent per cent,’ thought Roopa but to buy time she said,

“Give me some time to think.”

However, after dinner, Ramaiah went up to a brooding Roopa in the verandah.

“If you’re not interested in this match, so be it, but if I don’t show you, life as I’ve seen it, I might be failing you,” he said in all earnestness. “Matrimony is a vague hope nursed by the young minds. If marriages are made in heaven, I’m sure the gods would take the realities of life into account. In marriage, it’s only after consummation that couples come to appreciate the true meaning of married life.

In spite of its infinite possibilities, life has its own limitations. As you would realize, mostly it is situational in its reach and breach. As one incident doesn’t encompass life, ardency is not the only opportunity that marriage affords women. As you could guess, maternity is gift-wrapped by heaven for married women. Marriage is so much more than a private affair of the spouses. Know it’s an extension of the family that ushers in a new family. Gratification in marriage is multifaceted as well as multi-sourced, like the success of a child can obliterate a lifetime of parental failures. Believe me; a couple could feel that their life was worth living just for the sake of that moment.

In the good old days, alliances were struck based on parental preferences. One might even say prejudices. Inclinations of the children didn’t count; when married, they were too young to have a mind of their own anyway. I know times have changed, and I’m not holding a brief for the bygone era any more. However, I guess neither the new waves have washed any wisdom ashore.

The doors of opportunities in today’s world have led to the advent of the salaried classes, with the attendant disparity in incomes. Social status seems to have shifted its focus onto the white collared. This insensibly upset the marriage order of yore, amongst the families of the communes. These days every maiden seems to feel that her wedlock is not secure unless engineered by an engineer! Parents too have come to equate their daughters’ security with the sons-in-law’s bank balances.

Every bachelor, forget about his own eligibility, has come to imagine that the bridal world is at his feet, to be kicked at his will. An Alanaskar Syndrome so to say! Well, in his unceasing search for someone better, even the pretty ones fail to get his nod till the law of diminishing returns catches him up by the scruff. Then with his eligibility on the wane and despondency on the raise, he lands up with a languid dame for all the sprightly in the race would have married by then. Of late, boys and girls are getting married past their prime, they being victims of the compulsions of their own making,’ he paused for her reaction.

And finding her attentive, he continued,

“All said and done, nature seems to have loaded the dice against the maidens. One may like it or not, they are the perishable fruits of the marriage market to be disposed off well before they tend to rot. Even otherwise, it does often happen that a maiden would shun a Gog in time, only to opt for a Magog, past her prime, wasting her time in the meantime. In the final analysis, shorn of their shirts, all men are ordinary, save the extraordinary. Moreover, the odds against spotting the right man remain the same even if chance were to bring him to your doorstep as a prospective groom. Ignoring these realities can land one in the deserts of life, chasing the mirages of hope, of course until there is hope. If cultural prejudices produced child widows those days, social aberrations lead to the proliferation of spinsters these days. When maidens cross their mid-twenties, they find to their consternation that men whom nature meant for them by the logic of natural selection, were indeed bending towards the younger ones, tending them to fend for themselves as singles.”

Ramaiah paused for Roopa’s response and seeing receptivity in her demeanor, he resumed,

“Moreover, there is another angle to marriage; it is fallacious that parents wish idle comfort for their daughters, in their married life,” he seemed to philosophize. “I would rather prefer that you lend your husband a helping hand to build the structure of your married home, brick by brick, hand in hand. In that lies a woman’s true fulfilment in marriage. The boys have proved to be no wiser either, failing to appreciate the joys of sharing the toils as just married. It’s a pity grooms should think in terms of furnishing their bachelor dwellings as if their brides are the paying guests.”

Carried away by his own rhetoric, he reached out to her to help her enlarge her vision thus:

“Weddings have come to symbolize the vanity of the society. Designations of the grooms, conveyed in conversation and carried on the wedding cards, have become the new nomenclature of alliances. It’s as if business firms get free mileage when bachelors on their rolls get married! Who says there are no free lunches? The status of the fathers-in-law too is brought upfront as though to suggest that no protocol was breached. Alas, marriages are being turned into public melas from the family functions they used to be! I know you can appreciate that pomp and pageantry may adorn a wedding but it’s the warmth and love that sustain the marriage.”

Realizing that he reached the threshold, he paused for a while before he crossed it for her sake by averring,

“As for married love, know it’s the man who overwhelms his mate,” he forced himself to tell her, “and nature in its wisdom induces woman to get drawn to the man who deflowers her. You couldn’t have failed to notice intelligent women adoring their mediocre husbands. You must also realize that happiness is not an accompanying baggage of marriage; couples have to mould it with insight and imagination. If anything, the woman has to put in the greater effort, but the rewards could signify the specialty of her life. Try to understand what I’ve said so that you can see life in its proper perspective.”

When he concluded the brainwash, Roopa was mystified by his rhetoric, but after he had left her, she tried to weigh his words against her own inclinations.

Her innate urge, accentuated by the male attention she received, brought her femininity to the fore. The attractions she experienced and the fantasies she entertained shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Her envision of a he-man ennobled her self-perception as a female. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification. That persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in Sathyam.

This is an excerpt from Benign Flame: Saga of Love, a free ebook in the public domain.