Rishikesh

I wrote this to initiate a discussion in the media appreciation group Column9, on the Digital Rights Management bill scheduled to come up in the winter session. My friend and digital evangelist NAM Ismail of Prajavani was supposed to speak to the group about it. This piece was to break ice. Whenever I think of my friend Ismail, I am reminded of an old joke. There was this nerdy university professor who was always looking for new things. He began work on a new dictionary of English, in which each word had the exact opposite meaning. Thus, in his dictionary, `go’ became `come’, and `fast’ became `slow’. He got so involved in creating the dictionary that he began speaking the new found language. This led to a situation where people laughed at him whenever he spoke, and he laughed at them whenever they spoke. I don’t mean to say this is what explains Ismail’s enigmatic, omnipresent smile. Now, Ismail wants to talk about DRM. As he has tried to explain it, it has become Dead Rights Managem...

-The problem with religion is that most people end up discussing conversion. It is like a discussion on agriculture stopping at the monsoons. Conversion is a phenomenon that can be endlessly debated. But the truth is that conversion has been inevitable throughout history. Conversion of individuals or at the levels of the masses, have always brought change in this world. Most reformers have either converted to a new faith or created waves of proselytism. Buddha was a Hindu Kshatriya, who influenced half the world, from Afghanistan to Japan. He was born a Hindu, but famously changed his mind. Similar are the stories of Mahaveera and Guru Nanak. Can we time travel and annul all such attempts? Will the world be any better then? Anyone who has visited a church cant miss the letters INRI inscribed on The Cross. The Latin inscription expands as IESVS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM, and translates as ``Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’’. So why are Christians talking about Jesus? If the Fable of A...

I tried to find out what is Love Jihad. First I thought it referred to the fights at home, with your college sweetheart whom you married after a long courtship. If such people were to be hanged, as someone in Mangalore has suggested, I would be among the first to leave this world. Later, I read an article and found out that it was something to do with marrying girl from a different community. Even then I would be hanged, as I am a follower of Shankara and my wife’s ancestors were from Udupi, the land of Madhwacharya! Ismail says he does not know who coined the term. I know. Well, almost. ``Love Jehad’’, is a catchy blurb. I strongly suspect this was born in a news room. Newsrooms are places where people argue on what is creative and what is destructive. And as you know, all arguments don’t lead to the truth. There seems to be a sudden surge in the number of people who believe something like Love Jihad exists. I don’t know whether Manoj Night Shyamalan, who makes films about the `fear o...