" I have learned the following things from the responses of the two or three
Hindu religionists on Goanet:
1. They are unnecessarily defensive about the progress made by their religion
in the world of business and free markets.
2. They believe that engaging in business and capitalism, and receiving
payment for professional religious services are a bad thing.
3. They believe that letting people know about the tremendous success of their
religion as a business enterprise around the world in terms of increased demand
for priests, proliferation of swamis, babas and gurus, mushrooming of temples
and ashrams, etc. constitutes prejudice.
4. My Hindu relatives and friends are not as good and truthful Hindus as those
of Dr. Parrikar, and the two anti-Karunanidhi priests who posed for his camera
in Tamil Nadu.
Cheers,
Santosh"
RE: I would decidedly not to figure in your list dotormam. I am immune to
priests doing every sort
of thing proscribed by their respective doctrine and religion. The second
generation of
Raghubhatt (sons of our Purohit!) were/are fish-mongers! Some of my bhutt
friends have
businesses. I am glad that there is 'demand for priests'. My take was that like
the padelies and rendairs
(toddy tappers) hiduism was on the decline.
You seem to have a myopic view of the religion you were born into. Perhaps you
are scientifically
prejudiced against it. Or may be you are just fashionable modernist doctor
preaching 'objectivism',
knowing quite fully well that it is impossible to be 100% objective about
anything at all?
Regarding Rajan's lens, I would ask Rajan to take that as a great compliment
because the clarity, the beauty
and the precision of many of his shots makes one imagine it to be some 'special
camera', which it is not,
going by his own clarification of the matter.
Charudatta Prabhudesai
Auroville .
South India.
