If you have to feel insecure if your god is done as caricature or objectified, then your faith is that shaky! My heart goes out to the Pakistan woman who wore an Arabic print kurta and got mobbed. The print was mistaken for Quranic verses. Ultimately a female cop rescued her and took her to safety. These Pakistani fools must know that calligraphy is a wonderful art and finds massive expression in the arab muslim world where performing arts, especially for women, get discouraged. Visual art therefore acquires a significant prominence and has assumed multi dimensions. So calligraphy is a very popular art form in the middle east. As a resident of west Asia for over 15 years now, I have come to love this extremely exquisite work or art which is kind of expression like none other. Many calligraphy works I could get to see were from war torn nations. Although I could not pick up the language, I could get the intensity. Knowing the language could have helped because I am told they are sometimes sarcastic expressions, sometime hopeless words, sometime optimistic opinion. Where expression of any other form is negated, the artistes make use of this unique form of art to give vent to their pent up emotions. The original and authentic muslims, the arabs, are keeping quiet. Its the converted Pakistani muslims with a severe inferiority complex and NO IDENTITY to call their own, who are barking at the mountain. And no other language or script is more suited or a natural when it comes to calligraphy as the Arabic. I have also had exposure to Tamil calligraphy and Hindi calligraphy but our alphabets are complicated and not all scrawls and dots and lines like the middle eastern language. Well, Tamil alphabets to me look like jelebis 😀 (I mean from the calligraphy point of view!)
What a shame!
I do have Buddha print saris and kurtis and even Krishna print saris! I love wearing Hindu gods on me! I have my Shakthi in a dupatta that I love draping around me. Why we even have Modi saris in India! Wrap your prime minister around you hahaha!
https://m.rediff.com/getahead/report/glamour-will-you-wear-a-pm-modi-sari/20190226.htm
Popular images of Hindu gods that get printed in clothes and bags include Ganesh, Krishna and Mother Goddess Lakshmi/Saraswathi/Parvathi. Of course when I wear them, I am reverential and don’t take them lightly. Mostly I wear them to temples. Buddha is casual wear! Madhubani and Kalamkari handblock prints are especially devoted to creating Hindu deities on our garments that we relish with delight! Hindu gods are around us everywhere! On cars, on carpets, on grocery bags, on calendars… So far only Harpic and Stayfree are left out! But then we have our Christian evangelists selling Jesus door to door like Harpic and Whisper so probably Hindu gods are exempt from marketing of sanitary napkins and toilet wash! That is entirely the department of Christ!
Of course a friend told me about a woman from Chennai who was stranded in Colombo airport in Sri Lanka for wearing a Buddha kurta. Official religion of the island nation is Buddhism. This woman was not even traveling to Lanka. She was merely switching flights in Colombo to fly back to Chennai when she was picked up for questioning, with her phone whisked. She had no idea what was happening until someone in the airport told her it was all about her clothes. Someone influential from India transiting the airport intervened and the woman was allowed to fly with a warning. But it is atrocious that an Indian citizen must be stopped for wearing what she pleases while transiting an airport. Now we understand that the Sinhalese are so envious that they want to pick up some trouble or other with Indian citizens. But this highlighted to me the importance of safe travels in foreign countries. Wear neutral clothes that won’t garner attention.
What is blasphemy really. If an image, a caricature, a verse can turn the masses bloody violent, it means their faith is on very shaky grounds that it needs to be strictly controlled with fear factor. There is absolutely no free will here. No logic. A day may dawn when the frivolous strappings will have to give away finally. One day, the cartoon will arrive. One day the jokes will be made. One day images will come out. One day a film will be made. Remember, it shall take only one single brave move to open the floodgate. Then there won’t be a stopping at all the avalanche that has to follow! What shall happen then to your faith? Hindu Dharma is not here for over a 10000 years as the one and only UNBROKEN and continuous civilization in the world, without going through these tamashas for centuries. Nothing ever rattled us. My Sanatana is not as fragile as the middle eastern cults and my gods don’t become what others deem them to be or portray them to be. My faith is UNSHAKEN. I AND A BILLION HINDUS BELIEVE IN IDOL WORSHIP. Nothing you write about us or draw about our gods can ever have an adverse impact on our solid belief in our faith. Call us idolators, fine. Call us pagans fine. WEar the Ganesha chappal and have a Krishna toilet seat, fine. All that shall not make Ganesha and Krishna what they are NOT. I also understood why the Americans make a doormat of Ma Kali and pillow cases of Ganesha. They do the same with their national flags as well. Their approach to faith is entirely different. Their perspective on religion is COOL! I have come to appreciate and love that kind of zest in people.
How can someone be intimidated the way this Pakistan woman was for whatever she was wearing. The stupid fools who almost threatened her life in fact had had not a clue! Looks like the kurta was made in Saudi! What a joke! The woman should not have apologized. When you surrender for no fault of yours, you make them worse. You are succumbing to idiots and sycophants. Even the cops justifying and clarifying that the verses were not from the holy book sounded sickening to my ears.
vijiravindran's 