Harrison’s Hinduism Vs Muthalik’s

I have been obsessed with Hinduism since my tenth grade, a time when I started reading Dostoevsky and Krishnamurti and started questioning my own religious beliefs. And then I had the good fortune of spending time with some great scholars who enriched my grounding in Hinduism and I turned into a christian who believes and tries to live by Hindu Philosophy.

It’s been over a year now since I got addicted to The Beatles. While many of my metal-head friends dismiss them as a bunch of sissies who wrote nothing but love songs, what they fail to see and fail to realize is that it was Beatles who wrote and performed the first heavy metal song – Helter Skelter. While most of the songs Beatles performed were written by McCartney and Lennon, I for some unknown reason have a strange leaning towards the lesser known George Harrison.

This Post was supposed to be written on the 25th of February,   George’s birth anniversary but due to some unavoidable reasons I had to postpone it to today.

Nevertheless, for those of you who haven’t been infected yet by The Beatles mania I suggest you watch this Movie called “Across The Universe”. Unlike the kind of songs that rule the billboards today, bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and others looked at music as an outlet to their dilemmas, observing life like philosophers and commenting on the same and therefore every song had a interpretation often deep, be it Stairway to Heaven by Led Zep, Mother by Pink Floyd or I am the Walrus by Beatles. And it was perhaps for this reason that Beatles fans across the globe where divided when it came to “Across the Universe” while some liked it others trashed it as the worst tribute to The Beatles. Nevertheless, after the movie, Beatles were never the same and now quoting my own example I can say with full confidence that even the greatest of metal heads who’ve seen the movie would have a newfound respect for the Beatles and their music.

George Harrison was someone who was obsessed with Hinduism and as a part of his religious efforts he organized the legendary Concert for Bangladesh, on 1st August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Bangladesh Liberation War, the event was the first benefit concert of this magnitude in world history. It featured an all-star supergroup of performers that included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Ringo Starr.

While the the likes of Harrison embraced a peaceful form of Hinduism we in India started embracing a rather militant form of Hinduism, led by savarkar and gang.

First it was the demolition of the Babri Masjid, then the Gujarat Riots, Sethusamundram Project and most recently the Manglore pub attacks.

At this point I am reminded of a proverb, “Empty vessel sounds much”. Half baked knowledge is always dangerous and that is what I believe is the problem with these Hindu fanatics, of course coupled with socio-economic injustices.

Hinduism unlike Christianity is not a violent religion in fact it is NOT a religion. Hinduism is a philosophy, a way of life and the Hindu scriptures lay down the rules for this philosophy. To claim that Hindu epics are true to the core, that Ram existed, that ausuras existed is nothing but sheer stupidity – we’re already witnessing the result of the asura interpretation, the strong anti aryan, dravidian movement in the south. Hindu epics are nothing more than Aesop’s Fables for the mature.

Hinduism does not preach violence, it does not preach hatred rather it preaches tolerance, acceptance and love.

Now if I were to respond to why Hindu fanatics should not react to the threat they face from other religions in the form of religious conversions I’d say it is because of their own created system that there is a threat, people like cows prefer greener pastures, and if some religion helps them get over the atrocious caste system they’ve lived and suffered under for centuries, they’d embrace that than live like the dust off the Deva’s feet.

The world has changed a lot from what we is in our villages, India has moved from its villages to cities. And to bring the centuries old morals of our villages to cities is criminal.

Women, for God’s sake, are as human as men and it isn’t illegitimate for them to ask for their share of freedom and you are no one to deny them that. Celebrating valentine’s day is not a crime! public display of love is not a crime, if it is start by demolishing temples that have images of nude apsaras and dieties, start by demolishing the lingam in a yoni that represents Shiva!

What the Fuck is wrong with those freaks, they have no clue what their fucking religion is and they”re out there to impose upon us some assumed sense of morality that they claim existed for centuries!

Although ignorance in one reason another major reason which many people have failed to see is the socio economic disparity that exists between the rich and the poor.

Morality is a social construct of the middle class. With globalization and booming economy, the middle class became the upper middle class and the divide between the rich and the poor increased. Now the rich have across the globe have more or less the same kind of morality and then you have the poor who have been victims of the middle class morality that has been imposed upon them and made believe as the ultimate truth. And it is this class, a class that has been for years crushed and bullied that is revolting.

Academic outlook of our ruling class hasn’t ensured that macroeconomic gains trickle to the bottom of the society. The likes of Muthalik and Thackery do not have a strong following in the locales of South Delhi or Malabar Hills or Banjara Hills, they have a following in the poorest and the often neglected quarters of Dharavi and JJ colonies.

Each one of us here is at blame for the rise of likes of Muthalik and Thackery.

They are our creations who’ve turned against us. Just like Taliban – a creation of the US.

Damn I am going bonkers. I need my pills.

At this point I leave you with a beautiful song written by Harrison called “Here comes the sun”, performed at the Concert for Bangladesh in the year 1971

Time

Fear is one human emotion that can do wonders. I personally believe that there are just two basic human emotions – Fear and Hope. And if you subscribe to my view that every human being is selfish by nature you’ll see how every other emotion falls into place or perhaps can be described by these two basic human emotions.

Anyway,  I have had the good fortune of having been fed on good oldies and western classical music when I was a kid, all forms of SATANIC aka rock/english music was banned at home and new hindi songs were supposed to corrupt me.

It wasn’t until I came to college that I started listening to English Music and was sucked into the music revolution that we see today and thanks to my grooming, lyrics were always important to me like music and then of course there was grass all around the college and I became a part of the Metal culture in college. When grass gave way to more grass and grass derivatives, classical rock dominated my music list. All this while I was still loyal to my training in western classical music and sang for over three different choirs in the city.

Nevertheless, one album that left me spell bound for its artistry was Dark Side Of The Moon, three years later I am still tripping on it and am on my toes because of this rather brilliant album.

A concept album deeply rooted in human miseries(human experiences as Pink Floyd called the themes they sung about), I call em miseries because of my loyalty towards Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus and the existential school of thought.

Life is meaningless and metaphysical questions don’t lead us anywhere.

Nevertheless, what existentialists mastered was looking at life and trying to answer and give meaning to immediate problems instead of trying to picture god or question the reason of our existence.

Anyway, three years and on One song that freaks the crap out of me is Time:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

This is one song that has kept me on my toes and perhaps will continue to. Hope the same magic works for you.