Kumar Bahukhandi
When we objectively analyse certain activities which supposedly please God, their true nature can be realised only then. Take a man who is wishing for a large amount of money. If God grants him this gain it will be only on account of another’s loss. After all, that money has to come from somewhere else.
Then, why should God favour that man? Is it because he is a good person? But good is a relative term. And the theory that God favours good people disproves itself every day. On the other hand, if God favours only those who pray to him, then he is no different from a man in power who helps those who constantly flatter him.
When God helps a man, that is praised as greatness, but when a man in power helps someone, he is accused of favouritism. Yogis and babas are respected and worshiped. This isn’t because of their magical abilities like making objects materialise out of thin air. The same trick performed by a street corner magician goes unheeded.
What sets the babas apart is the way they behave, dress and their talent for public speaking. By the way they live, Godmen create a mysterious aura around themselves. The sleight of hand combined with their other qualities, earns them the fear and respect of the people. Just talking about God doesn’t contribute to their sway over the people. For example, if a baba arrived at a meeting on a Honda bike wearing jeans and a T-Shirt, with an iPod player at his waist, to preach about God, would anyone listen to him?
When we hear from reliable sources that a widely respected politician is, in fact dishonest, we immediately despise him. That’s because we had respected the politician only because we thought that he was working for our good. But in case of God, if we expect something from him and he does not give it, and on top of it, he aggravates our misery, we still continue praying to him. We feel our prayers will be answered some day. To draw an analogy, that’s like buttering the boss constantly at our workplace even though he is rude and blacklists us for no apparent reason. We keep hoping the boss might just end up recommending us for a promotion some day. Hope keeps us going.
At times, people say that they came to believe in God because they were saved miraculously from death. Take the case of a man who has fallen overboard from a ship mid-ocean and is terrified that he will be eaten up by sharks. At the last minute, he is saved by another person. Yet he is convinced that he has been saved by the grace of God.
If that is so, then would the sharks be justified in despising God for depriving them of their food? And should they turn into atheists? Think about it.
This is an excerpt from some thoughts I wrote in my M.A Final year …When the promoters of God were questioned about why there was so much misery in the world, they were in a fix. After all, they had themselves proclaimed that God is responsible for every activity on earth.
A catch there, the promoters had to be more specific. So, they quickly rewrote their marketing script. They declared that God is a force which is responsible for all the good things that happen around us. And the evil force is responsible for the misery in the world. Good is a much-desired element which gives pleasure, and bad is obviously that much-detested element which causes pain. Pleasure and pain are the two extremities that human beings are bound to experience during their lifetimes.
If we examine an act of rape, we see that the victim suffers and the rapist derives some perverse enjoyment. In this case, the act is sexual. What does this mean? In this act, God cannot have taken the side of the rapist who derives pleasure. It is equally absurd to believe that the evil is on the side of the woman in the form of pain. By the promoter’s manner of reasoning it would seem that God and evil have joined hands in this venture. This can be the only ridiculous conclusion we can arrive at.
In any act, pleasure and pain go hand in hand, for the simple reason that one’s gain is another’s loss. For example, when a man kills a bird and eats it, he gets pleasure whereas the bird gets pain. So, here too, God has taken the side of power and caused misery to the bird. The man could have easily avoided the act. To satisfy his hunger, he could have surely chosen to eat vegetables. But because of his carnivorous instincts,he killed the bird.Thus, in proportion to the amount of pleasure he desires to obtain, he causes misery. Gain in pleasure is directly proportional to the loss in pain.
What I believe that there are no two polarised forces: one good and one evil. If I am to believe in God, there is only one force which is responsible for every act — good, bad or ugly around us. To be honest, I began thinking of the concepts of God and evil, nearly a decade and half ago, when I was doing my MBA in Banaras. Obviously this was much before I had even dreamt of becoming a writer .
When I read this stuff — which I wrote in the form of notes way back, when I was in BHU — I am frankly surprised by the clarity of my thoughts and the way I could conceptualise them even back then. Sure enough my language and some of the examples seem too simplistic and I had primarily written this back then to impress a girl called Madhumita Pal . The tragedy is that she never read this essay of mine because she got bored in the first para itself. I am super sure that quite a few of you will either share her feelings or feel pained by my thoughts. But then I got immense pleasure while writing down my thoughts. So If you are pained by my pleasure then you decide who you should blame – God or Evil?
In disagreement against the Delhi High Court ruling about Article 377 -By-Kumar Bahukhandi
In disagreement against the Delhi High Court ruling that Article 377 was unconstitutional, K. Radhakrishnan, senior counsel, for Trust God Ministries (one of the complainants opposing the ruling) maintained that Article 377 is crucial to protect equality, life, liberty, decency, dignity, public order, morality, and the country’s integrity.
Reason for the impending apocalypse was that, “the (mouth and anus) are not intended at all for sexual use.” He argued that the mouth is only for eating food and anus for flushing it out. “If you are putting these organs to that (sexual) purpose, this is abuse of the body. All these things are ordained by nature.” It would bring India to a terrible end, he felt, this “chase for enjoyment.”
Just as I was wondering whether lawyer-ing was ordained by nature and whether loopholes were unnatural and immoral holes or not, he reportedly permitted that the mouth can also be used “uttering words.” Phew. Guess the lawyerly profession is safe then, besides being natural.
Uttering words didn’t go so well though, for Mamta Sharma, Chairperson, National Council for Women who said “sexy can mean beautiful or charming, and we should not always take this in a negative sense.”
Objectors of various persuasions immediately made a complex and erudite opposing argument — she must resign. As you know we have patented a unique Indian mode of debating — censorship, bans and forbidding.
Honestly that’s fine, because if we engaged with a different viewpoint, we might change our minds and then what about the nation’s integrity?
Smriti Irani, BJP Mahila Morcha, said each lady has the right to decide whether she likes the term or not (apparently Smriti Irani is allowed to say this but not Mamta Sharma). Then in rising tones of indignation asked if Ms. Sharma had ever been harassed or molested? Huh? Should the NCW be discussing this? A gentleman caller on a news channel was less confusing: We should not use this term for women as they could be our mother, sister or wife. It is wrong because it’s related to sex.
But women do not exist in relationship to the gents and ladies in their life alone. They are not only, your mother, sister, wife — or your anything. In her capacity as an individual a woman considered sexy by someone should be able to have a mature enough attitude to decide if this is a compliment or harassment instead of permanently cowering in fear of all things sexual like a terrified virgin in a morality tale.
Unlike gay relationships, heterosexual consensuality has had some acceptance for a while. So why such alarm at the idea, that women might act on that consensuality by deciding if sexy was acceptable or unacceptable depending on the context?
Why should only some people decide how women should interpret ‘sexy’ and immediately utter warnings about molestation, violence and retribution if the freedom of interpretation, the possibility of difference is raised?
And why shouldn’t the NCW talk about these cultural changes? Why should people think that women and sex can only be discussed in terms of rape and violence and that our public discussion should not also be about preference and enjoyment?
Why are some people so disturbed by the idea of enjoyment, that they want to suppress something, which does not harm others? Maybe it’s the idea that pleasure and personal choice is twin strands in the DNA of freedom, which means not being subjugated by their displeasure.
Are you getting the feeling that there’s an unhealthy excitement in their displeasure? Hmm. Why don’t we let the woman decide whether they want mouth and anal pleasure or not?
We really should enquire if such pleasure in displeasure is natural or moral.
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