BAN RELIGION IN CLASSROOM
As a kid in Kashmir, I recited 'Kalma' in the morning assembly at the school in our village.As a teenager in Jammu, I recited Gayatri Mantra.I was never able to figure out why I was reciting Kalma in Kashmir and Gayatri Mantra in Jammu. Though now I see the whole situation crystal clear.The Islamists in Kashmir were bent on making me a dutiful Muslim and the exponents of Hinduism in Jammu tried their best to inculcate a 'Hindu way of life' within me.Thankfully I rejected both and transformed into an atheist .But ironically those who are reciting only Kalma or Gayatri Mantra will unfortunately develop into Muslims and Hindus with only one common feeling: hatred for each other.
It is a strange but a known fact that some[read most] of our teachers preach religion in classrooms. I remember in Kashmir we were taught the benefits of Namaz and in Jammu the magic of offering water to the sun .Such teachers commit a crime by controlling and restricting the thought process of children.Thoughts should not be restricted ,they should be guided.Let them[children] think on all lines and in all possible ways.By limiting their thinking, we will produce humans bereft of all humane feelings of love, compassion and brotherhood,they will be machines programmed to hate.We will never be able to stop Godhras and Gujrats instead we will fuel them and harm our civilization and culture in an awful manner.Leave aside working for a developed india, we will be engaged in annihilating each other .We will end up doing no good and some decades later an anthropologist will find our mass grave and name us as 'fossils of hatred'.Hopefully he will be educated enough to teach a lesson to the people of that time :-
'hate and end up like this.'
It will be in the fitness of things to limit religion and other personal beliefs as strictly an individual affair and asses religious practices with a scientific and objective yardstick.Infact religion like other social phenomenon and philosophies should evolve and change with the change in scientific,economic and social transformation.Religion should serve the humanity to move ahead and develop, it should not act as a bottleneck in the social and intellectual progress by being preached in educational institutions.
By-Arif Hayat Nairang
TISS, Mumbai
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
When fancy fleets
When Fancy Fleets...
The last winter night I spent in my village in Kashmir was magic. Nothing less but maybe more. A spell was cast by the cold mystical fog that embraced every living and non-living being with a warm hug. It filled every inch of empty space with mystery. The time stood still watching silently and patiently with a creative eye,the beautiful things fog was doing to the virgin night. I huddled in my comfortable resting chair in the balcony. The closed door behind me hid every beam of light present except for the faint yellow light of the old lamp-post at the distance.The air didn't move the leaves didn't flip. Stillness prevailed. I remembered John Keats:-
where are the songs of spring aye!
where are they,
think not of them,thou hast thy
music too.
Full of thoughts,I thought;the essence of the beauty of this season lies in its maturity and ripeness. It sets the stage for the spring. It is the perfect blend of old and new thoughts it is not a season to be dismissed as worthless just because it is a little too harsh..it is lovely,it is serene ,it is an old wine, it is to be drunk again and again.
The night was growing white,it was maturing ,while in sleep. It was a damsel enjoying a slumber full of dreams of charming princes and fairy lands .Ecstasy, is what one should call what I was feeling. It was a moment when gloom and joy together bring happiness.It was one of those moments when reason is kept aside for a while and fancy rules every cell of our body. Alas! fancy is fleeting.Not for long can reason be kept aside.The door of my room opened,the tubelight struck my eyes and I saw him lying on the road.A lonely desolate figure wearing rags and struggling to cover his frail body with a battered blanket. A chill ran down my spine. I was wearing two sweaters,a small jacket, woolen trousers and socks, not to count the innerwear and a firan(kashmiri gown) to cover up it all. No more was I cosy no more was the night romantic.It was a night when thousands like him struggle just to live and when many like him die in the quiet cruel moment. It is at times like this that Darwin's principle survival of the 'so called' fittest holds firm ground, it is at times this that one feels we are nothing but animals.
by- Arif Hayat Nairang
TISS, Mumbai
The last winter night I spent in my village in Kashmir was magic. Nothing less but maybe more. A spell was cast by the cold mystical fog that embraced every living and non-living being with a warm hug. It filled every inch of empty space with mystery. The time stood still watching silently and patiently with a creative eye,the beautiful things fog was doing to the virgin night. I huddled in my comfortable resting chair in the balcony. The closed door behind me hid every beam of light present except for the faint yellow light of the old lamp-post at the distance.The air didn't move the leaves didn't flip. Stillness prevailed. I remembered John Keats:-
where are the songs of spring aye!
where are they,
think not of them,thou hast thy
music too.
Full of thoughts,I thought;the essence of the beauty of this season lies in its maturity and ripeness. It sets the stage for the spring. It is the perfect blend of old and new thoughts it is not a season to be dismissed as worthless just because it is a little too harsh..it is lovely,it is serene ,it is an old wine, it is to be drunk again and again.
The night was growing white,it was maturing ,while in sleep. It was a damsel enjoying a slumber full of dreams of charming princes and fairy lands .Ecstasy, is what one should call what I was feeling. It was a moment when gloom and joy together bring happiness.It was one of those moments when reason is kept aside for a while and fancy rules every cell of our body. Alas! fancy is fleeting.Not for long can reason be kept aside.The door of my room opened,the tubelight struck my eyes and I saw him lying on the road.A lonely desolate figure wearing rags and struggling to cover his frail body with a battered blanket. A chill ran down my spine. I was wearing two sweaters,a small jacket, woolen trousers and socks, not to count the innerwear and a firan(kashmiri gown) to cover up it all. No more was I cosy no more was the night romantic.It was a night when thousands like him struggle just to live and when many like him die in the quiet cruel moment. It is at times like this that Darwin's principle survival of the 'so called' fittest holds firm ground, it is at times this that one feels we are nothing but animals.
by- Arif Hayat Nairang
TISS, Mumbai
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