I wonder if you’ve been there. If you haven’t, I ask you to go there and do that! The thing that I’m asking you to do is to make a sort of pilgrimage to Jayanagar where an institution that goes by the name ‘Model Education Society’, seems to be inculcating the right values to children. Young children are after all impressionable, and a proper set of values like secularism and respect for all religions must necessarily be inculcated. Some year ago, when I was an atheist, I appreciated the idea that secularism should mean ‘Equal distance from all religions’. But now I know better! I am now venturing to draw inspiration from all religions to modify my character. At least the attempt is sincere, even though I wonder if I will ever succeed. It has been my past experience to fail consistently in whatever I undertake. Well, at least I am consistent!
Coming back to The Model Education Society, it has a wall – more sacred perhaps than the Wailing Wall at Jerusalem.
(Here is a joke on the Wailing Wall - A man meets an old friend after many, many years at the Wailing Wall. After the initial pleasantries, he asks “What brings you here?” The friend says “Actually I’ve been coming here for the past twenty years to regularly offer my prayers.” Quite impressed he asks “What do you pray for?” The friend replies “I keep praying that there has been enough strife between Jews and Muslims, a lot of blood has been shed, and I ask that God help us to live in peace.” The other asks, “Well, how do you feel?” The friend replies “I feel I am talking to a wall!”)
The wall of The Model Education Society (10th Main, 35th Cross, Jayanagar 4th Block, Bangalore) at first struck me as somewhat sacred. It has been decorated with colorful tiles of gods at regular intervals. To begin with, there is a tile of Ganapathi (evidently praying for all obstacles to be removed), a little distance further is a tile depicting the sacred Kaaba, then another tile of Ganapathi to ensure obstacles are kept removed, then a serene picture of Jesus Christ, and then of Virgin Mary, and perhaps Rama, Shiva and so on.
I was thoroughly impressed. A school encouraging all religions! Somehow, something seemed amiss. It was too good to be true. Then it suddenly struck and I had enlightenment. The school had, in fact, pasted those tiles with the ‘divine objective’ of preventing people from pissing on the wall! And in that they had ensured perfect secularism. They ensured people of all religions – Hindus, Muslims, Christians, be covered by their intention. How can one urinate on divine icons? But I prayed to Ganapathi to remove all obstacles and inhibitions from my mind, as I was feeling the pressure quite intensely, and like a true full blooded Indian, urinated with a clear conscience.
All this seems quite hilarious. Now let’s talk of the serious aspect. We as Indians have to reflect on how callous we have become with respect to social mores and civic sense. I’m sure all of you would have noticed that in the past, the same intention was conveyed by a simple message ‘Please do not urinate’. It is an honest approach that sadly never worked. In other societies that are acutely alive to the feelings and concerns of their neighbors, such messages are not even necessary. The society automatically throws up these values among its citizens. In my travels in the West, I have never ever seen such a message. Sadly, we in India have never reflected on the value of cleanliness, and what is worse, those who have been abroad, never succeed in convincing other Indians about the strong social awareness that Christianity has generated. Inasmuch as most of the West is uniformly clean and neat, and as most of the West was indeed influenced by Christianity, could there perhaps be a connection? Does Christianity promote social concerns more than Hinduism does? I find it extremely aggravating when I hear Indians - as smug as you can ever get them, (a famous Kannada theatre person) - tell the Americans in their own home : “What does your country have to offer to our country?” Indians continuously ignore honest requests and pleadings and you finally see people indulging in such dishonest acts whose consequences are not yet known.
I would like to draw your attention to a film called ‘The Dead Zone’ – a film directed by Kronenberg in which Martin Sheen plays a somewhat secondary role. He had a main role in ‘Apocalypse Now’, but that information is just incidental. The climax of The Dead Zone has the ending where Sheen – the Presidential Candidate in an U.S. Election, snatches an innocent child from the bosom of its mother - a woman who is blind to his defects and would have trusted him, to be used as a shield to shelter him from the deadly bullets of an assassin who has been guided to destroy him. The hero of the film is privy to various evidences provided to the assassin that Sheen is really a devil’s agent!
Are we using God and the idea of divinity for such mercenary purposes like Martin Sheen did in ‘The Dead Zone’?
xxx
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