एकं सत्! Ekam sat!

Yesterday at the SAATh festival , I was shocked and deeply offended as I watched the reading/performance of the play  " The misadventures of Lotus Brothers " whose script and direction was by Ms. Pampi Das. What deeply offended me is the blatant Hinduphobia rife in it coming from either a place of complete ignorance, at best, or mischief and malice, at worst.  There were visuals playing in the background with some art but what caught my eye is one banner that showed up that said "Hinduism is colonialism". What?! So the one ancient culture that survived 1000+ years of physical, emotional and psychological attacks and severe attempts at trampling and stamping it out of existence is now being labeled colonial?! Have you wondered why the Hindu culture is the most ancient in the world today? Because its peers were killed off. By colonialists. And no, these colonialists were not Hindu. In fact, not only did Hindus never go on colonizing campaigns trampling other cultures ...

Translating Jaati /जाति  and Varna/ वर्ण as caste is not only incorrect, it is completely misleading. Here's why. The Sanskrit texts refer to two words, one is  Jaati / जाति  which defines your or your familial profession/occupation which could be an engineer, doctor, jeweler, businessman, soldier etc. in the contemporary context.  Varna/ वर्ण  on the other hand is something entirely different. It has nothing to do with the family you are born in or any other aspect of your physical identity, but everything to do with your mental setup or Vrutti /वृत्ति.  Vrutti /वृत्ति  is loosely translatable as your mentality that makes up your  personality  that forms your  aptitude .  Vrutti /वृत्ति  is formed from your Sanskaar /संस्कार  and the karma /कर्म you do and these  Sanskaar /संस्कार feed back to shape your  Vrutti /वृत्ति forming a continuous loop .  Sanskaar /संस्कार  itself is a loaded term which essen...