Thursday 6 February 2020

Upavasam versus intermittent fasting !

When I say I am keeping upavasam, a ritual fast, I get looks implying that I am superstitious, a little illiterate.
But when a Muslim friend says he is keeping the roza, he is commended.
Why this self hate, hate of roots ... in the so called educated of this land.
And why the hypocrisy.
Vigneshwaran Karthikeyan, Akila Venkat and 65 others
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  • Meenakshi Satarkar That's sad perspective people about our religion
    3
  • Amalorpavanathan Joseph Everyone is free to follow her religious practices.But prolonged fasting is not good for diabetics ....any religion
    Write a reply...

  • Yogasharan V S Prakash So true. That is our secularism
    1
  • Subashree Ramdas Also fasting for dieting is lauded - intermittent fasting is encouraged
    6
  • Kumar Anshul This depends on who your friends are. None in my circle have ever looked down upon the upawaas.
    3
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    • Aparna Krishnan None of my circle, my village, look down. But the upper class English educated 'deracinated' class, yes.

      Happy to know that in other English speaking circles that does not hold.
      4
    • Venkat Krishnan N Aparna Krishnan - doesn't hold in my friend network either. people are actually highly appreciative of those who can fast, irrespective of religion. I have great admiration for the Jains who fast for 8 days in a row surviving only on water, that too before sunrise and after sunset.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Jains, Muslims etc, yes.

      But you will also hear degoratory comments on 'women who maintain Karva Chauth fasts'. Its a disgusting set of double norms. That the educated Hindu has.
      2
    • Venkat Krishnan N If someone condemns Karva Chauth but doesn't condemn burqa, it is obviously a problem. But the only people I find doing that are the politically polarized lot... rest of the people tend to have a consistent belief set.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan I have seen English medium education itself shake up the roots very substantially. In my experience.

      And then they lose faith in their own gods. But some sense political correctedness makes them support other practices. And then hypocricy is birthed.
      2
    • Rajeshwari Kalyanam Aparna Krishnan I don't agree to generalisation of any kind...I don't follow rituals but I respect the sentiments of those who follow... Similarly I do not like being judged for choosing to follow my own path to devotion... I hope you meet the right people
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Mine is a general observation of the educated English speaking class of this land.

      It has no reference to you at all.
      3
    • Venkat Krishnan N Aparna Krishnan every human being has flaws. Including me, you and the villagers of our country :-).
    • Rajeshwari Kalyanam Aparna Krishnan no I am sure...but that is what I mean when I suggest not to generalise..
      All kinds of people in this world and no we cannot classify them at all
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Venkat Krishnan N of course. That us the human lot. And yet there are structural realities we would do well to understand. And address if needed.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Rajeshwari Kalyanam there are patterns that it is good to be aware of.
    • Asha Kachru Aparna Krishnan why are you being a bit apologetic? I think you made a point nd I would say it's valid for a majority of us Hindus. There is a bit of misogynous behaviour in all of us nd we need to get rid of it at d earliest!
      1
    Write a reply...

  • Shikha Gandhi Rakho
    Write a reply...

  • Alwar Narayanan We have never looked down upon anything. I think your heart is getting colored without your knowledge. Surprising to see this discriminatory post. Hinduism is not in need of any help, especially from stooges.
    6
  • LalithaRangachari Aparna our English media is responsible for this anything Hindu is to be looked down upon. According to them Hindus are communal whereas Muslims are secular. The word secular is most abused word in our media and so called intellectuals.
    1
    • Aparna Krishnan LalithaRangachari via Gangadharan Kumar Just show show most people have no clue what "secularism" is. From being a concept to separate religious institutions and government (thanks to the influence of the Catholic Church) - it has become this idiotic construct.
      The irony is - in India - secularims has degraded into shunning religion in private forums - wherease the government is busy administering Hindu temples and has a pletohra of policies based on religion.
      1
  • Aparna Krishnan Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, writes in The Dance of Shiva,
    “It is hard to realize, how completely the continuity of Indian life has been severed. A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots—a sort of intellectual pariah who does not belong to the East or the West.”
    1
    • Palanivelu Rangasamy Aparna Krishnan My English education, and yours too, has not done anything like that. Rather it has taken us back to the roots.

      So the problem lies somewhere else, not in English education.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Palanivelu Rangasamy it has removed me from my roots, as also each person I have known who has passed thro that. The way back is long and ardous.

      The deracination is so complete, that many cannot even see it.
    • Palanivelu Rangasamy Aparna Krishnan If just a different learning disorients a tradition, there is something wrong with us. That weakness only brought us under colonialism. That weakness only makes us to adore anything western. That weakness makes us to be self centred. That weakness makes us to be asocial.

      Instead of blaming something else, why can't we diagnose our own structural issues.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Palanivelu Rangasamy English medium education was designed to deracinate. It is one if the structural issues.
    • Palanivelu Rangasamy Aparna Krishnan Maybe it is one of the structural issues. English medium education can't be singled out to be 'the cause.'

      My understanding is that we are searching for an external enemy to feel self righteous.
    Write a reply...

  • Sunny Pawar Bigotry vs Superstition vs Castism... Elite play all the games through different different tools...

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163613205615713&id=654750712&fs=1&focus_composer=0
  • Sunny Sandhu fast is great
  • Meenakshi Negi Some sort of complex
    1
    • Aparna Krishnan Meenakshi Negi yes, a very complicated complex !
      1
    • Meenakshi Negi Aparna Krishnan it comes from our anglicised perception. It is very important for every Indian to speak one native tongue and read and write in it as well. Someone recently said what’s wrong with bilingual of course nothing wrong but the real you cannot become lesser than the informed you. Gandhi Ji has got it quite right long ago but alas other everything got hijacked and so here we are the indian complex suffering from self prejudice which very few other non colonised nations may even understand. Consumerism and modernity adds to this great burden further
      1
  • Lakshmi Rekha Very true!! Systematically our beliefs have been undermined
    1
  • Gangadharan Kumar And when you say you are doing "Intermittent Fasting" you would have arrived.
    2
  • Gangadharan Kumar The parents (us?) share a large chunk of the blame for this too. There was a time when you learn stuff at school, but learnt culture at home. Living with elders or joint families helped in the propagation of culture. In the current era, de-racinated parents and de-racinated education system has accelerated the igorance.

    Ironically Facebook and Youtube are bringing back some awareness :-)
    1
  • 1
  • Gurpreet Sidhu Sad that you feel this way.
    • Aparna Krishnan Gurpreet Sidhu don't you see the subtle disdain (often not do subtle) that the English speaking Indian had towards those following Hindu rituals. I suggest. Do a search for Karva Chauth ... And see the opprobium heaped on the heads of women who choose to fast for their husbands. I suggest you also check if the same ladies and gentlemen abuse all religions and practices similarly.
    • Gurpreet Sidhu Aparna Krishnan but why the threat.There will always be people disagreeing or dissing your beliefs.You just do what you believe in.There are enough who will understand you for what you are.
      1
    • Aparna Krishnan Gurpreet Sidhu when a community starts looking down on its practices, its customs, its gods disparagingly it bodes Ill for that community. It's only a small vocal English educated fringe group that hates it's roots, but even that needs to be called out. It is a legacy of the very English medium education that we have suffered which makes our understandings and intellectual headquarters rooted in the West.

      Happy to see that being tabled these days. Things will swing wildly before an equilibrium is reached. But the process us needed. Roots and confidence in roots is everything. For all that is good and sacred to be validated. And all that needs correction to be corrected.
      2
    • Gurpreet Sidhu Aparna Krishnan but no hindus i know look down on their traditions.Each type of person practices according to their own beliefs.I married a bengali.Went for Durga Puja...i have Hindu friends of all castes,regions,communities ,I think i maybe i was not in a position to understand ...?
    • Aparna Krishnan Gurpreet Sidhu please check out posts made in your circles in Fb during karva Chauth. That will give you the picture.
    • Aparna Krishnan Are you personally a believer or an atheist ?
    Write a reply...

  • Sashikala Ananth So true. When contemporaries realise that I go through my personal sadhana everyday, yogasana and puja, I get the same horrified response. But the pious church goers are looked at with respect! Strange backwardness in the literate!
    2
  • Uma Shankari So you are keeping a fast on karva chauth?! Good for Nagesh! 😂
    1
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