why?
some body posted a message on facebook – bill gates never did lakshmi pooja and he is the richest person. einstein never did sarswati pooja but he was very intelligent.
my comment was that it is an entirely personal matter. one does not really know which gods – or demons – biil gatesworships or einstein worshipped. but the post is not meant to be a question or a comment.
the point is why did the person concerned post this message. it is well known that less than one billion worship lakshmi and sarswati by name. more than six billion don't. not all these six billions are intelligent or rich. not all these one billion are worthless – monetarily and intelligence wise. so why this post? what is the idea behind it.
i, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that there can be three reasons for this 1. to shock 2. to amuse 3. to ridicule one likes to get likes and comments. it is the weakness of all those who post on the facebook. there are 40513 likes claimed on this post. there are 1286 comments (including mine), besides 142982 shares are said to be there.
is this the result of shock. probably not. we are used to read such comments so there is no shock. is it to amuse readers. one would have to have a weird sense of humour to be amused by it. that leaves only the ridicule aspect in the field.
there is a concerted attempt to hold up the hindu religion to ridicule. this is only a part of the same mindset. jokes about the indian gods abound on the internet – whatsapp, face book twitter. over the past many decades (or may be centuries), denigrating your own is what has been instilled into our mind. every small adverse point is taken up as a major default. look at the visit of irani to an astrologer. suddenly our (so called) intelligentsia is up in arms wondering whether such superstitions should be allowed in a person who is education minister. her job should be to instill scientific temper in students. the english mainstream press has streaming headlines about it. perhaps an editorial or two are warranted on it and about two dozens of articles. then you turn over to sunday edition and these very newspapers are predicting your week by the zodiac sign.. that is not superstition because it is in the name of aries, tauras and the other zodiac signs and they are all greek in origin, not indian. indian signs – kanya, mithun et al would be superstition. and pray is the objective of the education is to cram your mind with facts regarding science and technology. should education not be concerned with values (but that is another topic – let us leave it here).
why so many likes then? same reason of misguided (or shall i say brainwashed) intellect (or what passes for intellect). there is no attempt to understand the idea behind such posting. it is something out of the ordinary so let us like it, share it. but i am wrong to some extent. the comments are not all in agreement with the post. but many of them are apologies (saying bill gates or einstein are not hindu) rather than disapproval of not the content but the intention. perhaps it is because we are tolerant of views of others, of which undue advantage is taken by others. which is the biggest advantage of being hindu. if you do not believe in my gods, they do not disappear nor would i force you to believe in them.
needless to say other religions do not follow this dictum. you can not say bill gates does not believe in a certain prophet and yet he is the richest person (i have never seen such or similar posts). this will not attract any attention and if it does it will invite adverse reaction.
my appeal would be to not let such posts pass without condemning them. let them believe what they will or what they will not but let them not injure my feelings. i am entitled to my views and i do not care if they appear to be incongruous to you