Module Break: Time to think about everything else

This blog isn’t anything about any (MBA) experiences rather its more about the first part of the title of this blog. We have finished our first module and are having a short break for two days and a weekend and what better time than this to ponder on some other thoughts. This break had been quite useful as to make a visit to Indianapolis to get a correction done in my I-20 at the Borders and Customs office, to talk to the Director of IT resources about Assistantship opportunities, to apply for a Indiana Drivers license, to hang out with a few friends, to do some laundry, to watch some movies, to do some shopping and to follow some of my favorite writers on net. BTW did you observe that Nirmal Shekar has been writing articles very often, almost twice a month. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his articles.

Last Saturday, we invited a few American friends at Sino’s place for a Indian dinner. Sino made a Kerala style beef curry and I prepared my signature chicken curry and we had a good time that night. It was interesting to see how the guests fell in love with the pressure cooker and got excited every time the steam came out of it. That night while discussing cultures and history, Rob’s roommate asked me about the religion I follow. I casually said “My family follows Hinduism”. Then he asked me specifically about the religion that I follow. That put me to think for a while and I said “I kind of follow all religions but by birth I’m a Hindu”. To me all religions are great and calling myself an atheist wouldn’t be quite true. I kind of believe in practices of many religions and participate in all their festivals. I enjoy the wine and plum cake at Christmas to observing a short fast (only to eat haleem in the evening, sometimes two), during Ramzan. And participate in Ganesh Chaturti processions and play around with fireworks for Diwali. Oh Boy! I’m missing India now! 

Then he asked me whether it represents our generation that we are not particular about following any religious faiths. Honestly, I was drunk that night and don’t really remember what I told him. But that question remained in my mind and I thought a little more about that after reading this Tasneem Nashrulla’s post. While I know many of my friends who are pantheists or atheists that makes me think “yes, this generation is not very particular about any such faiths”, on the other hand, the frequent chaos in the name of religion makes me think otherwise. While following a faith and not following any are quite debatable, it can be argued that by not being particular about any faiths, we can avoid many potential communal clashes. On the other hand, the young generation could be aimless without following any faith and it would be easy for the perpetrators of false believes to attract these youngsters. My point is, more than religion what makes me worried are the infamous faiths starting from Jihad to anti-westernizing processions of Bhajrang dal.

Moving away from that topic, I, as always, differed with P. Sainath’s recent articles, but somehow I keep reading them as it always gives me a different point of view. But I was enraged by this article, specifically when he wrote about the movie Slumdog millionaire. I understood why the elite personalities protested against it only after coming to the US. Honestly, when someone tells me today that he/she loved the movie slumdog millionaire, I kind of feel very embarrassed. It represented an India which we do not want to be, which we have long forgotten and which is not how we should be looked at.

I wish, I had more such breaks. The break ended with shopping on the touchdown discount. Touchdown discount are Mondays after a home game when Purdue wins there would be a discount on apparels by no. of touchdowns times 5 percent. There were 4 touchdowns and a 20% discount this time. It seems like more than the actual game of football, what matters is everything else. Anyways, Boiler Up!