Crumbs

This is an old print advertisement from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). On the bottom corner of this haunting image of people reacing out to the last crumbs on the plate, the fine print simply says, "A little from you can mean a lot. Make a contribution."

I do not know if people actually noticed the illustrations on the rim of this plate, or if the message got them to make a contribution, but I was reminded of this last sunday.

One of our neighbors had set up a shamiana to celebrate Basant Panchami and Saraswati Puja, a festival that marks the arrival of spring. As is the norm, a community kitchen was set up and hot food (puri's, kichri, curries and chutney) was being served as "prasaad", a holy offering.

I had just finished eating the food on my plate when I noticed a Jain neighbor sitting next to me. He was carefully picking out each an every crumb from his plate, leaving it absolutely clean.

Feeling a bit ashamed I started cleaning up my plate too, and asked him what prompted him to eat so carefully. He laughed at the very idea that I found it unusual and said, "According to Jain tradition, wastage of food is considered one of the worst sins...so for us, the first rule is to take only the quantity of food we really need, and then to remember that the holiest prasaad is the last sprinking of water used to clean-up our used plates...even the water used to clean a plate is not be wasted"!

Now that is something to think about...which are the other cultural habits or religious traditions that encourage people from wasting food?

A little from each of us can certainly mean a lot.

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LINKS

Why to Jains have strict food habits? -- http://www.jainism.com/blog/why-do-jains-have-strict-food-habits

Jainism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

Peanut Gallery

One of the highlights of this week was a gem of a retort:

"It is quite rich to sit in the peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground" 

Rohan Murty said this while defending Sheldon Pollock, an American Academic who heads a pioneering project for the translation of Indian classics into English.

Earlier this week I had leafed through a few paperbacks in the "New Books" section of the Dayal Singh Public Library. Among them were three new books published by the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI). I remembered my sense of awe, gratitude and amazement. Finally we had access to our own classics, not only in a format we could easily relate to (local language on the left, English on the right), but also at a very affordable price!

The petition against Pollock at Change.org

Why on earth would anybody object to  such a remarkable initiative? And who were these "132 academics and public figures" behind the online petition against Pollock and MCLI? What were their objections?

The online petiton can be still be accessed at Change.org . It was started by Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan of IIT Bombay, and, apart from the 132 "Scholars and Intellectuals" who have put their weight behind this petiton, it also claims to have garnered 12,500 supporters.

Their objections boil down to two points:

1. Pollock is not sufficiently "steeped in the intellectual traditions of India", and is therefore incompetent to be the Chief Editor of MCLI
2. He has objected to the recent police high-handedness at JNU, and is therefore politically biased.

To think that 132 + 12,500 people would sign up a shallow petition like this, tells a lot about the current status of "intellectual traditions" in our country.

A few months ago another bunch of 100 academics, this time esconced in the universities of USA and Western Europe, had objected to Prime Minister Modi's visit to Silicon Valley. Here the objections were about "lack of safefuards about privacy of information" and the Gujarat violence of 2002.

Online protests, petitions, and carefully handpicked outrages make you wonder about the real motive of folks who initiate such campaigns. Is it merely an attention-seeking tactic, or is there more to it?

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LINKS & REFERENCES

• http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/bfBg8HJNxh4PPPxFXJVF1J/Who-is-Sheldon-Pollock.html
• http://scroll.in/article/804517/why-hindutva-forces-have-for-long-had-sheldon-pollock-in-their-sights
• http://m.economictimes.com/opinion/interviews/sheldon-pollock-is-central-to-the-classical-library-project-says-rohan-murty/articleshow/51238856.cms
• Paranjape, Markand (21Mar16): The Problem with Pollock -- http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-problem-with-pollock/
• Dasgupta, Swapan (2015): If we won' save Sanksrit, why stop foreigners? ToI Blogs, 3Apr2016 - http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/right-and-wrong/if-we-wont-save-sanskrit-why-stop-foreigners/

Extreme Fasting

In ancient Indian history, one of topics that fascinates me is the reign of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (340-298 BCE), and the manner in which it ended.

Chandragupta, the first ruler to unify most of Greater India into one state, decides one day to renouce his throne. He then dons the garments of a Jain monk, steps out of his former capital city Magadha and walks 2184 km to a hill near Sravanabelagola, and slowly, deliberately starves himself to death.

I always thought this was a one-off event. Perhaps the last display of a man's iron will, to prove to himself that just as he could kill and conquer a sub-continent, he could just as methodically conquer his own desire to eat, drink and, to stay alive.

Imagine my surprise when I came across a report in the papers that an elderly doctor in Rajasthan was locking horns with the Indian judiciary because he wanted to follow his father's example by doing exactly the same thing!

It is a living tradition that goes back 2500 years. The Swetambara's call it Santhara while the Digambara sect calls it Sallekhana. Both refer the act of self-purification when an individual decides that all the purposes of life have been served, or when they figure that their body is unable to serve any purpose in life.

On 10 August 2015, the Rajasthan High Court ruled that this Jain practice was illegal because it amounted to 'abetment of suicide' punishable under sections 306 and 309 of the Indian Penal Code. Last week, on 31 Aug., 2015, this decision was stayed by the Supreme Court which noted that the RHC decision lacked a basic understanding of the tenets of Jainism.

In a country where religious practices are often reduced to gaudy publicity stunts, it is good to know that there are traditions at the other end of the spectum as well!

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LINKS / REFERENCES

* Sallekhana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallekhana#In_Practice
* I too want a beautifu death - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragiri_Hill
* Chandragiri Hill - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragiri_Hill