GUNTHROAT

I am presently travelling in a train from aluva to Trivandrum. Just now I met a person which provoked me to write this. When I first saw him he was giving a lecture on Hindu spirituality to a passenger( whom I swear was not interested). I was deeply immersed in reading . After ernakulam when his sole listener left the ‘guru’ started his conversation with me. I listened to him and proactively conversed. It seemed he had read a lot of books and had sound knowledge in the Hindu thought. He said if you do this you will become good and if you do that you will have an enlightened life etc etc (but the uniqueness of Hinduism is the freedom of worship it gives to its followers including the rationalists). Anyway when he was about to leave he saw a big bag and accidentally uttered ‘’ it seems to be of a fat muslim, who knows what is inside that’’. What should I say about these people who speak about jeevatma and paramatma, those who follow the doctrine that the jeevatma that kindles our soul is the same in every being( human or not), no matter hindu or muslim and caters annoying prejudices about a particular community in reality. I have come across numerous people like these. Another being the father of my very good friend who is both educated and cultured but couldn’t help saying ‘’we all know these muslims who are nothing but frauds’’. Unfortunately his audience included two muslims( he didn know that) and had to apologize later. I have read about similar people in a book by Mr Nassim Nicholas Taleb- The Black Swan. It mocks those individuals who can easily solve a logical question in a competitive exam which goes like ‘’All terrorists are muslims but not all muslims are terrorists, is a muslim necessarily a terrorist?’’ correctly by saying a no. But the same person feels insecure when he sees a bearded man in an airport boarding the same flight he is about to take.

August 14th