Parting thoughts

Dear Express readers, a few parting thoughts, for what they8217;re worth:8226; 8216;God Love8217; is nothing without trying to love our ...

Dear Express readers, a few parting thoughts, for what they8217;re worth:

8226; 8216;God Love8217; is nothing without trying to love our mostly ghastly fellow beings. There is really no way past this unpleasant task and it must be faced with fortitude and stick-to-itiveness. Bapu, as usual, understood. 8220;Love humanity in spite of itself,8221; he said. By Heaven, that old man had spine and salt. He8217;s worth hanging on to, more than most.

8226; Don8217;t buy all the waffle about current craze, Rumi. I disliked finding out that he married his very young stepdaughter to unwashed old Shams Tabrizi just to keep Shams legitimately at home. Like most of the saintly sort, saffron, white or green, Rumi was lousy with women though ten feet tall at Abstract Love. Oh, pooh. However, the 8216;Mevlana8217; is a great read and I wish propriety allowed me to share the vulgar bits, you8217;d crack up laughing.

8226; The caste system reminds us of the two sanyasis by the flooded stream. A woman stood there, afraid but desperate to cross. One sanyasi picked her up and got her across. Miles later, the other began to berate him for having broken the sanyasis8217; don8217;t-touch-women taboo. The helpful sanyasi pointed out that he had left her at the other bank long ago, but the rebuking sanyasi still carried her in her head. Just so, lots of educated Hindus don8217;t care any more about caste. But lots of others don8217;t allow old wounds to heal.

8226; Luckily, the era of the Fake Liberal is almost over. Lucky, because this liberal was a fanatic by another name and not really liberal at all, targeting only Hinduism. Whereas to treat all with equal lack of respect would have gradually blurred the sharp edges between 8220;majority8221; and 8220;minority8221;. They didn8217;t dare pick on other faiths. But Hindus were easy game for decades, too laidback to cry out. Not any more. Goodbye, meanwhile, from this columnist, who moves next week to another paper, five and a half years after she began 8216;Faithline8217;. The great debate must go on, in the greater institution of the Indian Express, whose DNA is wired for every kind of courage.