Speaking of Shiva

I've had a thing about Jesuits since youth: their particular combo of asceticism and scholarship is the closest I've seen to our tradition...

I’ve had a thing about Jesuits since youth: their particular combo of asceticism and scholarship is the closest I’ve seen to our tradition of rishis. Their life highs are shared between the gurukul’ and the tapovan’, and they’re not afraid of physical hardship or monastic discipline. So it intrigued me greatly to be invited by the Vidyajyoti Theological Seminary in Delhi to address the students and faculty on anything I chose to talk about from within my religious tradition.

My instinctive choice was "Shiva and I", from my first awareness of the concept of Shiva as a child of four, with the verse "thodudaya chevian" to Sankaracharya’s to the Chidambara Rahasya. I do not know what they made of it, though many seemed to be taking notes. For me, it was joy unbounded, to meet such interesting, clever people, address them, be questioned closely on matters of faith, eat lunch with them in the hostel and chat over coffee in the staff room afterwards. It was an experience unique to India and made me realise, yet again, how much we have to share.

In particular, I liked seeing the chapel, which is Indianised’ considerably. An altar on the floor, floor seating, a harmonium. A colourful wall mosaic picked up the Rig Vedic idea of Creation born from a Golden Egg (hiranyagarba samavartatagre) but instead of Narayana, the One Who Moves On the Waters, it was Our Lady, Bibi Maryam, with the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove fluttering into her lap. This poetic central image was flanked on the left by Noah in his Ark and on the right by the Mother and Child.

A senior staff member asked me if I would feel insecure seeing a Hindu child going into a church. I remembered what my father did in New York some years ago. It happened to be my mother’s tithi’ and, instead of hunting around for a vaadyaar’, my father apparently just walked into St Patrick’s Church and murmured the twenty third psalm (The Lord is my shepherd). My grandmother kept a Jesus medallion in her puja room and I’ve hung up a rosary of olive wood from Mary’s grave’ in Jerusalem that a Christian friend very lovingly brought me. Similarly, I have a small string of prayer beads from Mecca that was given me by the Imam Khatib of Tashkent. And I’ve actually covered my head and asked for the Qul’uw’Allah’ to be said at Taimur’s grave: Taimurlang, for Heaven’s sake!

Such stories of Hindus comfortably popping into any House of God that happens to be handy, or at ease with interfaith emblems and practices, are legion. But a Hindu colleague and I, discussing this, realised that there was a crucial difference. We Hindus think we’re so tolerant’ because we do these things, while it is less common amongst the People of the Book. But examine your heart closer. These gestures are just fine as add-ons. They are not, as substitutes for the Mother Faith, are they? I find that the reason that’s most repeated for why Hindus are glad to be Hindus is "mental freedom". Gosh, yes. But the absence of "rules" has created a generally uncaring society that writes huge checks for personal salvation, but not nearly enough to help the poor. Nor are many of us kind to our disabled and to our women. Is this not a civilisational shame? Why should we counter this with how Christians and Muslims are also unfair to their women? Why can’t we set our own house in order anyway, as we have a record ofperiodically doing, especially in the last 150 years?

Well, I chattered extempore for more than an hour to the Jesuits about how much delight I found in Shiva. I’m grateful that nobody laughed aloud when I gushed about the inclusive nature of Shiva tattva.