This is a book that I started to read.
Just kept nodding at every statement even as I was just reading through page 1. A worthy book with a realistic point of view.
When I was a kid, I was told several puranic stories. Correction: When I was an infant songs of the exploits of Hindu Gods were sung to me. When I was a toddler my grandmother told me several tales of the adventures of Lord Krishna. I asked her to repeat the stories to me again and again.
When my dad told me that if I wasted even the few morsels of rice that stuck to my plate before I washed it, those rice morsels would complain to Goddess Lakshmi, I believed him. The six year old me visualized the grains of rice being washed down my wash basin and go through the pipes to a river where they met the Goddess with four arms and complained, "Raji wasted us."
As if grains appeared on earth for the express purpose of getting disintegrated in my digestive system. For all their crudity and far fetched fancy, native myths seem real to us. When as a ten year old I came across Greek myths, I thought they were weird and simplistic, while the mythology I knew seemed absolutely believable and interesting to me. This is how our consciousness works. Partially and subjectively.
Kancha Ilaiah, the author, begins by narrating his experience, as a member of the depressed caste where the stories of Gods he heard were native to his community. He speaks about how upper castes systemically discount the culture of those belonging to other castes and considers them to be lesser Gods of the Hindu pantheon.
I do not possess the vocabulary to talk of this deep injustice without hurting others sentiments. May be I will learn a little as I read more of this book.
