We bloat ourselves saying that India is a secular country and a home of many religions, caste, creed, language etc..etc.. Not long ago,when the verdict of the much awaited and postponed babri masjid issue was about to be heard the whole country was cought in a cold fear of the consequences of the verdict rather than the verdict itself. Fortunately everything was as smooth as unexpected.The reason for mentioning this here is that inspite of projecting ourselves as a secular country we had had hidden indifferences under the canopy of secularism. As per my understanding, in a country like Iraq (I am right now) which apparently does not encourage other religions except their own (Muslim), I was shocked to see the portraits of Hindu Gods in one of their daily newspaper of their regional language. The fanatic image which I had in my mind about these citizens immediately started crumbling like a pack of cards.
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| Linga Bhairavi - Devi |
Some regional news paper was lying on the table. My habit of viewing pictures in any piece of paper before me, made me to pick the paper and started flipping the pages. In one of the pages I could see Devi Mahakali's photo. My intial response after seein this was Ah!! Am I dreaming? Mahakali Mata in IRAQ ??? When I knew I was not I could not beleive my eyes. An instant realisation struck me, the cosmic reality is much beyond the boundaries on my thoughts and imagination. I became crazy and started showing these potraits to all my Indian friends (only a few though) with much enthusiasm. The response from them was like "Oh goood" type of thing, atleast I was not seeing any surprise element in them as me. But I could not supress my curiosity to know what this article contains, but unfortunately out of very few languages I knew, this Kurdish (similar to Arbic but not same) is not the one.
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| Kurdish newspaper with Hindu Gods So I sought help of some of the localites. Being busy afternoon hours, people could not devote time for me. They had a puzzled look in their faces when for the first time I was asking them to explain about something published in their regional language. With whatever little mastery I have attained over their language(kurdish) I was searching words from the space to make them understand about my bubling enthusiasm (see in my eyes) on this particlular topic in their newspaper. It took almost ten minutes to make them understand that I wanted to understand the content of this article. Answering their "why u need explanation of this article?" was the toughest situation I ever faced in my life. After attempting all the gestures and postures I knew, still I was not able to make them understand that I was interested to know why Hindu Gods' portrait has been published in their newspaper whom their country is now aware off. Atlast, one line came to my rescue to end all my misery. They instantly understood my anxiety when I mutterd out the phrase " You how Allah.... me same Mahakali..!!!. Now their reactions seemed positive. I appreciated myself for making them understand atlast. 'Thank you Allah' I said myself. |
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| Front cover the Kurdish Newspaper of concern |
After all the drama when I was overwhelmed with the joy of knowing the article in detail, pat came the reply "Deepak I am busy, I tell u aftersome time" from everybody. They uttered this phrase as perfect bristish men speaking english right from their childhood(people here speak broken english).The only thing my local friends managed to tell me that the whole article is about 'SWORD'. Coincidentally if u see carefully the snap of the page containing Hindu Gods, only word in english is 'SWORD'. Back to square one.
But my enthusiasm has not faded with time (2 days). My persuasion will be alive until my curiosity of knowing the article is not fulfilled. Definitely will let u all know what the articles says hopefully in near future.
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