How to visit Maha Kumbh without actually going there

Representative image created with Meta AI

The world’s largest gathering of people, this year at the once-in-12-years Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a cauldron of faith, holy folk, spiritual journeys—and unfortunately, tragedy.

The joy people felt when an awe-inspiring illuminated picture of the religious megafest was tweeted by NASA Astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station transformed into harrowing images of bodies and belongings strewn around the bathing ghats after a stampede.

Nevertheless, devotees, tourists, and curious folks continue to throng the site for a holy dip in the confluence of two of India’s holiest rivers, Ganga and Yamuna. There’s a third river, too, but that is said to be hidden or invisible (French author Michel Danino has written a book that unpacks the mystery, titled The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati).

This year’s event is nothing short of a gargantuan drama featuring loudmouth politicians, selfie-seeking celebrities, and pseudo-spiritual wannabes. (Notables include India’s home minister, Amit Shah; Laurene Powell Jobs, Late Steve Jobs’s wife; actor Anupam Kher; and industrialist Gautam Adani.)

As the tales of tragedy follow those of IITian babas, the fierce-but-revered naga sadhus, and beautiful sadhvis, you might be wondering—Should I go, too, after all?—swinging between the twin prospects of (instant?!) nirvana through a holy dip and the mortal fear of getting crushed in the crowds.

Here’s another proposition: Maybe you can try visiting Maha Kumbh without even stepping out of your house. 

I can almost hear you say: “What? Are you crazy? How’s that possible!”

Let me tell you how (to the extent possible in this short post).

Ready for the pilgrimage?

Just be where you are and sit down comfortably. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Sit still, relaxing like this for a while.

Now, if you need to make some adjustments to your posture or surroundings, do it quietly. Then return to sitting down and breathing.

Start to deepen your breaths, bringing your attention to the process of inhaling, holding for a few seconds, exhaling, and again holding for another few seconds before taking the next deep breath, and so on.

You will soon discover that your breathing is rhythmic and calm. The thought-avalanche has subsided to a trickle. And your minor body aches and discomforts have gone. 

The stray thoughts that do come to your mind will dissipate once you bring your attention back to breathing.

Practice like this for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Maybe a little longer if that works (and if you are not in a hurry to go somewhere else before visiting Maha Kumbh!)

Do you know that the rivers Ganga and Yamuna are part of your own being in a way?

The breath flowing through the left nostril is said to pass through what is called the Ida nadi and the one through the right nostril, through Pingala nadi. And Ida and Pingala correspond to Ganga and Yamuna respectively. 

What about Saraswati, you say? 

That would be the Sushumna nadi, which flows—hidden like the mystical river—along the core of the spine.

Nadis are subtle energy channels in the human body that carry prana or the vital breath—72,000 in all, with Ida, Pingala, and Sushmna being the most important or primary nadis.

But why is this relevant?

That’s because the meeting point of Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna is behind the forehead, between the eyebrows (called Trikuti or Triveni point).

This is the inner Maha Kumbh I’m talking about. (The one that hundreds of yoga and tantra adepts have spoken about over the past several centuries in Bharat before it became India.)

With ample practice of meditation and pranayama—what I just described very briefly above—Sushumna, Ida, and Pingala tend to have their own confluence in the human body. 

And when that confluence happens, you realize the futility of going to any physical Maha Kumbh. Forget a hard-fought dip in the melee of Prayagraj, the inner Maha Kumbh makes it possible for you to be drenched in true and abiding bliss—Sat-chit-ananda.

Yes, this may also take 12 years or even more. But it’s worth every breath you take.

At least you won’t get crushed in the madness.

Happy inner journey!

NOTE: If you are interested in knowing more about meditation and pranayama, watch this space for my upcoming book, River of Love: Meditation beyond the App.

Why Meditation is the Crown Jewel of Yoga and How You can Benefit

Around 300 million people are said to practice yoga worldwide. It may seem a huge number but it’s less than 4% of the global population of 8 billion. The folks doing meditation — which is an integral part of yoga — would be far fewer.

For me, these statistics matter a lot. Because I’m a strong advocate of yoga, especially meditation. And as a fairly long-time practitioner (10+ years of meditation every day), I want to say a few things about what meditation involves, and why I think it’s the best gift of yoga and why every human being on the planet should do it — regardless of country, belief, or social status.

According to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, meditation or dhyana is the stage between dharana and samadhi in what the sage called Ashtanga or eight limbs of yoga. So one begins to focus on a single object in dharana and when that focus becomes smooth and uninterrupted, it becomes dhyana. Drawing upon my own experience, I can say that meditation makes you feel full of peace, joy, and contentment: after a “successful” session, your physical pains and mental anguish melt away, and a supreme sense of calm and blessedness takes root. (With more practice and sticking to it regularly, success comes more frequently and naturally.)

Most people largely relate to yoga and are more familiar with its third limb, asana — the numerous body postures that bring balance and health to the practitioners. Unfortunately, only a few know about or practice meditation.

Here I would like to highlight dhyana or meditation as something that is very simple and accessible (simpler and easier to follow than asanas for most people, I’d say). And if practiced regularly by a sufficiently large number of people, meditation can bring about a profound change not only in their own mental and spiritual wellbeing but also in the overall health and sustainability of our planet.

What has meditation got to do with the Earth’s sustainability, one might wonder?

Let me briefly recount how our mind works and how meditation can help.

The human mind is a constant cauldron of thoughts good and bad. It is a fantastic, majestic contraption, no doubt — one that has left every other species behind in controlling and dominating the space and resources of the planet. From using tools to innovating in industrial technologies to the current boom in artificial intelligence, humans have used their minds to an absolutely complex and remarkable degree. They have created innumerable products to make life more comfortable and devised countless ways to “spend time” for pleasure.

Alongside the good parts, however, a lot of “badness” has gone unfiltered to create all sorts of havoc: pollution, inequality, hunger, war, and disease. So much so that we are at a precipice, looking at disastrous possibilities for the human “race” (pun intended).

This chaos and impending disaster is reflected not only at a global level but also at multiple levels — regions, countries, cities, societies, and families are struggling to deal with it. Ultimately, it boils down to the individual level.

So, when an individual — you, me, everybody — sits down to meditate for a few minutes each day, it helps them deal with this internal chaos. Closing our eyes to the external world for a few moments and looking inward with peace and calm can help nurture our thoughts in the right direction. Meditation helps us reset our intent for being in this world and heals our relationship with fellow humans and creatures. It allows us to question our inner selves as to what is it that gives us real joy, real happiness? What is it that makes our life worth it? What is the meaning of it all? Why do we do what we do?

With our breathing calm, our body at rest, and our mind attuned to the inner voice that otherwise gets drowned in the daily noise of external exigencies, meditation opens up great possibilities for peaceful, better answers to our turmoil.

[Those new to the “process of meditation” my find this post I wrote a few years back useful: How to sit down in meditation.]

Imagine the change that millions of meditating souls can bring about! Change that is peaceful, positive, and “progressive” in the truly meaningful sense of the word.

You don’t have to listen to me — but please do listen to your inner voice. Do spend some quality time each day with your own self: meditate.

Namaskar and happy meditating :)

Remembering the Buddha via three simple numbers—3, 4, 8

 

Around five centuries before the birth of Christ, a Hindu prince of the Sakya clan began questioning everything and set out to explore a path to end human suffering. Yes, it was the Buddha, the Enlightened One, indisputably among the greatest teachers who ever walked on Earth.

The Buddha’s message was incredibly simple yet powerful. However, as his words got passed down the generations and as the followers of different streams of Buddhism (Mahayana, Hinayana, Theravada come to mind) multiplied in numbers and their own interpretations of his teachings, things became, well, a wee bit complicated.

So, in the tradition of going back to the source, first-principle thinking, or sticking to the fundamentals, here’s remembering Buddha through three simple numbers.

Three. Becoming a Buddhist is literally as simple as one-two-three—or taking the three ‘refuges’ (devotional pledges). “Buddham sharanam gachhami. Dharmam sharnam gachhami. Sangham sharanam gachhami.”  (I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha.)

Four. That’s right, the Four Noble Truths that the Buddha espoused. There is suffering in the world. The cause of suffering is craving. The suffering can be ended. The way to end it is the Eightfold Path.

Which brings us to the number Eight. The Eightfold Path suggested by the Buddha as a way to end suffering is, again, simple and intuitive: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi. 

Of course, the crux of being a Buddhist lies in truly practicing the above path. It’s heartening to note that hundreds of millions across the world have been inspired by Buddha’s words of wisdom and compassion, and a great many have been trying to follow in his footsteps. Countless souls have benefited from adopting and adapting at least some of the precepts into their everyday lives.

So let’s try and keep the Buddha in our hearts and memories as much as we can. The world needs him today more than ever.

Meet Contemplation, Meditation’s Cool Companion

 

Image: Frank Winkler / Pixabay

I began this piece by contemplating on why I want to write about contemplation and also thinking about what to write. My Twitter handle is Wordant (for the love of words, of course) but of late, I have realized that while words are useful tools when writing or conveying something, it is the underlying meaning that is far more important. After all, you can convey a lot with a smile, a spark in the eye, a touch...without using a single word.

Nevertheless, given that here I’m not allowed to touch you and must use my linguistic repertoire, let’s look at a few words or combinations of words and then we’ll move on.

A quiet life of prayer and contemplation. Sitting idle. Doing nothing. Thinking. Thinking about thinking. Meditating. She considered the proposal. He was trying to concentrate hard on the problem. Focus, focus, focus. Be here now.

All these words about the mind and what it does—think, consider, concentrate, focus, etc.—often get mixed up in terms of what we exactly mean when we use them. But sometimes, when we give proper context and arrangement to words—and pronounce or write them with an inner urge—we are better able to communicate. At least that’s my hope and belief.

So I wouldn’t give you any academic, hair-splitting definition of contemplation but perhaps share glimpses of my own experience—as I have often done for meditation. 

In the noisy, chaotic modern life of cities, I’m fortunate to have had some moments of quiet reflection. And, often, when those moments passed, I was like, “Whoa, that felt great!” (I’m sure a lot of folks are similarly blessed but may either not have noticed such moments or just smiled them away.)

For instance, before all this work-from-home thingy happened, I would sometimes take a short evening break from the office and go to the nearby park, sit down on a bench and just watch the sun go down. It amazed me how quickly the yellow bright disk became a soothing orange ball plunging ever so steadily behind the clouds, the concrete buildings or the nondescript horizon of cities within cities. The background would change depending on where I chose to sit or sometimes stand, but the sun behaved in the same spellbinding fashion.

During those times, a few breezes of thoughts swept gently over my mind.

And when I came back to my desk, a warm cup of tea in my hand before I resumed the day’s work, I could feel the powerful touch of contemplation all over me. Those quiet moments spent in the company of my own wondrous mind seemed to have filled my erstwhile-tired body with added vitality and peace.

The thought that led me to writing this post was this: if only more and more human beings spared some time for quiet, reflective thinking or even calm, ‘not-doing time’ (I don’t want to call it idle time), if only peace prevailed for a while in our daily sea of turmoil—perhaps we would have fewer suicides and much fewer mental health issues reported so widely nowadays. 

To share another contemplative experience, I’m reminded of walking. While I love to walk and wouldn’t mind walking almost anywhere, two particular walks come running to me. One was in high school when I attended a 10-day jungle camp in the Garhwal region of the Himalayas, and the other was early in my working life somewhere in the hills of Maharashtra. On both occasions, it was a wide mud trail on which we were walking in random groups. Few words were exchanged between the walkers but I think we all enjoyed being in the midst of idyllic surroundings, having ample time on our hands, and not much to do besides joyously moving from point A to point B.

Peace-giving images from those long-lost trips still surface in my memory from time to time.

Where have I been, really? Contemplation-land, I think.

Closer to our current, pandemic-confined lives, my fifth-floor rooftop has on occasions served as the place where the cosmic rays of contemplation have enveloped my being. Kites, crows and pigeons often seemed to signal their concurrence. For as little as five or ten minutes, feeling elemental even in the midst of a dense urban settlement has been truly rewarding.

Other times, when I meditate, I usually allow some brief periods of contemplation prior to meditation or after it. For example, instead of hurrying off to the daily chores immediately after opening my eyes, I keep sitting still and relaxed for a while. Contemplation, I believe, can be a useful aid to and a great companion of your meditation practice.

Now, let me tell you that there’s no method or technique to practicing contemplation. The only tips I can perhaps offer you is to be yourself (you can be you when alone, right?) and not to try too hard to relax your mind.

Let the smoothness of the universe rub off on you like a balm. Let the intricate web of consciousness work its magic. Rejoice and rest in the becalming ocean of gentle thought-waves.

So that’s my simple idea of some quality me-time. Say hello to Contemplation!

How to Be Your Own Guru

Image: Pixabay.com

Can you recall a teacher you have studied under or met in your life whom you can call a true guru? One who not only taught a subject - but guided you through the ups and downs of life? Do you know someone who is up there among the highest mortals, imbuing you with their intelligence and helping you grow some of your own?

In the ancient Indian culture, the Sanskrit word 'guru' means one who shows you the light.

Some traditional pictures depict gurus sitting under the banyan or peepul tree, surrounded by ardent disciples listening intently to the often-bearded figures (the Buddha, the Jain Tirthankaras and a few others, however, are usually shown clean-shaven and radiating wisdom).

Such gurus could expound on the science of archery or the dilemmas of a king as easily as the ethical questions arising in the mind of a spiritual seeker.

Alas, in our current age of electricity, smartphones and artificial intelligence, trying to find a true guru sounds like a dumb idea. Why, haven't we already seen too many babas - bearded or otherwise - falling prey to the lure of lust and lucre? And while these 'fake gurus' are often glib-talkers who have mugged up tons of religious literature, listening to them involves more pain than pleasure - forget about spiritual delight.

Rather than radiate wisdom, they exude wealth.

Instead of simplicity, their appearance reveals affectedness.

No thatched huts and long walks for them - but a retinue of confidants officiously commanding the Mercs and the Audis to take them to their mansions often as palatial as their egos.

Enough madness.

Where does that leave you, a seeker in search of a spiritual guru? How on earth are you going to find a divine persona to show you the light and guide you on a path you can proudly call your dharma?

It doesn't look likely in this largely chaotic, greed-infested world where anyone you may repose your faith in today could turn out to be just another impostor tomorrow: there are too many of them in the swindlers list!

(Also read: My Experiments with Sudarshan Kriya, Pranayama and Meditation)

What, then?

Who, where, how, when?

Now, just do as I say. Stand in front of a mirror. Take a deep, penetrative look at the face staring at you. Frown, smile or make faces for a while if that helps. But come back to the gaze. You gazing at you - like never before.

Do it for a few seconds, minutes, hours...length of time does not matter, strength and sincerity of the gaze does. (But hey, don't do it for days or weeks, okay :)

What words come to your mind, what thoughts? How do you regard yourself when seen in the mirror like this perhaps for the first time?

Now do another thing. Sit down in a relaxed pose, close your eyes and think thoughts of yourself.

Both in front of the mirror and while sitting with closed eyes, try and sift through the major attributes of your personality. The defining moments of your life. Your decisions that mattered to you and to those around you who you loved and cared for.

I am reminded of a famous quote of leadership coach and author John Wooden: "The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching."

As you look deep inside yourself and no one but you is watching, you will find a rare clarity emerge. You will know, in hindsight in this 'exercise' - which can gradually turn into here-and-now-wisdom and maybe foresight over time - you will know why those decisions and choices turned out the way they did.

You will know the warts in your thoughts and not just on your face. You will know that perhaps the little things gave you more joy than the big rewards - and the problems that once seemed insurmountable are all but gone now (That there are new problems now is another matter).

More important, you may realize how foolish you were to blame others or fate for your own doing.

Spending more time like this in the honest reflection of your thoughts will help you see the power of your own inner light.

In fact, most of us know - through intuition and traditional wisdom passed down the generations irrespective of religious leanings - the ever-presence of such an inner light in the core of our being.

While our upbringing, the social and economic environment we live in, and the life imperatives we have bound ourselves to, may have some impact on the brilliance and the frequency of 'visibility' of this light, it is my belief that the light itself is integral and essential to us.

I tend to be in agreement with Mark Twain's words: "In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice."

This inner light imparts a keen sense of perception, of what is right and wrong at any given moment, what one should or should not do in certain circumstances. It can indeed prod us to higher, better versions of ourselves - much like the collective wisdom of open source programmers these days can shape a beautiful piece of code.

Guiding yourself by your own inner light is perhaps how you can be your own guru.

So, why not give it a try?

Happy Guru Purnima to You!

Six Bright Gems to Shine a Light on World Book Day

Image: Pixabay.com

In this age of reality TV, Twitter and Pokemon Go (which seems to have really gone somewhere), one may be tempted to ask the question: Why read? In fact, the late Steve Jobs once famously remarked (while discounting Amazon’s Kindle reader): “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.”

Thankfully, people continue to read—even though there are skirmishes about whether it is the printed books or the digital ones doing better (or worse) than the other. What one hopes, though, is that it is not the same book or set of books that most people end up reading—be it a JK Rowling in the West, or a Chetan Bhagat here in India (no offence to either writer, even though it may make Rowling squirm and Bhagat smirk). The diversity of both the readers and the books they read—and obviously the writers who write them—should grow, I feel. Okay, change that to must.

Having said that, I’m in a difficult position to proceed with this post. Because, out of a few hundred books I have read in my life thus far (should have been in the thousands, I know!), I’m only going to pick up six. (I promise to make a long-list of my favorites someday.)

So, without further ado, let me say something about each of them before the World Book Day gets over--and before some people might be compelled to think it is all right to skip reading books! Here goes (in no particular order):

The Old Man and the Sea: Master storyteller Ernest Hemingway indeed crafted an amazing tale of endurance in which an old fisherman is pitted against the might of the sea and one of its creatures he struggles to catch after a really long patch of bad luck. How he manages this adventure, what he says (I remember him saying something like that the fish he was trying to kill was like his brother in a setting I would never forget; you must read it to know what I mean), and how he behaves after his ‘victory’…The old man is a real-life hero and the book, a rare gem.

A Search in Secret India: Paul Brunton’s classic quest to seek out and meet the real yogis of India in the early part of the nineteenth century is largely credited with introducing Raman Maharishi to the Western audience. What endeared me to this book--besides of course the desire to know more about the Maharishi and his message of ‘Who am I?’—is the honesty of purpose and the integrity of a journalistic writer to get to the bottom of the truth (whether he did get to the truth or not is something I’m still exploring, since I haven’t read his oeuvre and am myself at a ‘seeking’ stage). He met lots of charlatans and frauds but apparently some genuine yoga practitioners as well, before finding his inner peace at the Maharishi’s ashram in southern India.

Autobiography of a Yogi: One of the most widely read books in the spirituality genre, what Paramahansa Yogananda did in this life-changing book was give a first-hand account of some of India’s sages and saints—besides a glimpse of his own tenacity to promote yoga and the teachings of his guru, Yukteshwar Giri. Not to forget the mystical, all-youthful and divine figure of Mahavatar Babaji—Google it to unlock a cornucopia of information. (Ironically, it is one of the books Steve Jobs is said to have read many times over, though we cannot be sure of how much he believed in the book’s divine incidents and miracles.)

Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse): That this tiny book continues to engage and enchant millions of readers more than 90 years after its publication is testimony to its power and message of spiritual journey and self-discovery. It doesn't matter that it draws from ancient Indian spiritual and Buddhist thought; what matters is that it weaves in a simple narrative the recurrence of everything in our lives, the deceptive nature of our day-to-day rituals, the joys and sorrows of mundane human existence and, ultimately, the "song of the river" that keeps humming forever in our soul. Beautiful, heartfelt, ethereal, simple and profound all at the same time, Siddhartha cannot be recommended highly enough.

Atlas Shrugged: While Ayn Rand’s more famous book is The Fountainhead (which I tremendously like as well), I have picked up this one here for two reasons. One, it is the bulkier of the two and you get to stay with Rand all that bit more (if you are a Rand fan, you’ll know what I mean). Two, I found it more detailed and expressive of her philosophy of objectivism through an even more richly woven tapestry of super-solid characters: Dagny Taggert, Henry ‘Hank’ Reardon (whenever I thought of steel after reading the book, Reardon’s name reared in my head!), Francisco d’Anconia, Hugh Akston (“Contraction does not exist; check your premises”)…and, how can anyone miss it, John Galt! Check it out yourself—who is John Galt to ask you to read it?

The Outsider (also published under the title, The Stranger): This quiet reflection by Albert Camus on life and what matters--through a seemingly simplistic but profound story of a man accused of murdering his mother (the accusation resulting mainly from the observation that he did not follow the norm of crying at her death, if I remember correctly)--is one of those books that touch you gradually but deeply, irrevocably. It is all right not to be too ambitious but lead a joyful and uncomplicated life—that is the message I get again and again from the book, besides revisiting the notions of what it really means to love, be loved and lose those you love to time’s strange ways. Simply superb and highly relevant in our consumerist, gadget-obsessed times.

Like I said before, this is a woefully short list—but I’m happy to have shared it with you for what it is worth. Hope you will find at least one or two of them useful.

Happy reading :)

Can You Imagine How the Buddha Played the Flute?

We all know that Lord Krishna played the flute and held the entire world in the sway of its music. One of his several names is Bansidhar, which means the holder of the flute. So it came as a pleasant surprise to me that Buddha, the enlightened one, too, played this divine musical instrument made from the bamboo plant. And oh boy, did he play it beautifully!

The revelation came through the book Old Path White Clouds by revered Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. The book is a majestic retelling of Buddha’s eighty years of life built on multiple sources and accounts in several languages.

While Nhat Hanh mentions a young Siddhartha (Buddha’s given name) playing the flute serenely under a moonlit sky in the early chapters of the book, to me the real magic and melody of Buddha’s flute came alive in Chapter Twenty-Five, aptly titled Music’s Lofty Peaks.

In the episode, Buddha is said to have met a group of young people in a forest between Varanasi and Rajagriha (written Rajagaha in the book, now the city of Rajgir in Bihar). As the story goes, one of them asked the Buddha to play the flute for them just as some of them burst out laughing, dismissing the idea of a monk playing the flute.

Never the one to be perturbed, the Buddha just smiled.

Now, as the Buddha took a few deep breaths and put the flute to his lips, can you imagine how those young men felt? Can you imagine the music that wafted magically in the wind of that forest? Before he touched the first note, the Buddha reflected on how many, many years ago he played the flute as the Sakya prince in the capital city of Kapilvastu.

I believe it must take the spiritual depth and simplistic genius of a true monk to put forth the description that follows. This is how Thich Nhat describes the Buddha playing the flute in his book:

“The sound was as delicate as a thin strand of smoke curling gently from the roof of a simple dwelling outside Kapilavatthu at the hour of the evening meal. Slowly the thin strand expanded across space like a gathering of clouds which in turn transformed into a thousand-petalled lotus, each petal a different shimmering color. It seemed that one flutist suddenly had become ten thousand flutists, and all the wonders of the universe had been transformed into sounds—sounds of a thousand colors and forms, sounds as light as a breeze and quick as the pattering of rain, clear as a crane flying overhead, intimate as a lullaby, bright as a shining jewel, and subtle as the smile of one who has transcended all thoughts of gain and loss. The birds of the forest stopped singing in order to listen to this sublime music, and even the breezes ceased rustling the leaves. The forest was enveloped in an atmosphere of total peace, serenity, and wonder.”

Can you imagine how the Buddha played the flute?

As I read those lyrical words, I could feel a certain peace within my own self. It is as if you are being transported into another realm of existence on the wings of a swan. As if the gentle embrace of a child is holding you in its inexplicable delight. As if your heart has become so much full of love and divine grace that it is overflowing with joy…As if all the pain of thousands of years buried deep in the multiple births of your existence is melting away into a single note of relief…

Can you, can you imagine how the Buddha played the flute!

An Open Letter to Rajkumar Hirani and Others on Using Religion in Movies

Dear Mr Hirani and Mr Vinod Chopra,

I recently had the pleasure of watching your movie, PK, in which Aamir Khan plays an alien who descends on Earth in the middle of a Rajasthan desert and happens to undertake a jaunt through the idiosyncrasies of multiple religions in search of his lost remote control (that would enable him to go back to his planet).

First of all, let me congratulate you on your attempt to send a much-needed message through the film: that we have too many fake godmen here on this our own planet who take gullible people for a ride and it is high time we saw them in their true colors. I particularly liked the “wrong number” analogy through which a TV channel and its reporter (played by Anushka Sharma) are able to reach out to the masses and spur them on to some action against the fraudsters who dupe folks in the name of religion.

But there is an episode that is in the crosshairs of a multitude of people in India, some of who are demanding a ban on the movie for hurting their religious sentiments. Let me recount it here briefly for the benefit of those who may not have watched it.

In the controversial scene, a nincompoopish PK (the lead character of the alien played by Aamir with a stupid demeanor that I think comes naturally to him ever since his Satyamev Jayate shoots) chases a wimpy “Lord Siva” (played apparently by a Sikh), who is going to the loo in the middle of a stage show that is supposed to highlight the fearlessness and other divine qualities of the Hindu God. Obviously, the poor guy is just a character in a cheap stage act and ends up fleeing from and cowering before an aggressive PK, who even locks him up in the toilet.

I know most people who saw it probably laughed it off, knowing that the fella whom Aamir was chasing in the movie is NOT Lord Siva but just a stage actor.

But you must know that millions of Hindus truly worship Lord Siva and what He signifies and I think you should NOT have used the controversial imagery to build your storyline or screenplay.

Interestingly, in the movie, PK was led to believe that only God can help him get back his remote control and so he visits the places of worship of Hindus, Christians and Muslims to propitiate divine forces (though, in the case of the mosque, he is chased away by angry mullahs even before he sets his foot on the premises, what with two bottles of wine in his hands as offerings).

Along the way, you have shown PK attacking the blind beliefs of symbolic-religious-minded people.

When all that PK gets is thappads (slaps on the cheek) and realizes that no god is helping him get what he wants, he becomes forlorn and puts up posters of various gods on city walls with the word MISSING written in bold letters.

Hiraniji and Chopraji, PK goes to the temples of various religions but the MISSING posters show only Hindu gods.

Why?

Do you or Aamir…I mean PK…think that the gods of other religions are PRESENT in the classrooms of devotees, serving their intended function?

A lot of angry people on social media believe you deliberately chose to show Hindus, Hindu gods and godmen in poor light because A) it is easy to target Hindus, as they are soft, liberal or do not mind someone lampooning them or their faith B) part of the funding for the movie/promotion has come from Islamist terrorists or organizations with links to terrorism (throw in some dollars from Christian missionaries as well) and C) you have grown stupider since your past couple of movie successes such as Munnabhai MBBS and 3 Idiots.

I can’t be sure what the truth is. Like I said before, the message of human unity is timely and much-needed in this weird age of scientific advance commingled with religious fundamentalism. But I think you are barking up the wrong tree in your movie: Hinduism.

Let me make it clear that I admit much is wrong with Hindu godmen and our own bunch of stupid, wide-eyed blind devotees—and I have myself written against them (see my blog post here, if you get time from counting the box office collections of PK).

But hey, HELLO!! Can’t you see which religious group is causing the most terror and atrocities in the world today?

By heavily lading your movie against one religion, you seem to have fomented trouble as well as diluted the underlying message the film could have otherwise delivered more emphatically.

It is possible that you have simply overlooked this little detail (haven’t I already referred to many bouts of idiocy in this post?). I know you have tendered a generic apology and there are reports that the Siva sequence could be deleted. But the cash registers are ringing, no? In all possibility, you might be working on a sequel (who doesn’t like a neat, cash-generating movie franchise these days!)

But will it be possible for you, or any film maker in Bollywood for that matter, to show a stage actor playing “Jesus” or “Prophet” being chased and locked up in a toilet instead of a Hindu god?

Most probably NOT (to dissect the above question would require a lengthy exposition on what all is wrong today with folks, religions and beliefs in living harmoniously on the only planet we’ve got so far—but that would be another blog post.)

Or do you promise to act less foolishly next time around?

And what about the charges doing the rounds on social media? Would you care to counter them and be transparent?

Messrs. Hirani and Chopra, let me end this letter with a phrase from the country’s notoriously rambunctious news anchor, Ornab Shor-swami: “India wants to know.”

Meanwhile, I need to attend to some other correspondence meant for hateful fundamentalists, spurious devotees and a guy popularly called NaMo…