Nun, Kolkata

We were wandering around aimlessly looking for photo opportunities when we walked through a decaying, stone gate into a peaceful courtyard. We were greeted with warmth and kindness by the nuns.

They thought we were young priests from Australia visiting their convent.

Even when we told them we were in fact corporate restructuring advisors they laughed and made us feel welcome.

When the moon is at its brightest

Happy Thaipusam! Some facts about the Hindu festival Thaipusam and more here.

Girl, Kolkata

Clouds And Waves

Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
    "We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
    We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."
    I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"
    They answer, "Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds."
    "My mother is waiting for me at home, "I say, "How can I leave
her and come?"
    Then they smile and float away.
    But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
    I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
    I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
    The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
    "We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass."
    I ask, "But how am I to join you?"
    They tell me, "Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves."
    I say, "My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?"
    They smile, dance and pass by.
    But I know a better game than that.
    I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
    I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
    And no one in the world will know where we both are.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Maker of Hindu Deities & Kabir

Happy Deepavali to all. In celebration, set out below is a poem from Kabir, a fascinating poet and religious leader.

I Won't Come

I won’t come
I won’t go
I won’t live
I won’t die

I’ll keep uttering
The name
And lose myself
In it

I’m bowl
And I’m platter
I’m man
And I’m woman

I’m grapefruit
And I’m sweet lime
I’m Hindu
And I’m Muslim

I’m fish
And I’m net
I’m fisherman
And I’m time

I’m nothing
Says Kabir
I’m not among the living
Or the dead

Kabir
Trans. from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra who writes of a story:

"... after he died both Hindus and Muslims laid claim to his body. A quarrel broke out but when they lifted the shroud they saw instead of the corpse a heap of flowers. The two communities divided the flowers and performed Kabir’s last rites, each according to its custom."

Source: Poetry (March 2011) & Poetry Foundation

Boy, Parsi Fire Temple, Kolkata

“Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories...they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, loss and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Only the details are different.”

Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters

"The First Parsi to arrive in Singapore – a Crown Colony founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 – was Mr. Muncherjee. When he fell seriously ill in 1929, an Armenian named Aristarcus Sarkies persuaded the Parsis in China to buy a burial place for Zoroastrians in Singapore. Funds were raised by the Parsi Traders to buy a plot of land in the most prestigious banking area of Shenton Way. In 1948, more land was bought adjacent to it to build a bungalow as a Parsi Lodge for Parsi Traders from China to rest and to hold Zoroastrian Religious Ceremonies."

The Parsi Zoroastrian Association of Singapore

The Zoroastrian religion is over 3,500 years old. Originating in Persia, the Zoroastrians were refugees who fled to India in the 10th century to escape oppression.

The Prophet Zarathustra predated Christ. 

Nietzsche had a lot to say about Zarathustra … While Nietzsche's concerns were less about Zoroastrians and more about religion and the nature of man, there was clear intent and meaning in the choice of Zarathustra as his mouthpiece.

"My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his very earliest youth: he once told me that even as a child he had dreamt of him. At different periods in his life, he would call this haunter of his dreams by different names; "but in the end," he declares in a note on the subject, "I had to do a PERSIAN the honour of identifying him with this creature of my fancy. Persians were the first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history. Every series of evolutions, according to them, was presided over by a prophet; and every prophet had his 'Hazar,'—his dynasty of a thousand years.""

Mrs Forster-Nietzsche, Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra

The Zoroastrian version of the Golden Rule: "What you don't want done to you, don't do to others." Who can disagree with that?

Homework:

1. Freddie Mercury was a Zoroastrian. Analyse the influence of Zoroastrian belief and theology on Bohemian Rhapsody.
2. WB Yeats is said to have contacted Zarathustra through automatic writing. Spend a few hours automatic writing. Speak to Zarathustra and ask him for his views on Nietzsche and Easter 1916. 
3. Zarathustra was said by some to be the son of an alien god. Watch Ridley Scott's Alien and list all arguments in favour of such celestial speculation. 

Man at the Burning Ghats, Kolkata

Asylum seekers: my country, my shame

"As a young person I had never thought, as I do now, that I would be ashamed to be an Australian. One of the main reasons for that shame, but not the only one, is our policies towards asylum seekers and Aboriginal people. Both issues directly affected me in my former role as Chief Justice of the Family Court, but today I will discuss asylum seekers."

..

"It seems that what both parties really want is to appeal to xenophobic views rejecting the arrival of these people in Australia when the solution of receiving them in a humane fashion and processing their applications quickly and efficiently, where necessary after their arrival in Australia is so obvious. The calumnies heaped on the Greens in relation to their immigration policy are pure exercises in hypocrisy because they are the only party with a decent and humane policy towards refugees."

"I believe that we must continue to oppose the government and opposition policies which, taken together or separately, are the real reason that people find it necessary to expose themselves to the horrible risks associated with travelling by boat to Australia."

"It is also time that we put the "problem" in proportion. As The Age columnist Tim Soutphommasane noted in a 2011 St James Ethics Centre paper, Australia received 15,226 boat arrivals, compared with Greece's 56,180, Italy's 91,821 and Spain's 74,317. These are European countries in dire economic circumstances in sharp contrast to ours."

"It is more than time that we got rid of such pejorative and inappropriate terms such as "queue jumping" and "border protection" and brought some humanity to bear on this issue. These are human beings, many of them families with children who are affected so let us stop talking nonsense about "stopping the boats", and "processing" people and get on with helping them."

"How did we get ourselves into this state? Australia is rapidly becoming an international pariah, riding roughshod over solemn treaty obligations into which it has entered like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Refugee Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Alistair Nicholson, The Age, 4 July 2014