Hinduism

Protecting India’s Children
New Delhi’s Police Commissioner has a role, whether he admits it or not.

On Not Leaving Kashmir
The boatman barely flicked his wrist, yet we moved forward in a terrifically straight line. How was he doing it?

Om. Hindu. Huh?
Yoga. Fifteen million practitioners in the United States…and not one unified position on what exactly yoga is. What a surprise! And yet the debate rages on, among Southern Baptists and Orthodox Jews just to name a couple of religious groups, about whether or not yoga is a specifically Hindu practice, and whether to practice it is…

The Dark Side of the Festival of Lights
I knew something was changing in India when I arrived for Diwali about ten years back and some of my nephews were boycotting the five-day Hindu Festival of Lights. While subtler forms of light are used too—a cascade of clay oil lamps illuminating sets of stairs—firecrackers are the big attraction in this annual commemoration of good over…

Judgement for Ayodhya
Today, the Allahabad High Court in Lucknow, India announced its decisions in the Babri Masjid case, the controversial site that both Muslims and Hindus lay claim to in Ayodhya. Among other questions, the three-judge panel was determining whether the controversial site was indeed the birthplace of the Hindu Lord Ram. Sopan Joshi, of the Indian newsweekly Tehelka…

Killing the Crab-Buddha on MasterChef
To some extent, the goal of all reality TV competitions is to make their contestants uncomfortable. The stress is sometimes physical (how many cockroaches can you eat?) and sometimes mental (there’s a camera in every room of your house!). But what happens when the conflict is spiritual? Last week on MasterChef, host Gordon Ramsay announced…

moving
“People were getting auctioned up on stage but I didn’t see anything I wanted nor did I think I should be for sale.”

The Day Mumbai Unraveled
We’re pleased to share in celebrating the success of NonProphet Status’ Share Your Secular Story essay contest. This is the second of two winning essays that we’ll feature here on the KtBlog. by Vandana Goel LaClair Tied Winner, Interfaith category This is a story that begins in Mumbai, India. You see, Mumbai, my birth city,…