Can't read the paper anymore

Have to do something! The headline in the paper yesterday shook me up. 'Nun gangraped' - as someone who fondly remembers my school education governed by the 'Fathers' and 'Sisters', this somehow shakes me at my core. The service done by the Church in India is, in my opinion, has covered people who have fallen through the cracks in society. They are into education, health, income generation, you name it. And to see the dignity of a young nun ripped apart like this makes me repudiate our not-so-civil society.

It seems fashionable to bash institutions that do good work that can't be questioned. So when you have an irrational hate, you will try and dig up dirt wherever you can to justify this hate. And any big organization will have some things people don't agree with....with all these decades of service with such a broad base, come on!

But then, do I agree with fringe elements in my religion? They scare me and tar Hinduism - a religion that is based on the freedom to choose and follow with no rules, in whichever way one wants. Do we let that work in this way? Absolutely not. We have to invent poojas and chant shlokas - if the meaning of the shloka were to be examined, it could very well say something like "be good and things will work out!"

Hello, all religions also say repect women...not worship the devi at the temple and stamp the one at home with your boot!

So with the church, there could be sticking points. Forcible conversions are not a palatable possibility - not because people choose to convert....no problem with that. If the choice is taken away, there is a problem. And to my mind, I have not seen enough proof of that. So what do they do? Lock you up until you convert? And hope to have that religion stick? The whole thing stinks of irrational hate to me.

I think what bothers people most is that there is a lacuna in the current religion's systems that makes people want to change, even if that means they lose favour in their personal society. This makes each one question their own choices and when these choices seem shaky, it is easier to point outwards instead of the tough work of figuring out our own lives.

So now, the fundamentalist monkeys want to forcibly 're'convert people, if they want to go back to live in their own homes in Orissa. I am sorry, this is justified how? An eye for an eye makes the world blind....blind sounds like a better option right now to seeing nun gangrape become part of our reality.

Signing off on Gandhiji's birthday.....how did that guy do it in this society?!