Krishna as a dating icon
In this light, yet another seemingly controversial image [via Indianpad] seems to have irked the prudish sensibilities of the ranting Hindu right. I am not sure if they deserve to represent Hindus when in fact most of these protests emanate from culture shock of changing times. I am a Hindu and am actually quite proud of my religion’s open, tolerant, accepting culture and its willingness to adapt with the times. The issue – The Times of India published an advertisement called ‘Dating Sutra’ on its website promoting a commercial SMS service to facilitate dating. The images are reproduced below:
The protesting Hindu right group – Hindu Janjagruti Samiti – is apparently peeved by this depiction of Lord Krishna and claim that “Gopis are symbolic of boundless devotion”. They are also angry that Lord Krishna is used to promote dating that the group considers a “social vice” and defines it as “obscene behavior indulged by young girls and boys under the pretext of meeting each other”. Now I wholly support their right to protest and express their displeasure at their interpretation of the advertisement as long as they do not indulge in physical harm or destruction of property. I understand they need to raise funds to keep their Samiti running and any publicity even if it paints you as Luddites stuck in the dark ages helps.
However, I do not agree with their interpretation and certainly do not appreciate them claiming to represent “crores of Hindus”. Lord Krishna even in his depiction in our mythology was no saint and was known more for his pranks, devious and sly behavior than for any accomplishments on the battlefield. In fact, he is loved and worshipped often in that form for being natkat and maakhan chor (don’t we all love Govinda).
His interactions with the gopis were certainly not ‘devotional’ and in fact, he was one of the first ‘players’ that we can recall in Indian mythology. He was seen as a prankster who loved to torment them. Maybe they later turned devotional because he showed them something cool. Ram and Lakshman were too stuck-up and pious for their own good. These aren’t my insinuations but mere stating the way mythology depicts them.
Krishna certainly enjoyed his childhood and adolescent years much more than Ram and Lakshman ever did and he even seemed to enjoy it. Remember, he never ever in his later life regretted flirting abashedly with all the ‘gaaon ki gooris‘ and having umpteen wives. And we Hindus are fine with it and that doesn’t even diminish our love and devotion toward him. In fact, we worship him alongside a woman who never even was his wife. Even unrequited loved is worshiped. So why get hot and bothered if he chooses to do it with SMS and cell phones? He might just have done it if he lived in these times. We cheer our Bollywood heroes when they do the same in our movies so why deny our gods that pleasure.
Why I consider the Samiti’s protests more as a cultural shock than being offended on religious grounds is because the way they define dating. I am sure none of the people protesting have gone out on dates. In their minds, when boys and girls meet, they invariably end up having sex which by definition is ‘obscene behavior’. Or wait! Even holding hands by couples is defined as obscene these days. What’s next – protesting against ‘love marriage’ because it is an obscene way of getting married? I can think of responding to this insinuation in a way that they will understand best – tere baap ka kya jaa raha hai (your father what goes…heh). I will never end up using TOI’s ‘dating sutra’ service but that doesn’t stop the Times from exploiting our mythology for commercial gains. Heck, if we can do it for political gain, I say we can do it for anything.
“Krishna as a dating icon” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=2052] was published Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 12:30 pm by Patrix, filed under India, Rants, Recommended, Religion, Society Culture, and tagged as India, Rants, Religion. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.
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I actually found the TOI depiction of Krishna with the shades cool. :) For once they had something creative to show. Although on second thoughts he looks a bit like MGR and NT Rama Rao of yesteryears. (I don’t know if you’ve seen them, esp NTR who has a record of playing Lord Krishna in his movies)
In fact you must try out the dating sutra thingy. After all if Krishna could do it, why not his bhakt! (Giving you a way to reason with your to be better half) :)
Ofcourse it’s a different matter that she might kill me upon reading this!
3 years ago reply“I will never end up using TOI’s ‘dating sutra’ service”
So you may end up using someone other dating service ? ;)
3 years ago replyPiker, Yup! I found it maha-cool too and loved the kitsch design. And yeah, I know what you are talking about regarding MGR and NT Rama Rao. I wonder why people didn’t protest that. Prolly coz they enjoyed it. I just wish we didn’t take our gods that seriously all the time.
bloghopper, couldn’t resist, eh? :) You guys are hell bent upon planning my divorce even before I get married.
3 years ago replyAs you have supported this advertisement, let me ask you a straight forward yes/no style question. In name of freedom of expression and advertisements do you support cartoons of Mohammed by danish cartoonist?
I guess mostly you will not dare to publish my comment.
3 years ago replyHow can you conclude that HJS and protesting Hindus are generating money out of this? How this thing will generate money for HJS?
Allegations supported with proofs makes sense and worthy of consideration. Avoid baseless claims otherwise your site will soon become annoucement board of your fancy thoughts and ideas….
3 years ago replySree Krishna Devotee,
>> do you support cartoons of Mohammed by danish cartoonist?
Yes.
>> your site will soon become annoucement (sic) board of your fancy thoughts and ideas
Ah! someone who finally understands what blogs are.
3 years ago replybtw, what in the world is that ‘Buy me a beer’ and ‘wanna be friends’ thingy on your sidebar? Care to elaborate? I don’t want to click on them lest I gift you with cash without knowing what it is :)
3 years ago replyPiker, damn! you already noticed it, eh? Was goinna write about it. It is a plugin with a modified Paypal donate button…more like a tip jar. BTW gotta meet up…today might be difficult so may be tomorrow.
3 years ago replyand after all this there’s another big storm about deification of policitians .
when will we learn!
i shall stick to my Dilbert :D
3 years ago replyThis seems to have become the rallying call for Hindu extremists.
3 years ago reply“Oh you infidel Hindu. You support cartoons (obscene, in our opinion) of your 10 millions gods. Do you support Danish cartoons of Mohammed?”.
As if all issues black and white in this world. The issue is two-fold in case of the Danish cartoons.
One: there was the artist with his freedom of expression, which most blogger whole heartedly support.
Two: This was a white Danish guy cracking a joke at the expense of a Muslim minority in Denmark. While he has his freedom of expression there is the little thing about political correctness and religious senstivity. On that count, the cartoonist was wrong.
Three: (ok I lied about the two-fold part) Then there was the reaction by Muslim extremists resulting in the deaths of people. The first two are minor incidents compared to this. Of course, you wont hear any extremist refer to this aspect of that controversy.
Santosh, ever notice they never seem to come back after we have answered their question?
3 years ago replyPatrix,
3 years ago replyDont mean to be a discussion killer but when sometimes you have to remind folks that they are not looking at the entire picture :-)
Santosh, trust me I have done that a lot but to someone who simply refuses to listen it isn’t enough and nothing ever will be.
3 years ago reply