ams@philabs.UUCP (Ali Shaik) (01/11/86)
First of all, congratulations to Venkat Rangan on
the essay on Hindu Philosophy and Religion. For someone
like me who is Indian but not informed much on the
topic, it was a useful read.
However there are some small points I would like to
bring up:
[Venkat]:
to find out what constitutes the best set of rules to guide
the society. So Hindus do not fight over any of these. If
you find something illogical, you just change it.
So there is no fighting over going to temple 10 times
a day or not going to temple at all. No fighting as to
whether you must charge interest or not. No fighting
as to whether you should not eat animal A's meat or animal B's meat
or no meat at all. No fanatical fighting over whether dowry is
good or not.
[Me]: It seems to me there is too little in the way of
change, very little [fanatical fighting] to eradicate
dowry in Indian society. Some of us here, with the master's and
doctorates, accept larger dowries.
And this problem is not endemic to India, I have
heard of marriage expenses being borne largely by
the bride's family, "down payments" for houses, etc
among the "janta" here.
As far as vegetarianism goes, it is a personal choice.
However I find something of a brainwashed :-) fanatic
in two of my friends, who refuse to touch cookies
processed with animal lard. Where does one draw the line?
The posting of Muralidhara Subbarao was good too, however
I have comments on:
[Murali]:
descrimination on the basis of race, religion, social class
or sex. For all practical purposes, caste does not affect
a lay man except to a small extent in villages. More than
95% of the people have probably not even heard of Manu's
code.
[Me]: As a counter-example, I point out the same MS's
and PhDs here who would like to go back home and marry,
and specifically wait for matches from the same
caste. I do agree [and hope] it is "fading away,"
but one can't cure the problem by ignoring it.
- Ali "Bangalore" Shaik (ihnp4!philabs!ams)sankar@Shasta.ARPA (01/15/86)
> As far as vegetarianism goes, it is a personal choice. > However I find something of a brainwashed :-) fanatic > in two of my friends, who refuse to touch cookies > processed with animal lard. Where does one draw the line? > > - Ali "Bangalore" Shaik (ihnp4!philabs!ams) I see absolutely nothing fanatical about not wanting to eat animal lard. Vegetarians, at least in India, are against the killing of animals. Thus animal lard cannot be eaten since it is a product of animal slaughter. I would consider a vegetarian (who defines what he does not eat as something that is a product of animal slaughter) who eats cookies processed with animal lard contradicting his principles. Incidentally, for those of you who do not know, most probably Ali is referring to Oreo cookies. Actually, I see more fanaticism in things like people who eat meat but do not want to consume blood. Incidentally, "Bangalore", are you the same "Bangalore" who used to be at Stanford? Sriram.