Opportunity of a Lifetime

"What does your surname mean?", was the innocent question.

Frankly, like countless last names, I have no idea what mine means, and have no idea why some ancestor of mine thought it appropriate enough to append to his first name. Maybe people in those days were in the habit of rattling pebbles in a tin can and creating last names that sounded like the resulting noise. Me and my last name have twisted many an American tongue. Mercifully, my first name's much simpler (though the aforementioned American tongue slipped often on that too). But I digress.

I was busy baking my noodle about my last name's meaning, when I had an epiphany, much like the shoe salesman who went to Africa and called back saying

"Great news Boss!! NO ONE wears shoes!!"

So I had a last name that meant nothing nothing to me, much less to anyone else. Twisting the point around, the question was no longer what it meant. The real question was, What did I want it to mean....

Roughly speaking, given that I have spent 30 years so far, and probably have an equal amount left, that is a good question to ask. What better way to leave behind a legacy, than one created through your actions..

Take for example, the word Tata. You say that name, and you think of vehicles, finance, software, watches, the works. And ofcourse, Tata Young (but thats a completely unrelated story). Who cared what Tata meant, until a chap named Jamshed arrived on the scene. For that matter, who cared what JRD or Ratan meant until they arrived on the scene. But each of them gave a unique meaning to their names. Veni, vidi, vici, vi-name. They came, they saw, they conquered, and they redefined their names to mean something much more that before.

No one knows my last name today, and the only reaction I get when people hear it, is a blink followed by a confounded look. Given 30 years, I could start a school or an orphanage, I could become a writer, I could become an accomplished musician, come to think of it, I could become the President. Or I could simply while away the remaining half, doing nothing meaningful, and slip into oblivion. Thus far, I used to kindof detest the meaninglessness of my last name.. But the chance and choice of imparting a meaning to my meaningless last name, has become an opportunity of my lifetime..

Why is 'He' not an 'It' ?

In my school days we used to have a prayer that went
"Our father in Heaven,
Holy be thy name.." and so on.

Looking back, I am puzzled why and how someone ever thought there was only a 'Father' in heaven. And no Mother. Basic biology suggests that a Father cannot be a Father without a mother in the first place. And humans, being intended to be an image of God, the converse should apply too - (ignore for a moment, that a cat also might think there's a Cat with 10 arms up in the air somewhere, with a slain dog at its feet).

But no. The powers that be, have decided that all religions should have a single supreme male deity. In my own religion, Hinduism, we have one male creator - Brahma - who, seemingly creates people to earn his paycheck. Finally, we have one thing on which some religions agree, and it ends up being the wrong thing.

The whole thing seems a sham, if you ask me - nothing more than testosterone and gender politics at work. Else, how can you explain why there's no female Pope, why no one has ever pondered the absence of a Daughter of God (how could a Father be so partial), why there's no female power in Islam, why most Hindu female deities (there are 1 or two exceptions) have second-class roles (like there's a Goddess for wealth, another for wisdom, but they more or less seem to sit by smiling while the all powerful male gods get all the fancy weapons to destroy evil in Hindu mythology), and why Adam was created first, not Eve, and why Eve gets the blame for the apple-eating - was Adam's mind out grazing grass at the time?

This is important. Because what we learn in our temples, mosques and churches affects our outlook in society. We are being primed by religion to assume male supremacy from the day we start taking cognizence of the world around us. Coupled with illiteracy and ignorance, this is the stuff that eventually leads to crimes against women - be it female foeticide or rape. A friend of mine recently had an outburst "All guys should be reborn as women some day". I find justification in her outburst. Society takes great pains to embed the thought that only a Man can be a Supreme Being. Perhaps, it would really help if one of the Shankaracharyas were to be reborn as a woman. For good measure, lets hope ALL the four Shankaracharyas are reborn as women. I bet they'd break into a cold sweat at the thought.

Religion seems to have eliminated all traces of female authority and relegated women to bearing and rearing children (Parvati, the consort of Hinduism's uber-god Shiva apparently created a new son to guard her. Hmm. She didn't think a daugther would be as effective?). No matter how liberalised women may seem to be, at the end of the day, they are forced to worship a 'He' and ask 'Him' for blessings or forgiveness. Think of it, there's no single religion that was ever lead by a woman. Or maybe there were many, but they got all squashed out. All this brings one of George Carlin's commentaries to mind. To paraphrase,
"War, crime, poverty, disease... do not belong on the resume of a supreme human being. In any other decently run universe, this guy would be out of a job in no time. And I say this 'guy' because no woman could or would ever muck things up like this.".

If God is really a "He' and not an 'It', men ought to be ashamed.