Dear OMG! Team,
I watched the movie OMG! Oh My God! today and have many
complaints. I think it would be sane and reasonable to express my feeling and
opinion about your production by writing to you, instead of filing a case
against God for allowing you to make such a movie. Just like you chose to identify
God with Lord Krishna in the movie, by OMG Team I mean to address director
Umesh Shukla, producers Ashvini Yardi, Akshay Kumar &; Paresh Rawal, and writers
Bhavesh Mandalia &; Umesh Shukla.
Complain#1: You
are copy-cats and it shames our country India:
I found that your movie is "inspired by" (read:
copied from) an English movie. The original movie is "The Man Who Sued
God" which clearly has exact matching plot as in your movie. Since it was
made many years before your movie has come up, it is clear who copied
whom. I read about The Man Who Sued God here: [Link1], [Link2]
It is pretty evident that you copied the concept and plot of your movie and it
shows badly for our nation. Why couldn’t you be original? If you made a remake
of that movie, why didn’t you take permission from them and also mention it in
writing in the credits?
Complain#2: You
went on telling lies that you hadn’t make the movie for “earning money”:
I read it at many places about your claim that you had made
this movie to spread awareness and not to “earn money”: [Link1],
[Link2].
But having watched the movie, I felt otherwise and here are my reasons. There are
at least two brands which have been openly promoted (obviously leading to
commercial gains). One is Godrej and the other is ABP News. At least in two
scenes, the Godrej brand has been clearly projected with intent to advertise. In one of these, when the
entire building falls to the ground, a “Godrej locker” remains safe and a
character announces it by saying like, “only this Godrej locker has remained safe”. The
other brand, ABP News is shamelessly promoted with full screen real-like displays of ABP
News logo and channel’s live look-alike feed. Of course you were not promoting Godrej
and ABP News as an “Act of Charity”. If you claim so, I will ask, “Why only Godrej? Why
only ABP News”? No loss to the plot had happened if you didn't mention those brand names on the screen. Of course you wanted to earn money and even employed such marketing gimmicks to make that "extra" buck. Then why go on telling lies to everyone that you didn’t
make the movie for earning money? Is it an atheist's license?
Complaint#3: You
were unfair in choosing to attack Hinduism alone by and large, and showed Hindu
spiritual gurus in a biased and disgraceful manner:
Even the poster of your movie shows [Link1] that
you chose to attack Hinduism to the maximum extent possible and all posters
highlighted your choosing Hinduism as the uniquely identified religion your main
character was attacking in the movie. To "demonize" Hindu riligious figures, you chose actor Govind Namdeo as
Siddeshwar Maharaj while Govind Namdeo always plays negative and villains'
characters in the movies. For Leeladhar swami, you chose Mithun Chakraborty but
gave him a female-like behavior with weird hand movements which generate
irritation in the minds of viewers. You made his hair, white costumes and getup
to give resemblance to Sri Sri Ravishankar and it was very corrupt and manipulating.
The Bhagawat Geeta shown in your movie had clear resemblance towards the ones published by ISKCON and most of the saints and religious figures in the movie had a unique tilak mark on their forehead which made them appear like ISKCON members. Perhaps you chose ISKCON because it is very popular outside India and people identify it with Hindu group at many places. (On the other hand, you tried your best to make your main protagonist Kanjibhai gain public sympathy. If a well educated young man criticized Hinduism while wearing shirt-pant, may be public would have shrugged him off for being immature, so you made him a rather old man wearing dhoti-kurta, gave him a look of beard, made him cough and show frail health, all gaining public sympathy which could be used to your advantage later on.) The character of female spiritual
Guru was after Shri
Radhe Maa who is shown doing nothing wrong in the movie but still has
been projected as a vamp.
What was most revealing was that your movie chose to make fun of almost everything related to Hinduism and Hinduism alone. Be it when Kanjibhai called Shivalingam as “kala pathhar”, made mockery of rebirth and reincarnation theory and also of the practice of keeping fasts, or even threw a stone at Lord Krishna’s idol (though he misses it, he threw it with full hatred), and in the last scene, Kanjibhai broke the head of an idol which was supposed to be of Lord Vishnu’s incarnation as Kanjibhai. After the idol’s head was broken down, the remaining of the idol was exactly like Lord Vishnu’s and it was a horrifying scene for any God loving person to see an idol in such a state. I felt sad and angry and cursed you for showing such crude scenes. What else could I do? May be you would suggest me going to the court to file a case against you?
What was most revealing was that your movie chose to make fun of almost everything related to Hinduism and Hinduism alone. Be it when Kanjibhai called Shivalingam as “kala pathhar”, made mockery of rebirth and reincarnation theory and also of the practice of keeping fasts, or even threw a stone at Lord Krishna’s idol (though he misses it, he threw it with full hatred), and in the last scene, Kanjibhai broke the head of an idol which was supposed to be of Lord Vishnu’s incarnation as Kanjibhai. After the idol’s head was broken down, the remaining of the idol was exactly like Lord Vishnu’s and it was a horrifying scene for any God loving person to see an idol in such a state. I felt sad and angry and cursed you for showing such crude scenes. What else could I do? May be you would suggest me going to the court to file a case against you?
Though in the later part of the movie you showed representatives
from other religions namely Islam and Christianity also, your characters in the
movie never insulted, harmed or ridiculed the basic elements of their faith,
like you made him do against Hindu gods and symbols. I felt it was unfair to choose
only Hinduism as target for such a movie.Your movie could have been neutral and subtle when it attacks God
and religion, like in Bruce Almighty or its Indian remake God Tussi Great Ho,
and in that case I won’t have felt bad about it. But you chose to “name” the
God as Lord Krishna, "name" the religion as "Hinduism" by and large and you made the religious organizations pretty evidently
identifiable with real-life Hindu spiritual masters.
General observations and review:
You were so busy ridiculing and making fun of Hindu
spiritual Gurus and symbols that you forgot some basic structure of the story.
For example, the movie didn’t throw any light on why Kanjibhai was an atheist. From
the beginning, he is shown as a skeptic person with no sense of humor but only
an everlasting contempt with any thing religious. The man is basically a fraud
and a drunkard. He is in the business of selling idols of gods, and cheats his
customers by telling false stories about the idols. His customers are devotees of God and hence perhaps he enjoys cheating them shamelessly. He drinks wine at his home in the presence
of his wife and kids – and even distributes wine to a group of devotees going
on a pilgrimage. He is a bad father; when his son was about to break dahi-handi
after reaching till the top, he makes an announcement to stop the festival, as if
those 2 minutes saved will make his son stand first in the examination! He
could have waited for some moments and would not his
son have gotten down after breaking the handi? He is a bad husband also, and harasses his own wife by ridiculing and doing unaccepted things to mock her religion. The spiritual gurus are not shown doing anything wrong or
illegal, except one of them being friends with a politician and helping him win
elections. The irony is that while all minorities like Muslims and Christians
in India vote on the basis of religion with their religious gurus and priests
making open declarations of their choice of candidates or parties, OMG has
chosen to show as if Hindus vote on the basis of religion. These are the
elements far from truth which makes us be sure that the producers of this movie
had something very rotten and biased in their minds while making OMG!
When it comes to “logic” in the arguments presented by the
main protagonist, the movie again fails miserably. Kanjibhai keeps chanting “God
is not inside temples”, “Don’t donate any money to temples but give that to the
poor”. Who Hindu priests say that God is “only in the temples” and not outside?
Who Hindu spiritual Gurus ask all to donate “only in the temples” and “not to
the poor”? Hindu spiritual gurus are shown to be wearing Rolex watches and
moving in BMW cars and it is shown as if living comfortably is a sin. Hindus are
shown as starting to worship Kanjibhai as an avatar of Lord Vishnu with many
idols of his installed in a temple, while this practice is unprecedented
in reality. It is told in crudest and insulting manner that the practice of
offering milk on a Shivalingam is a “waste” of milk, and the milk should
instead be given to the poor. Hinduism doesn’t ask its followers not to donate
milk to the poor. Anyone is free to donate milk to the poor, and why it should
be like one should only donate to the poor "the milk" one was going to offer at the temple? Why can’t I donate one glass of milk to a poor person and one glass
in the temple? Or may be one glass to the poor every day and one glass to God every Monday? No one is stopping me from doing charity along with being religious. But Kanjibhai, the protagonist of the
movie, and hence the producers of the movie try hard to ridicule and insult
each of the practices of Hinduism and show their own thinking as the “right
thing to do” and Hinduism’s traditions as “wrong thing which should be given up”. I find
such inclinations of the producers to be very bad.
As explained before, Kanjibhai is basically a fraud, a drunkard, bad parent and a loser and still he goes on to teach others lessons about life and religion and the movie projects him as a sort of champion. This is neither very logical nor justifiable. Every one wants to change the world to suit his/her own way of things and the applicable philosophy here is "before you go out to change the world, first change yourself." At least you should have shown a person with a good character trying to clean the system. But I know that you were so closed-eyed (which copy-cats do) while copying it from The Man Who Sued God, that you forgot to make the changes. The protagonist in The Man Who Sued God is also a loser with a troubled life and hence you made Kanjibhai a loser too. Because The Man Who Sued God caught the phrase "Act of God" to pit it against God, you copied the same thing here also. Logically, most insurance companies do mention what is understood by the phrase "Act of God" by listing the natural disasters.
The movie does feature Lord Krishna appearing on earth in the form of a man (played by Akshay Kumar), but the God’s character is like a fence sitter who almost does nothing and the story would have remained exactly the same even without God’s role. In one scene, the protagonist tells God about how he had “thrown” away Bhagawat Geeta. I strongly feel such direct insults towards the sentiments of Hindus could have been avoided without any loss to the plot or the argument. A basic empathy and sensitivity is missing from the dialogue writer all across. Also, as if all the attacks were not enough, you chose Janmashtami to launch the trailer of the movie. In all promotions, you made it appear as if Akshay Kumar and his role as God is the main character in the movie, but actually it appears only just before the interval and has limited role. Your movie doesn't glorify Lord Krishna but sends insults his way (Akshay Kumar as God is shown saying that he has 16,000 wives; dahi-handi is shown to be deserted and abandoned; a stone is thrown at Krishna's idol; Vishnu's idol (with Kanjibhai's face) is beheaded and broken.
The movie does feature Lord Krishna appearing on earth in the form of a man (played by Akshay Kumar), but the God’s character is like a fence sitter who almost does nothing and the story would have remained exactly the same even without God’s role. In one scene, the protagonist tells God about how he had “thrown” away Bhagawat Geeta. I strongly feel such direct insults towards the sentiments of Hindus could have been avoided without any loss to the plot or the argument. A basic empathy and sensitivity is missing from the dialogue writer all across. Also, as if all the attacks were not enough, you chose Janmashtami to launch the trailer of the movie. In all promotions, you made it appear as if Akshay Kumar and his role as God is the main character in the movie, but actually it appears only just before the interval and has limited role. Your movie doesn't glorify Lord Krishna but sends insults his way (Akshay Kumar as God is shown saying that he has 16,000 wives; dahi-handi is shown to be deserted and abandoned; a stone is thrown at Krishna's idol; Vishnu's idol (with Kanjibhai's face) is beheaded and broken.
I know that sky is not going to fall down just because such
a corrupt and insulting movie has been made against Hinduism and its traditions.
But I worry about the long prevailing trend of choosing only Hinduism for such kinds
of “social reformation”. No movie makers dare to challenge Islam’s or
Christianity’s basic faith elements equally, like they do with Hinduism.
Somehow, I don’t find the situation fair.
The audiences in the movie theater laughed at the Hindu
spiritual gurus shown in this movie. The audiences also didn’t show signs of
any discomfort when Hindu symbols were clearly being insulted. Perhaps no one
shifted even on seeing Paresh Rawal throwing a stone at Lord Krishna’s idol
with a gulel, or breaking the head of
an idol and destroying the cash donation box kept in front of the temple. I
know this shows very high tolerance levels amongst Hindus. But I think if we
keep allowing them to insult and ridicule each of our religious practices and symbol
like this, one day our children and grandchildren will be “brain washed” enough
to feel uncomfortable with their religion and culture.
With these thoughts and feelings, I protest against your movie “OMG! Oh My God!”’s cruel, insulting, biased and unfair treatment
towards Hinduism.
- Rahul Tiwary
![[Link1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OMG%21_Oh_My_God_poster.jpg){kind=link}
34 comments:
Refreshingly candid point of view.
Dear Rahul,
your observations about OMG have elements of truth and i am going to laud you for the same,so long as you protest by way of counter-arguments.But no sooner somebody goes to court for religious reasons ,he or she denigrates his religion.Surely Hinduism 's 5000 years of existence cannot be written off by somebody's diatribe and inneundo's.Your or mine religion is not more sacred than the sacred right to criticize anything on earth.Please view the movie not in a myopic way but as an attempt by the makers to expose malpractises my dharma-gurus in which the actors-directors have been largely succesful.
Thanks a lot Ben...
Thanks Pankaj...
I too agree that going to the court or shutting the mouth of others is not the way to handle criticism. Every criticism gives us chances to self-reflect and self-correct no matter how much small the correction would be. For unfair criticism, the best way is to voice our disagreement along with reasons for those (plain disagreements won't help) and then move ahead. Just like the old proverb "hathi chale bazar, kutte bhoke hazar". The elephant doesn't pay head to the barking dogs. I am saying this only to unwarranted and unfounded criticism without reason or purpose and not for genuine concerns.
Btw, was the movie really successful in exposing the malpractices by dharm-gurus? I didn't think so, except only two instances - 1. when a religious leaders supports a politician to win elections, and 2. when a religious figure does a miracle by producing a golden watch. Btw, the movie didn't even show that it was a fake miracle - it could be true miracle. Audiences were left to "assume" that he was a fake guru, and here is what my objection lies.
The movie doesn't even try to show or prove the malpractices by some religious figures. It "assumes" that people "know" about those and hence goes ahead with only attacking and ridiculing those hypothetical malpractices... That was wrong, just like those fake gurus try to fool others, the movie makers were trying to fool us also... We can cite any particular episode from the movie if you like...
I agree, this movie is out of a thought process cultivated by the sorry British education in India. More than anything else, today our enemy is bad education.
hmm, i'd love to agree with you, but (unfortunately?) i liked the film. What I would say is this: the interpretation of any work of art, whether a novel / film/ painting / whatever is not definitive based on what the creator of said art work decides. Rather every person who sees / reads / etc said art has the right to form his own opinions, and said opinions are as valid as those of the makers. (This is proposition 1)
If Proposition 1 be accepted, it will be seen that the makers of OMG themselves do not understand what they have made (this is my claim).
After a surface viewing of the film, Kanjibhai might appear to be the "hero". However, notice two facts. First, it is is only his shop that collapses in the earthquake. The film itself accepts the authority of the Gita verse "Whatever happens in the world is at my command". Then, if his destruction is not Lor Krishna's command, whose is it?
Next, Kanjibhai falls into a coma, the exact moment that he declares that God does not exist. Whose command is this?
Next about Islam and Christianity. In this, the makers of the appear to put these false religions on par with Hinduism. But is it really so?
The last message on the screen is about Loving God and not fearing Him. (the verse is from the Gita) Consider now this, from the Quran, considered the infallible wod of Allha by Muslims : You who believe! Fear Allah and let each self look to what it has sent forward for tomorrow. Fear Allah. Allah is aware of what you do. (Surat al-Hashr: 18)
Consider this: And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. (Exodus 14:31)
Even the often biased (about religious matters) Wikipedia agrees : The fear of God is an attitude to religious practice advocated primarily in the Abrahamic religions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_God_%28religion%29)
There is an art in argument, where you accept superficially the argument of your adversary, but hollow it out from the inside. This is the approach of the film OMG to Islam and Christianity.
To be fair, the only bit I didn't like was their opposition to offering milk in temples. That is based on a misunderstanding of what a temple is supposed to do.
I liked the way you have put the points... I agree with you in general...
If Christians and Muslims will think about it then yes, the role of God as said in the movie may not be matching with their view. May be you are right that they would indeed have looked at the movie from those angles, because OMG got banned in the Islamic UAE!
May be because I was Hindu, I looked at it from Hinduism's point of view. But the fact remains that the movie doesn't target any other religion to the level of detail and in the strongest of manner, as it targets Hinduism...
For the accidents happening in Kanjibhai's life, those may purely happen by chance. Also, I really don't think God will really take incarnation in physical shape in a human form and only do so little - as to "support" and "help" an atheist. At the end of the movie, I think Kanjibhai came to believe that God did exist, but he didn't understand the elements of religion or the purpose of traditions and rituals. He still had a long way to go, but I don't think he had slightest inclination to understand truths about Hinduism.
Anyways, I like what you said - that the makers of the movie didn't understand themselves what they were showing. I think it may be because they had copied the English movie The Man who Sued God and had replaced Church with Hindu priests in their version. Their attack on religious malpractices was superficial. If they truly showed some really bad things happening "in the name of" religion (Hinduism) and tried to open the eyes of Hindus, I would be so happy to support it. But all that Kanjibhai kept ranting about was, "break the donation box, don't give even a penny to temples, give your pot of milk to the professional beggar running his shop at the temple gates".
i'm having "kasturi" in my hands,writing "sameeksha"....your poems are there...but not finding any blog where you've written hindi poems....pls guide.
regards
anu
Thanks a lot Anu,
I had my poems on my blogs, but the publishers had asked to remove from blogs before publication. Since I had sent several of my poems out of which they had to choose some for publication, I sincerely deleted all my poems to comply with their request... After that I have not re-posted them.
May be I should post some of my unpublished poems which I wrote in the recent times. Will think and post in a day or two...
Regards,
Rahul
Rahul, It seems you did not try to take good things out of the movie and tried to look for negatives. Geeta is a must read for you. Not sure about you, but this movie was a game changer for many people in the way they worship god. Even if it turned 1000 people to help poor than please god...it would do away with all the bad things shown in the movie!!!
You are right Anurag. For this open letter I have looked for only the negative aspects of the movie, just like the movie-makers looked for only the negative aspects of religion and temples (can you deny it?)...
I have read Geeta as such.
I don't think "helping the poor" should be the ultimate goal or anyone or anything. Otherwise communist govt in China is helping the poor in Tibet by making it its part. Can you deny it that money is not everything that humans want? Make the population devoid of dharma preached by our religion or the privilege of being part of a tradition which has come from millions of years (in case of sanatan dharma) and we would make robots out of men. A financially rich population without a culture or values is not the society we should aim for in our country.
what a nonsense comment "money is not everything that humans want" - then you donate your entire money to needy ( and within 2 days you will realize that money is everthing YOU want). Money is not everything for "not poors". Original comment was regarding poor people. Irrational, illogical people like you sink dharma. Religion, be it any , divides people, whereas dharma ( which u r calling as sanatan one)unites people. If religion grows, dharma diminishes. Dhamma is experienced based, whereas religions are philosophies. Dharma focuses on removing impurities of mind such as anger etc ( experienced by everyone), whereas religion grows with blindfaith ( aandh shraddha), irrational beleifs, which are never universal.
Thanks Pradeep for your comment. I wonder why you started to read the article from last comment of comments section :)
So you say "money is not everything that humans want" is nonsense. Tell me how many days you can live without Oxygen or Air? If you have money and no Oxygen, can you live? Of course "money is not everything that humans want". Apart from basic necessities for survival, humans need family, society and knowledge. In the highest level of “hierarchy” of needs, man would need to connect to his spiritual self to do “self-actualization”. Devoid man of dharma as practiced by practitioners of Sanatan Dharma and other religions and you make a man equal to an animal…
More precisely you say, “Money is not everything for "not poors". Original comment was regarding poor people.” I wonder why do you misunderstand me? Even my reply with example about Tibetans and China was about poor people. Tibetans are poor people by most standards which people including you use, right? But Tibetans are not poor when it comes to intellectual capital. When it comes to spiritual progress they are not poor. Yet, it is a pity that whole world will call them “poor” undeveloped, etc. That was my point: Money is not everything that humans want! Humans want self-respect - which can’t be given by “rich” Chinese and hence poor Tibetans die rather than convert and fall in line. Also, even those people you call “poor” are happy to live their life. We have “poor” people in villages, in tribal belts, who are happy. So such movies or comments demonizing religion by saying, “give money to beggars instead of offering in temples” are devoid of wisdom and logic. It is very unwise to say that religion is enemy of the poor. As I said, most religions teach us to help people. Then why “use” poor people to attack religion? It is neither logical nor fair.
I repeat my assertion: money is not everything that humans want. And anyone who gives more money to a person is not necessarily “better”. As I gave example of Tibet and China. One can earn more money by means like prostitution; it does not make this profession better than others where one gets lower monetary benefits. So we should come out of this “poor people need food and no religion” kind of reasoning as a pretext of attacking religion. That is what I pointed out in my reply to Anurag’s comment above.
1- the story is taken from a very old Gujarati natak and the name of the character kanji was even the same and mr Rahul has stated all the negative points of the movie. 2- a movie plays the same in all theatres it depends I how people absorb the knowledge so this is a hardcore way of showing the truth to the public of our nation that religion is not prior to health or it is not prior to the basic needs of a simple human!!
1- while the story might have been taken from a very old natak, movie-wallahs have added many of their own negative flavors. I am sure reference to incidents like Ganesh idols drinking milk did not appear in that old natak.
2- Yes, this is a letter of complaints only. The movie makers tried to show Hindu religion in the wrong light without any proper explanation and hence Hindus have right to complain.
3- The movie makers did not try to show the "priority" of healthcare over religion. But the movie wanted us to stop us from going to temples and to stop offering anything at all in the places of worship. This was a devilish propaganda.
As I asked in my letter - where does our religion ask us not to donate to the poor people and offer only in temples? Where does Hinduism ask us to ignore health?
Indeed there are some valid points. But this movie is not saying against any religion.. I would suggest to look at the movie a learning point of what actually religious institutions do in India.. this is not about anything to with foreign countries.. And if you have attained nirvana you do not need fame and TV or an audience to promote awareness. Saibaba was an example of this. Most gurus want fame... lets get that...why would you want TV or media to promote you if you have attained moksha.. you still are attached to worldly pleasure of attention. Buddha never wanted media attention.. Anyways... If this movie was any other religion centric there would have been a riot in India.. please note that. Hinduism is more tolerant.. not saying others aren't. So you didn't probably notice any kind of riots before or after the movie. Not sure where the author of this article lives.. but lets face a fact that in the name of god people do manipulate poor and discriminate and make money.. Its mostly a fact if one is not aware of his own religious books.. The main thing this movie is focusing on reading your religious books and all of them say the same thing and not get carried away by people who preach for their own personal needs. And about copying the movie.. I guess that's nothing new.
Has any of the gurus seen the god they talk about?? I am not against god nor gurus.. but it is true that it is a business.. No offence meant to anyone who believes these gurus... People who have attained moksha are somewhere in Himalayas...without media attention. Follow the religious books and follow what it says...then you are following god!! It says Karam karo phal ki iccha mat karo!! The main rule is violated when these gurus charge the fees to attend their pravachan or yoga classes.. There are few dialogues in this movie said by Akshay which really can change the view of faith. (I will notbe surprised if my comment will be deleted because of personal offence) (the previous comment on Jun26th is also mine)
@Anonymous:
Thanks a lot for sharing your views. When I read your views in above comment, I could agree with it and disagree with it too. I could appreciate your frank and honest acceptance like when you said, "If this movie was any other religion centric there would have been a riot in India" at the same time I did not think it was correct when you said in the beginning "this movie is not saying against any religion". Essentially I see a "balance" in your views. That is mark of any sensible person who cares. And this my dear friend is my complaint with the makers of this movie - they have only chosen to show corrupt aspects of religion but generalized it as if whole of religion is corrupt and when it comes to religion they have made Hinduism a scapegoat and passive recipient of all their allegations.
For Gurus seeking fame and coming on TV; did you notice a connection with the makers of this movie when you said that? My Complain#2 would make it clear. Akshay Kumar says this movie is not for making money but it is made to educate people. Why did he choose "movies" to educate people and why did not he do some worship or penance or fast in the mountains to get what he wanted? Because for educating people you have to come out and be seen. You have to attract people and then only you can address them. The very thing which Spiritual leaders or Gurus are doing, by coming on TV. They are reaching more people; they are being more available to the souls they want to help. I see nothing wrong in it.
Then there is a difference in the roles of all spiritual masters. Some seek solitude and Moksha for their individual soul while some try to help a lot more souls by helping them realize the truth. No one is bad and both are noble. Ramakrishna Paramhansa gave diksha to so many disciples despite being such a spiritual person; Swami Vivekananda crossed sea to go to alien land and spoke at the Parliament of Religions! Such acts could also be called attempts to seek fame! But no, it depends on how we look at it. Most of the time we understand a situation when we think 360 degrees; by getting into others' shoes and caring enough to seek answers and listen. This, my friend, this movie does not do and hence deserves criticism. It is as superficial as accusing Hindu customs without understanding their meanings, just like Christian Missionaries used to do (which Mahatma Gandhi wrote about in his autobiography and Swami Vivekananda protested against).
@Sneha:
I read the previous comment first and replied to it and now I read your comment and find that the earlier one was also yours. My previous comment would also answer some of your points. Apart from that I think everything that happens in this world is business. Any act can be called a business because it starts a whole chain of actions, reactions and repercussions. So I won’t mind if you call all religious institutions and associations as running businesses. In ancient times also sages and Rishis used to have Ashramas where sons of Kings used to go for education and training. You can call those businesses too. You can also call Church a business too because it receives donations and also provides some service for visitors. Now think of any institution and it will have a financial implication. Running it will require some money. Where will the money come from? Someone has to supply it and hence the Ashrama or institution has to earn it, in a way. So I see nothing wrong in charging fee to teach Yoga also, like Art of Living does. Now you can say, “Why only Rs 1000 and why not Rs 500”? Why are they preserving some portions and not only charging as much as it covers cost? If the “business” is cyclic and volatile, i.e. there is no steady source of income; financial wisdom will make us keep a portion of it for the rainy days. So it is not wrong to charge more than what would be actual cost also.
As I said in my previous comment, there are many types of spiritual masters. Some do not interact with others while others are in the midst of a mass of disciples all the time. Each of them plays a different role and has a particular purpose in the scheme of this world. We should not judge each with the same set of standards because it won’t be fair. Just like we can’t judge a Sanyasi from the standards of a Grihasthi, or a householder from the benchmarks of an ascetic, we can’t compare those spiritual masters who are running their institutions helping disciples with those Rishis and sages in the mountains who seek enlightenment and want to get away from the cycle of life and death…
"No movie makers dare to challenge Islam’s or Christianity’s basic faith elements equally, like they do with Hinduism."
*coughTheDaVinciCodecough*
Thanks for mentioning about the DaVinci Code; I think it is a classic case-study to expose hypocrisy of Indian govt and India's version of secularism.
First, I made that statement about Indian movie makers. I know that internationally they have not left any stone unturned and have not been as biased and hypocrites like movie-makers in India. DaVinci code did shake the foundations of Catholic faith and Church. And it was made outside India. But when it tried to enter India, what happened? Our Government banned it.
So it seems it is free for all to abuse Hinduism. And no movie maker in India will dare to challenge Islam’s or Christianity’s basic faith elements equally and if internationally they do it, our hypocrite version of secularism will encourage our govt to ban such movies inside India.
The face that one is able to challenge Hinudism openly is a good thing. Whats the hue and cry about? If you actually read the Gita and understood any of it, you would not say this. Secondly you say you can donate to the poor and to the temple. Resources in this world are all constant. If you donate to the temple, that is going to the rich brahmins, while if you donate to the poor resources slowly percolate down and bridges the gap between the poor and the rich. Thirdly, this movie attempts to make people God loving and not God fearing, while you are complaining that nobody fears Hinduism as much as other religions. My friend, the reason why Hinduism is tolerant and gives you this much pride is because it allows you and me to debate without claiming anyone as being anti-religion. Lastly, the movie never insulted one bit of the religion. If Krishna is Hinudism, the religion never got insulted. If however you view these countless babas as above Krishna, then the movie insulted your perception of what Hinduism is.
Thanks for sharing your view here. I am responding to some of the pointers from your comment:
(1) Did the movie openly challenge religion?: The purpose of this movie was commercial and it made some money for its stakeholders (except viewers). I don't find reason to believe it to be some kind of social research based effort.
(2) Are donations to poor individuals and temples mutually exclusive?: Most of us don't keep a fixed portion of our income or wealth as meant for charity every month. We donate when we feel like. Only such forms of voluntary donations are within our purview. And in this case, it is possible that we can donate to the poor and to the temple at the same time without the two being mutually exclusive.
(3) Where do temple donations go?: In India most big Hindu temples are under government control, so major part of our donations go to govt, which then spends the money for all purposes including social. I request you to correct your opinion that temple donations go to rich Brahmins (or to any particular caste for that matter) which is misplaced.
(4) Is Hinduism is tolerant without limits?: I agree that Hinduism allows free thinking and is tolerant, but if someone exploits this for commercial purposes hurting others feeling in order to make money for private use, it is commercialization rather than an example of free thinking.
If you think the movie did not insult even a bit of Hinduism or religion, it is your personal opinion and I am fine with it. I found it very insulting due to reasons I explained in the post and I hold my view on it.
You are right but everyone has his/her way of thinking if you don't like the movie it's upto you, there are many problems which any one person, organization, religion or thing(movie) can handle and your article is great piece thought i don't agree with many parts but that's my viewpoint nobody can change it and i don't wanna change yours.....
Thanks Nitish:)
Oh My God Noida is the bewildering commercial place that is planned to please the crowd with the unique architecture.
So what are your views after Radhe maa's latest news?
Hi,
Hinduism is very diverse and truly an umbrella religion with so many diverse and different sets and cults thriving under it. As far as I have understood Radhe Maa runs a cult. What happens in a cult may make sense to the cult members and may not make sense to others. Personally cult form of bhakti does not appeal to me. That does not mean I look down on those who practice it.
On the controversy and the issue; I think the only serious allegation is for the dowry harassment. Probe is on, so police should be able to make out what happened and who all were responsible and to what extent. Next I think there are allegations of vulgarity; which is a subjective term. I don't know the background or the context of the scenes which are often repeated on TV; but it seems she allows her disciples to raise her and move around. I don't know if it is good or bad for the people involved; they can decide. But I know that their practice does not harm others.
At the same time I am curious about the kind of media "tirade" is going on against her; all originating in an organized manner. The manner in which it is going; indicates towards a conspiracy. Whether the conspiracy is for welfare of the world or not; I don't know.
This is summary of what I think about this issue. Truth is yet to come out. I hope police should be able to clear the air.
I agree with u kr rahul in every front but it is also true that many gurus like N baba is mus using people faith to there advantage ... but yeah u made me look at omg at different point of view thanks for that
Thanks...
Hi. Some good points you have there. I am just writing this post so as to put it out there that I am a hindu and I really respect this religion and I wasn't offended. I think that's BECAUSE of my religion. I feel Hinduism is a religion which allows other people and their ideas to be. It believes in co existence. Tolerance is one of the greatest qualities that this religion encourages which cannot be said I think for many other religions. So, I don't have a problem with somebody making this kind of a film. Plus I feel it's good that they made a film criticising what they thought were bad practices in Hinduism because it gives us a chance to reflect on it. I don't care if the Muslims or Christians or Sikhs get the same chance. I also think that the film believes in God, they are just trying to show some things that can be corrected.
And one thing. In your post I read that the gurus are shown living a life of luxury and that's not a crime. If I am not wrong, from what I know about my religion, the gurus or the brahmins are those people who are spiritually very elevated and are detached from the earthly pleasures. Those kind of people are considered worthy or great. So, if there IS a guru whom many people are following and she/he is living a luxurious life then that IS a problem according to my religion. That's not hindu culture. That kind of a person must be called a fraud and rightly so at least according to the norms of Hinduism.
Also, the point that they want you to break the donation box and all, that's not entirely wrong. It's a fact that not every temple in this country is made for religious purposes. Many temples are just made to amass money because it is actually a good source of it. I am not going to propose any solutions to this but I believe that the makers did have a point there and this problem definitely exists. The other day I heard from someone that they will build a temple just so that a definite income keeps coming in. That person was a hindu. So yeah this does happen. this is a mockery of our religion too. But it is easier to criticise a big film than try to recognise and change people's attitude.
Anyway, I hope you did see my point and go a bit easy on that film. I think Hinduism also is a religion that disapproves of conflict and therefore it is best to look at the positives rather the negatives as much as possible.
Sorry if I have offended, it wasn't intentional.
One more thing I would like to add here. About tolerance, Hinduism is so great that Saint Kabir criticised it in his dohas, sitting in VARANASI, such a holy place for Hindus and was tolerated there. There are no limits to this. Criticism is, if not welcome, then not hated either. That spirit should never go from this religion I feel, that's the best part about it.
What about Mithun sirs role he was imitating Sri Sri Ravi shankar ji , and after joining Art of living I can say the projection was all wrong .
Because Sri Sri never supports any religion and he doesn't say he's godman , he gives us the greatest knowledge of life , The Sudershan kriya and his knowledge points helps the most to understand well and live life peacefully .
Thank-you GURUDEV
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