Indian Soldiers in Italy 1917-1919

A coincidence brought me a book about Indian soldiers passing through Italy during the last years of the first World War (1917-1919). This post is about Camp 3, the resting camp of the British in Faenza (Italy) based on the information I found in this Italian book by Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli.

Introduction

I know that my maternal great-grandfather had been in Europe during the first world war. I had heard the stories of his coming home from the war with a bag of British pounds and how this had brought prosperity to his family. He must have passed through the port of Brindisi or Taranto, because that was the way used by Indian troops for coming to Europe. I don't know if he had stopped at Camp 3 of Faenza, but I would like to immagine that he had been there!

My great grandfather Hiranand (from Karyala, Jhelam district of undivided India - in 1947 this had become part of Pakistan) had died in the 1970s. However, when he was alive, I was not interested in the family history and had never asked him anything about his European experience.

Indian soldiers had been in Italy in both the world wars. During the second world war they had taken part in the war in Italy as shown in the film "The English patient" (1996) where Naveen Andrews had played the role of the Sikh soldier Kip. Different Indian cemeteries in Italy are testimonies to those Indian soldiers, and there are some books about those days. I had visited the cemetery of Indian soldiers in Forli once.

However, there is much less printed material about the Indian soldiers in Italy during the first world war.

Ethel Graham and the Zauli Naldi family

Faenza is a small town, about 50 km south-east of Bologna. It is famous for its ceramics.

Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli from Faenza have done research and written about the history of their town during the second world war. Some years ago, they found about a collection of pictures from the first world war during a casual meeting with Prof. Francesco Emiliani Zauli Naldi.

The Zauli Naldi is a well known noble family of Faenza. The pictures were taken by a British woman called Ethel Graham, who was living with the Zauli Naldi family between 1914 and 1922, as a governess or companion to Ms. Maria Zauli Naldi, mother of Prof. Francesco. He remembers meeting Ms. Ethel in 1930, when she had come to visit them in holidays. Ms. Ethel died around 1939. (Image below: Ms. Ethel Graham with Camp 3 commander and officials in Faenza)

As the only British civilian living at that time in Faenza, Ms. Ethel had access to the British officials and could visit the British Rest camp 3. She also must have been a photography enthusiast and thus could keep a memory of those days in her images.

British Rest Camp in Faenza

During the first world war, British soldiers were engaged in wars in France, Italy, Turkey, Balkans and middle east. Persons from the British colonies around the world were also involved as part of the British troops. Transporting troops from one war front to another through the British ships had become difficult because of the threat of German and Austro-Hungarian submarines. Thus, train travel through France and Italy to the port of Brindisi and Taranto in south of Italy, and then with ships through the Suez canal up to Bombay was preferred. It also reduced the journey time.

After reaching France, the British troops started their journey in Cherbourg, called British Camp 1. The end stop on this journey was the port town of Taranto in Italy, called British Camp 4. On the way, two rest camps were set up, where soldiers could get hot meals, take bath and receive medical care - Camp 2 in St Germain au Mont d’Or near Lyon in France and Camp 3 in Faenza.

As the number of persons increased, additional smaller satellite camps were set up in many other cities, towards the south up to Pescara and towards the north, up to Bologna.

Among the famous persons who passed through the British Camp in Faenza, there was colonel T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, on whom David Lean had made his famous film in 1962.

Indians in Camp 3

The camp for Indian soldiers was set up in Piazza d'Armi (The Armaments square, today it is Bucci park between Via Marozza and Via Oberdan), not far from the Faenza railway station.

Compared to the camps for British officials and troops, which had more decent houses and shacks, Ethel's pictures of the Indian camp show open spaces with soldiers making tea and cooking chapatis on makeshift chullahs. In the background some tents can be seen in a group. The pictures were probably taken in summer, since the Indian soldiers can be wearing dhoti, half-pants and shirts.

According to the research done by Casadio and Valli, there was a group of Santhals among the Indian soldiers, who had built the canals for draining the camp and then divided the camp in separate areas so that persons of different castes could live and cook in separate groups. They had also built the Tennis court for the British officials.

From the pictures taken by Ethel Graham presented in the Casadio-Valli book, two are presented here. In the first image, a group of soldiers pulling a carriage through the city centre, probably to collect water from a fountain. The second image shows soldiers cooking chapatis.

Conclusions

History remembers only empires and the powerful kings and queens. So much of our recent history remains forgotten, especially in terms of lives of ordinary persons. How many Indian soldiers died in Europe during the first world war, and who were they - who knows and who remembers it today?

Personally I find it very moving to come across images that tell something about those nameless figures who had travelled to far away places. Some like my great grandfather had come back to India to tell the stories, others must have died in the war.

Notes

If you wish to get this book, it is called "Il campo inglese a Faenza nella grande guerra (1917-1919)" (The British camp in Faenza during the big war 1917-1919). It is written by Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli, and published by Casanova Editore Faenza.

I also wish to thank notary Paolo Castellari of Faenza, who shared this book with me.

Thanks also to Richard Burton for the correction of location of Camp 2 and for sharing the memoirs of his father Philip W. Burton, a signaler in the British army during WWI.

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Rainbows in the night

This is a short story I had written in 1976 when I was a final year student in a medical college in Delhi. It was published in our college magazine. These days I am going through all my old files and papers, as I get ready to go back to India after almost 3 decades in Bologna (Italy). Hidden in those papers, I found it along with an illustration that was used with the story.

Even though I feel that it is a little juvenile, I am happy to share it with you! :)

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Rainbows in the Night

The bluish-grey smoke enveloped the room, forming halos around the faces making them look remote and unearthly. The soft lilting voice of the singer filled the room, reminding him of a murmuring waterfall. He gazed at the singer through the haze of the smoke, she was standing in a corner with a guitar in her hands. Dark, shining hair covered her coffee brown face. Her body, dressed in a dark blue low cut gown, moved slowly with the rhythm of the music, while her fingers softly strummed the guitar.

Ravi felt self-conscious, sitting alone in a corner while all others were enjoying themselves. Two guys and three girls were dancing wildly in the centre of the room. Some boys and girls were smoking reefers while some freely consumed whisky and rum. Mukesh, his cousin brother, whose birthday party it was, was sitting in a chair among his girl friends, looking smart and very mod, talking and laughing.

Ravi had come to Bombay for the first time and as he had always lived in a small village, far away from the fast changing life of cities, coming to Bombay had given him a big cultural shock. Mukesh, who was the only child of his rich parents, lived alone in a posh apartment. Mukesh had taken Ravi to show him all the tourist spots of the city and this was his last night in Bombay as he would be back to his home in the village on the next morning. As he had become aware of the big social and cultural gap between himself and Mukesh, he had felt inferior and backwards and now seeing the free and open life of Mukesh and his friends, deepend that feeling of inferiority.

Ravi shifted his cramped legs and tried to make himself more comfortable, while he kept looking around to make sure that nobody was watching him. A feeling of jealousy creeped into his mind as he looked at the boys fashionably dressed, talking confidently with the girls without any hint of self-consciousness and danced freely without any inhibitions. He also felt angry with himself for not being able to enjoy the life like others.

He looked at his watch, it was about ten PM. The night was still young and the thought of spending the whole night sitting there alone, terrified him. Suddenly the train of his thoughts was broken as a girl sat down near him. She looked young, pretty and mod: her eyes were hidden behind big blue glasses and curly dark hair surrounded her face. She was wearing a sleeveless flaming red colour mini frock, the same colour was reflected in her lips and cheeks. She smiled and asked, Do you have a fag? No, said Ravi, I am sorry but I don't smoke. His gaze rested for a few moments on her thighs and he hastily looked away. The girl arched her eyebrows and then sensing his discomfort, suddenly laughed.

Ravi felt as if everyone was looking at him and he could feel the blood rushing into his face and his ears burned red. Another boy offered the girl a reefer and lighted it. She inhaled the smoke deeply and then turning towards Ravi, blew out the smoke near his face. The strong pungent smell of the smoke made him wince and involuntarily he screwed up his nose. The girl laughed again and joined the group of dancers in the centre of the room.

For a few minutes Ravi sat there, feeling stunned and humiliated. Then a feeling of anger slowly replaced the humiliation. "I must have sounded like a real prude", he thought bitterly. Then he got up and left the room and went to the bedroom.

The bedroom was bathed in the darkness of the night and Ravi didn't try to search for the light switch. He lowered himself in the bed trying to lose himself in the anonymity of the darkness. For a long time he listened to the sounds coming from the party room, but gradually the tired eyelids gave way to a deep dreamless sleep.

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In the morning, as the first sun rays entered the room, he opened his eyes, feeling refreshed. The house was quiet. He looked at the big grandfather clock hanging on the wall. O God! It is five o clock and I have to catch the train at six, he thought, and quickly got up from the bed.

He went slowly towards the party room, trying to recall the scene of the night. The brightly decorated room looked dead and forlorn like a coffin. Boys and girls were lying haphazardly in the room.

The girl who had been singing last night was sitting down on the floor, her eyes dull and vacant, looking at some distant point in the wall, still wandering in the fantasy land of the drug-trip. The girl with the mini frock was lying in the arms of a boy, her frock had moved up, exposing her body indecently. Big blotches of alcohol stained the carpet and cigarette butts were littered all over the room.

Mukesh was lying on the carpet, his expensive suit crumpled, his cheeks hollow and the dark shadows around his eyes. In fact, everybody was looking like Mukesh, like a rag doll. A boy was lying with his head in a pool of dried vomit. Suddenly Ravi felt nauseated.

He ran towards the washbasin and vomited there. Then he washed his face with cold water and looked in the mirror. The mirror reflected a healthy glowing face with eyes sparkling with life. His lips curved into a smile. Suddenly he was very happy.

What a fool I had been, he thought as he packed his things, to be jealous of those poor people who need pity and love more than anything else. They are just like rainbows, glittering and shining, and yet look at them without their drugs and makeup, and they are only shadows.

He picked up his bag and walked out of the apartment towards the railway station, whistling tunelessly and feeling ridiculously happy and serene.

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Boats from around the world - 25 amazing wallpapers

Boats with the background of lakes, rivers and sea can make for some wonderful pictures and thus make great wallpapers. Here is a selection of 25 of my favourite images of boats from South America, Africa, Europe and Asia as high resolution wallpapers for you. These are images that I have clicked during my travels to different countries over the last deacde.

You are welcome to use these images in any way that you wish, in your blogs or websites. Please do remember to give credit to me (Sunil Deepak) and give a link to this page.

Click on any picture below to open it in high resolution in a new window. If you do not know how to use the wallpapers to change the appearance of your computer, laptop, Ipad or other devices, check the Wallpapers tab above for more information.

Remember that each of these wallpapers is in high resolution. Thus, each file can be from 0.7 to 1.3 MB. If you have an old computer with limited RAM (less than 1 GB), you may need to downsize the image before using it as a wallpaper.

So here we go with 25 amazing high resolution wallpapers for you!

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I hope that you have liked these wallpapers. Please share the link of this page through Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus.

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Changing traditions

History, changing local contexts and forces of globalization impact on how we look at our traditions and how we decide to safeguard them. I am remembering some of my travels in different parts of the world to reflect on this theme. In the first part of this post, I had focused on "Theme-parkification", where traditions are becoming part of the new market culture, from a journey in China. This post focuses on my journeys in two Portuguese speaking countries - Brazil and Mozambique.

The Bahaiana culture

Bahia state in north-east of Brazil is known for its beautiful sea coast and relaxed fun-loving people. Bahia was one of the areas which received highest number of slaves brought from Africa. Those slaves had rebelled against the colonial masters and sown the seeds of Brazilian independence from Portugal.

I want to focus on some aspects of traditional culture in Bahia, which are interlinked. The first is about the particular traditional dresses worn by Bahia women, mainly of African origin. I think that these costumes are a synthesis of African and Colonial traditions, probably influenced by cultures of other Portuguese colonies such as those in Goa and Macao.

The picture below shows two young women wearing the traditional Bahaiana dresses in a restaurant of Salvador de Bahia, that makes traditional Bahia food. Thus, the Bahaiana traditional culture is used as hook to attract tourists and also to underline the specific food served in the restaurant.

However, the Bahaiana culture is very much alive, outside the tourist restaurants - if you take a walk along the sea coast, you can still women wearing their traditional attires, selling food and other goods along the roadside.

The next image has a group of kids from poor communities in Amazon region in Para state of Brazil, practicing Capoeira. They explain it as a martial art that traces its roots in Africa and came to Brazil with the slaves. However, I am not sure if in Africa today there is something similar to Capoeira.

Perhaps these were some kinds of dances for men that became more complicated and refined among the descendants of African slaves, in some way moulded by the colonizers?

The third image is from a lake park in Salvador de Bahia and has statues of Orisha deities that represents the syncretism between ancient Yoruban traditions of the slaves brought from West Africa and Christianity of the European colonizers.

The way these two traditions, Yoruban and Christian, have met to give rise to different new cultural and religious traditions in different parts of south and central America and Caribbean is fascinating and underlines the way different cultures meet and change each other over periods of hundreds or thousands of years. It certainly makes me wonder about the way our own traditions and religions are evolving through our encounters with others in the virtual spaces of internet.

Reclaiming dignity of native cultures

The next three images are also from Brazil, from a primary school in the old town of Goias Velho. Max, one of the key figures behind this school, believes that the culture of European colonizers along with the contemporary American pop culture today dominates among majority of Brazilians and it denigrates the indigenous people (Amerindians) and the descendants of former African slaves.

Thus, in the school, they have different activities for the children to know and value the traditions of Amerindians and black Africans. "Feel proud of the African and Amerindian bloods that we all carry, and keep alive that part of your culture", is the aim of such activities shown in these images.

With some differences, I think that the same arguments can be made for dominating and minority cultures and traditions in different parts of the world - between the Han and minority communities in China, between English speakers and Hindi speakers in India, between upper caste/class persons and dalit/tribal persons. Sometimes, while a group of persons is made to feel inferior, they themselves discriminate against others, as between Hindi speakers and Bhojpuri or Maithili speakers in north India.

Traditions of the colonized

The next two images are from Espungabeira from Manica province in Mozambique (Africa). A group of volunteer women working with persons infected with HIV (AIDS), some of them had HIV positive persons in their families, were dancing and then some of them, enacted a community-theatre piece for creating awareness about AIDS risks and treatment.

While watching them I was wondering how much of the traditions and cultures of their ancestors, before the Europeans had occupied their lands, changed their crops, clothes and religions, were still alive in their gestures and sounds.

People have already written about the "traditional clothes" worn by the women in Africa - a tradition that is not so old and has links with the colonial past, when clothes from Indian or Indonesian colonies were brought to the African continent.

Conclusions

I feel that colonization in the 17th-20th centuries  almost completely decimated native people of Americas but still some information about their precolonial cultures and traditions were documented and safeguarded.

In north Africa and Asia, in countries like Egypt, India, Indonesia and China, the people were too many and their cultures and traditions were more deeply rooted, and thus the impact of colonial rules was more limited. Therefore these cultures and traditions have survived almost intact though there were some colonial influences that have persisted.

On the other hand, it seems that in Africa the subjugation of peoples and obliteration of their traditions and cultures was more complete, perhaps because they were still largely oral. I got a similar feeling of a deeper destruction of ancient traditions and cultures even in the Philippines.

However, I also feel that compared to the past, the technological revolutions of this century with the spread of mall and brands culture spearheaded by industries, satellite TV and encounters in the virtual web-space, will have an even more pervasive impact on our traditions, cultures, food, languages, clothes and religions in the coming decades.

Let me conclude this reflection with an image of a folk-dancer from India, whose dance was not part of a cultural show for the tourists, but it was a part of a social-cultural event for the local community.

 I feel that increasingly in future, such opportunities of expressing traditions will become rarer, while tourist or commercial expression of cultures will take precedence, especially in the cities!

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Exotic tribals - Theme-parkification of traditions

As our cities become clones of other cities with similar looking sky-scrappers and malls, some times during our travels we look for "authentic experiences". This photo-essay is the first part of brief stories about the influences of a globalizing world on cultures. I feel that increasingly, we are making people a part of a "theme-park" experience, rather than engaging with them.

Introduction

The image above introduces some of the ideas that came to my mind when I started thinking about this subject. This picture was taken at Dilli Haat in Delhi (India), an "artificial village market" in the city. There you find city persons and tourists looking at the shops. And then you have crafts-persons from different parts of India who come here to exhibit and sell their work. You also have some persons who serve or entertain the visitors. Like those in the picture above, who wear "traditional" dresses and play "traditional" instruments.

They are acting a part that may not be completely false - those turbans, dresses, drums and been (the wind-instrument played by the "snake charmer"), may also be part of their "real" lives. These are only jazzed up with colours and accessories that highlight their exoticness.

Thus, Dilli Haat gives you an artificial "authentic" experience, in which make-believe and reality are mixed and stirred together. The aim of Dilli Haat is noble - to provide a market for humble crafts-persons. It markets this aim by making it a "village theme park" experience.

This is the area that I am exploring in this post by referring to some of my travel experiences about changing traditions and our search for our roots. I do not wish to give value judgements about this in terms of right or wrong. Rather, it is just a way of looking back at few episodes from my travels around the world. And I want to start this reflection with a travel experience from China in 2007.

Yunnan, China 2007

I went to Yunnan province in south-west part of China for the first time in 1989. At that time, Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, was a typical small provincial town with old houses, narrow streets and chaotic traffic, full of horse and cattle driven carriages. I don't remember seeing any tourists during that travel.

The last time when I was in Kunming in 2010, I was staying in a hotel room on the 24th floor in a city that seemed to have been made completely new. The roads were wide, the traffic smooth, the houses new. My friends had taken me around on a nostalgia trip to show me some of the old offices - the only problem was that those old places did not look like anything in my memories.

During 1960-80s, the national government in China frowned on any showing off of differences and traditions by the ethnic minorities. Thus, minority ethnic groups were supposed to dress and speak exactly like other Chinese. During the years of Mao's cultural revolution, often their traditional dresses, music instruments, temples, sculptures, etc. were taken away and destroyed.

During the 1990s, as China opened and its economy took off, slowly minority ethnic groups regained the freedom to express their specific cultures and traditions. To boost tourism, and probably to fill the void created by cultureless sameness, people were being dressed in ethnic costumes to add colours and folklore to places and events. Many of the old temples were reopened and their some times, their sculptures were found and replaced.

With this background information, now let me move to some of my experiences about traditions, changing cultures and authenticity, from that 2007 journey when, I had visited different small towns and many "minority areas". Yunnan is home to a big number of minority ethnic groups.

The next two images are from a restaurant in Kunming, where while you eat, there is a show of ethnic dances. This first image is of two young persons who were wearing traditional ethnic minority dresses and were standing outside the restaurant to attract tourists and to welcome the guests.

Often, persons wearing exotic dresses are used in this way in tourist places all over the world to attract and invite tourists. However, over the years, my impression in Yunnan has been that these persons seem to have become more self-confident. Probably for many of them this is a temporary work, and most of them are studying or working for better careers.

I think that most of them continue to have their roots in their original clans/groups in their villages. However, increasingly they are not wearing such exotic looking dresses in their daily lives, except for some special occasions. Thus, the image they present is for tourists and not the authentic representation of their lives in their ethnic groups.

The next picture is from one of the dances inside that restaurant. This dance had guys wearing cowboy hats from the American western movies.

Wearing cowboy hats is another sign of jazzing up the exoticness for tourists (mostly Chinese tourists). They are not worried about actual representation of traditions. Thus, new "traditions" may be made all the time. With time, I think that some such new "traditions" can grow roots and become more widespread in their communities.

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The next image is from Dali, one of the minority ethnic area, not very far from the Chinese border with India. These women working at a souvenir shop, were going out for their lunch break. They were wearing their full traditional jackets and caps like a uniform, all in the same colours.Only the top part of their dresses was traditional, below they had the practical looking pants.

The next image is from Li-Jiang, not very far from Dali. In late 1990s, Li Jiang had a bad earthquake and the old part of the city was destroyed. During the reconstruction of the old city, an artificial Li-Jiang was built - a theme park, with restaurants, discotheques, souvenir and handicrafts shops for tourists. In this Li-Jiang, the local people dressed up in their ethnic dresses and made it an exotic tourist experience.

In Li Jiang, the impression of real-meets-artificial is very strong and their boundaries are completely blurred.

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Late one night, we reached the city of Xu Chiong. I had visited it earlier in 1996. The doctor who had been my guide and had accompanied me at that time was now the governor of the city. He had treated me like some visiting royalty!

Like Kunming, Xu Chiong had also become unrecognizable - it seemed to be a brand new city made from scratch.

There was a huge square in front of the hotel. On my first night, from the window of my room, I saw a group of people playing traditional music and dancing in that square. Though I was very tired, I was very curious. So I went down to take a closer look at them.

This was not a show for tourists. Their dresses were very different and some people had no traditional costumes. They were not young persons, usually chosen for tourist shows. There was lot of clapping, shouting and some loud singing. Clearly they were having fun. I tried to ask questions through the gestures-language to find out if it was some traditional festival, but they did not understand me.

But they were very welcoming and I joined them and learned the simple steps of their dance. It was an exhilarating experience. The next two images are from that evening.

When I think of that evening, I feel that this was an authentic experience - of real people, rediscovering and celebrating something that they had lost.

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However, Chu Xiong was also the place where I had another surreal experience in terms of ethnic minority traditions. Near the periphery of the city, a Li-Jiang like new tourist centre had been created, with designer tribal houses, Venice like canals, lights, shops and restaurants. One evening, the governor took me there for dinner. It was kitsch, gaudy, fun and completely artificial.

There I came across some persons who had rented traditional dresses and had portable microphones. Men and women were sitting on the two sides of a Venetian canal, and were singing traditional tribal songs about persons pining for their beloveds, separated from them by a mighty river.

When I asked, I was told that they were enacting an old tribal tragic love-story that was famous in that area. In that story, the boy from another village, sang songs for his beloved from the other side of a river. These persons had probably grown up listening to that story and were rediscovering that tradition in an "artificial" or make-believe version. The were having a lot of fun and could not stop laughing.

The whole episode left me feeling a little dizzy in terms of its meanings of traditions and authenticity!

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In another small town called Yong Mou-lu near the border with Vietnam, one night, I found another group of ethnic minority persons, dancing for themselves in a small dark city square. The men had their old traditional music instruments and they knew how to play them.

This time, I had translator with me, who helped me to talk to them. They had managed to hide those instruments and saved them from the destruction of cultural revolution. Hidden away, somehow they had also managed to keep their skills of playing those instruments.

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So then, how do we define authenticity and traditions? Actual tribals living in a remote mountain village, like the lady in the picture below, did not have the jewellery and the costume worn by persons who play tribals in the tourist centres. She is authentic.

As a tourist, if you are travelling, would you really want to visit these places where you will not have services and comforts, and people are not wearing exotic colourful costumes?

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The last image from the 2007 Yunnan visit is of a newly married couple in Yuan Mou-Lu.

Except in the remote villages in the mountains, almost all the young people in China today get married in very Western looking dresses and ceremonies. Wearing traditional ethnic dresses for the marriage is looked down at.

While looking at them, I felt a little sad that they had lost those traditions. Yet, at the same time, not knowing the language and thus unable to communicate with them, I also felt that some of their traditions may still be alive today, in new forms, especially in their songs and dances.

Conclusions

Today the traditions and cultures are changing faster and at a bigger scale. The changes in the past were rare and slow because interactions with outsiders were few. Now the contexts around us and the historical events force us in different directions.

I think that some of the ethnic minority groups that I had met in south Yunnan, would also have parts of their clans in India and Vietnam across the borders. It could be interesting to look at those clans to see how they have changed in other contexts.

In these reflections, my focus was more on clothes and dances. Languages, customs, rites, religions can be other areas to look at, if we wish to think of traditions and authenticity!

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Gods, lords and great persons

In today's Hindustan Times, there is an article by Amish in which he writes about his feelings for "Lord Ram" and his answer to a woman about use of the title "Lord":

A lady friend spoke with me after the event. I know her well and can certify that she is not a secular-extremist (the kind who have a distaste for every religion, especially their own). She is religious and liberal. She asked why I used the honorific ‘Lord’ for Lord Ram. I said I respect him. I worship him. I will call him Lord. She said that she sees me as a liberal who respects the women in his family; then how can I respect Lord Ram, who treated his wife unfairly? She then went on to make some very harsh comments about Lord Ram.

In his answer to this accusation, Amish goes on to look at the lives of three great men - Ram, Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha - and concludes that great men often think of greater good of human beings and in the process are not always fair to their wives and their families, "We have every reason to love them, because they sacrificed their own lives so that we could have a better life. But had we been their family, maybe we would have cause to complain."

The way Amish explains it, it does make sense. However, I was wondering about a kind of gender bias in terms of such stories, where "great men" are excused for their family lives because they were thinking of greater good of the society, but are we equally understanding about "great women", when they want to sacrifice their family lives for the greater good?

So I was wondering are there similar examples of women. The only person I could think of was Mira Bai, though I think that it is not a perfect example. She sacrificed her family life because of her feelings of devotion to Krishna. Though her husband and her family did not like it and even gave poison to her, she is considered a saint by the people.

Another similar example can be of another woman saint from Karnataka - Akka Mahadevi. Can the readers give me other examples of such women as public figures who are respected or worshipped in India, though in terms of their family lives they were less than perfect? Or is it just men who "forget" their families in their quest for greater good?

At another level, similar accusations of mistreating their wives and families have been made against a number of artists, writers, film makers and public figures. Their public image be that of sensitive persons, and they make sensitive portrayals of women and life's injustices in their works, but their wives and families accuse them of neglect, psychological and even physical violence. Perhaps in this regard, it will be easier to find examples of successful women artists, writers and film makers, who have been accused of similar behaviour by their spouses and families!

Going back to the original debate that started this reflection - Amish's explanation about why he prefers to say "Lord Ram" and not just "Ram", I have another consideration. I agree that if you believe in a religion or a god or a figure and you wish to use words like Lord, bhagwan, prophet, etc., it is fine. These titles and words should reflect the faith and devotion you feel in yourself.

However, often the faithful get angry if others do not use such titles and take this as a kind of insult to their religion. They would like to force others to use these titles - in that case, I think that such words are empty of devotion, rather they are at best, a hypocrisy!

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