Life and Afterlife?

Do you believe in afterlife? Is there a life after death? Perhaps you have faith in reincarnation. Or may be you won't even accept that there is any life after death – a permanent and blissful realm of pure nothingness!

Unfortunately, no religion will give a clear and credible answer to this important question. Even science is a bit vague on the subject. There is even a “scientific” study that says the soul weighs exactly 21 grams!

In general, most religions suggest that some sort of afterlife awaits people when they die. Hindus and Buddhists tend to believe in reincarnation. Other religious traditions including the Abrahamic religions hold the view that the afterlife will resolve justice by assigning rewards and punishments to people according to how they lived their lives. Agnostics hold the position that like the existence of God, life after death is unverifiable and therefore unknowable. Atheists, humanists, and post-humanists generally do not believe in the existence of soul or that there is any life after death.

Of all the people ever inhabited this planet, the Ancient Egyptians had the strongest and vividly colourful beliefs in after life. They made the most elaborate arrangements and preparations for a comfortable and unpertubed life after death. They firmly believed that people have more than a body and a soul to be taken care of after death – there are six constituent parts to human life: the Ha (living human body), the Sheut (shadow), the Ren (name), the Ib (heart), the Ba (soul or personality), and the Ka (life force). It would have been considered rude if you had said “May his Ba rest in peace” to the kin of a dead Ancient Egyptian!

Death occurs when Ka leaves the body. Elaborate ceremonies were conducted by priests to preserve the body and to restore a person's physical abilities in death. The idea was to prepare for the unification of the Ba with the Ka in the afterlife. The rewards in afterlife were not easy to come by. First and foremost, it requires a heart free of sins. Also, you should be able to recite the chants, passwords, and formulae of the Book of the Dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was lighter than the feather then they could pass on, but if it were heavier they would be devoured by the demon Ammit.

Egyptians also believed that being mummified was the only way to have an afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, could the dead live again and accompany the Sun on its daily ride. The belief was so strong that the Pharaohs built enormous tomb and temple complexes and filled them with great riches to ensure a calm and peaceful eternal afterlife.

In October 2007, my wife and I made a pilgrimage to some of these ancient Egyptian monuments that still remain majestically as examples of this ancient belief system - the temples in Luxor, tombs at the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, several temple complexes in Upper Egypt and the grandest of them all at the Pyramids of Giza.

Some consider Ramesses II as Egypt's greatest and most powerful pharaoh. He was born ca. 1300 BC and ruled Egypt for nearly 66 years. He constructed several grandiose monuments - including the rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel (length: 56.4 m, height 27.5 m, the four colossal statues of the king in front of it - cut from the living rock - are 18.3 m high). He also added to the temple of Amenhotep III at Luxor and completed the hall of columns at Karnak - still the largest columned room of any building in the world. There are more statues of him in existence than of any other Egyptian pharaoh. He used art as a means of propaganda and his victories over foreigners are depicted on numerous temple reliefs.

When he died, the mummified body of Ramesses II was laid in a tomb cut into the limestone rocks in a remote dried-up river valley on the west side of the Nile in Luxor, now called the Valley of the Kings. The tomb walls were painted and sculpted with splendid murals depicting scenes of daily life and offerings to gods. The chambers were filled with treasures – everything from furniture to food, statues of servants, boats and jewels - all that is needed to ensure a smooth and comfortable life into eternity.

Sadly, the ancient gods could not assure him a tranquil resting place or a gentle transition into an eternal afterlife. Millennia later, the modern grave diggers, including several states, invaded the tombs and took away the treasures. The mummy of Ramesses II is now moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo along with several mummies of other great pharaohs and queens of the New Kingdom.

Nowadays, thousands of tourists irreverently flock to these galleries every morning - some pause for a few moments to reflect on the glory and grandeur of that bygone era; others gawk and scramble on without ever realizing who these great souls were!

Imagine for a moment - if these great men had the slightest inkling that they will end up in a crowded museum hall as objects of derision and scorn, would they ever have contemplated building any of those magnificent monuments?

Superstition has its value, after all!

Newspapers – Bane or Boon?

“The competition has a new benchmark to look up to” proudly proclaims a series of self aggrandizing full-page ads in the Gulf News, a popular daily published from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The ad gives average distribution figures for the six month period ending March 2007 as 111,734 - quite an impressive number for a small country!

I wish the Gulf News every success in their business. What irritates me is the junk they throw at my doorstep everyday, blatantly disregarding the environmental impact it causes.

I made a scrutiny of one week’s supply of the newspaper – it weighed a grand total of 8.125 Kg! The newspaper comes in several sections – the main paper (60-64 pages) with news, business and sports sections and a tabloid (24 pages). The bulk of the paper each day consists of several advertisement tabloids – Properties (120-130 pages), Freehold (130-140 pages), Classifieds (70-80 pages) and a broad sheet of Appointments (18-24) pages - all of which my wife promptly throws into the garbage as soon as she picks it.

The bulk of the weight is for the advertisement tabloids – it weighs 4.475 Kg or 55% of the paper. A quick calculation shows that they will need an annual supply of at least 47,337 metric tons of newsprint to maintain a daily circulation as claimed. A study by environmentalists shows that eleven standard trees (corrected for metric ton) are required to make a ton of newsprint. That means, a small newspaper like Gulf News alone is causing severe environmental damage and deforestation with the destruction of 527,000 trees every year! The advertisement tabloids alone will consume 290,000 trees per annum! A staggering figure not mentioned in their full page ads. Of course, they will retort by saying that a major portion of the circulation is recycled. Will they ever publish audited figures of recycling? I doubt.

It is true that newspapers generate the bulk of their income from advertisements – subscriptions may not even cover 50% of the cost of newsprint. But shouldn’t there be a balance? Gulf News, like any other newspaper in the world, considers itself very responsible, and occasionally trumpets out articles on environmental issues. If it is genuinely concerned, I believe it is time for them to do a genuine introspection and answer some inconvenient questions. Is it really worth the destruction? How long can we continue at this pace? Do we need the mammoth freehold and property tabloids every day? Can’t we reduce this to once a week? To compensate for the revenue loss, can’t we increase the advertisement rates seven-fold? What is a reasonable ad-edit ratio?

I am pretty sure that Gulf News will not do any of these. Dubai is a booming city – perhaps folks at Gulf News know better. Wealthy subscribers must be scrambling every morning through the freehold and property sections hunting bargain $ 1 million apartments and $ 4-6 million villas! I must be the only stupid subscriber who foolishly assumes that classifieds are sought by ordinary people ferreting out a cheap used car or looking for a low income job as a clerk, salesman or a maid.

My guess is that newspapers like Gulf News will continue to publish their massive editions until all the forests are denuded. Until all the ice in the Arctic and Greenland completely melted. Until the rising sea levels will inundate their offices and presses – unless by then they relocate to higher altitudes!

As for me, I am going to stop the subscription when the current one will expire in a few months time.

An Only Child’s Musings!

If you are a middle class Indian in your fifties, it is unlikely that you are the parent of a single child. If you are in the forties or late thirties most likely you have only one child. Those in the early thirties or about to get married might be pondering what the best is.

Though I do not remember, my wife says that we discussed and decided to have only one child on our wedding night twenty two years ago – a decision about the wisdom of which is questioned even today. There have been times when we have wondered whether we did any injustice to our child by denying her the opportunity to have a sibling. Though she has never asked for a little brother or sister, we were not sure about how she really felt.

She is now grown up, doing her fourth year at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. A recent article in The Hindu extolling the virtues of having many children touched a raw nerve and prodded her to send a quick rejoinder to the editor. I would like to share a slightly edited version of that letter (the original was a tad acerbic). Perhaps it might reassure those of you who have taken the bold decision to have only one child and encourage those of you who have not yet decided. Here it is:

Dear Sir,

This is in reference to the article "Just One Child" (Young World, The Hindu, Friday, September 14, 2007).

Not only was the article ill-informed it was also very badly researched and might have been better suited to the temperament in existence in the 1920s. Obviously, the author is unaware of the body of research in existence proving that, if anything, only children seem to cope better with their lives than children with siblings.

In an overpopulated country such as ours, instead of extolling the virtues of having multiple children and cursorily addressing benefits of single child families at the end of that atrocious article, it would have bode well for the readers and for our country to be told that having only one child would be far better than going ahead with more children.

Being an only child, I have, not once in my life, EVER thought even one of those things that that the author seems to think 'only children' habitually muse about. (I did not miss going shopping with a sister and I love shopping with my mom), I have never missed having a sibling and in fact, felt badly for my friends who did have siblings. I distinctly remember my classmates turning sullen and acting out in class after the birth of a sibling and they have always envied me at being an only child. Surely, being a "pediatric counselor", the author might have come across such cases or maybe she only entertains cases of the odd 'only child' who is "sociologically" [sic unhealthy. May be the article was based on Adler's Theory that 'only children' have no rivals for their parents' affection as a result of which they may be pampered and spoiled by their parents, particularly the mother. This theory was disproved in 1987 in a quantitative review conducted by Dr. Toni Falbo who is a professor of educational psychology in the College of Education and faculty research associate in the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. She has devoted about 30 years to myth-busting, focusing on only children and one-child families. Her exhaustive research has led her to doubt the credulity of many birth order pop-psych books (and articles) on the market these days and also to be the most-often quoted expert in the world on a topic that continues to foster lively debate.

A lot of my friends are only children and none of us has ever missed the presence of a sibling in our lives and in fact, think that siblings would have rather marred our childhood experiences. All of us enjoy extremely strong relationships with our parents and have never felt "crowded emotionally and spatially" My own parents are more like my best friends and we talk about everything under the sun, be it sex, politics or just day-to-day mindless banter. This is something that I can say, more from personal experience that children with siblings do not enjoy. I can't wait for the day that I will have to look after my parents as they have looked after me. They have always, even at the age of two, treated me with respect and have never mollycoddled me.

I think what bothered me the most about the article is that it attempts to discourage parents from having just one child. The author seems to think of it as an aberration. Instead of promoting it, she has turned her article into the various disadvantages of having one child with just a cursory glance at what only children are actually capable of. I would think that being an 'independent, self reliant high achiever" with "sound verbal skills" and an ability to "interact with adults well" and having a "leg-up academically" thereby doing "well at school and later in the workplace" pretty much sums up the well adjusted, successful human being. In 2007, it is no longer the exception, rather the norm to have an only child and I am very sure that I will definitely not have more than one child. But that's thanks to the fact that I don't get influenced by articles worthy only of the trash can.

Yours sincerely,
--
B Krishnan (Ms.)
NLSIU - Bangalore

It is indeed a great relief to learn that she is not holding any grudges against us for denying her a sibling! However, I must say that I agree with the author of the article that “raising a single child requires different skills and procedures”. It applies as well to parents raising more than one child!

Will Truth Ever Prevail?

Newspapers in India frequently report mindless violence almost. A stark example is the last week’s attack in Bangalore on a bus bound for Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

A violent and unruly mob stopped a bus with nearly 30 passengers on board, asked the passengers to get down, poured petrol and torched it. Two passengers, perhaps too tired and sleeping inside the bus unaware of the commotion, are charred to death beyond recognition.

Who are the unfortunate victims? Police is yet to come out with identities. Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India. It is also a popular educational destination with hundreds of colleges and institutes. Everyday, thousands of passengers -students, IT professionals, businessmen - commute between the two cities. The unfortunate victims could be any one – your father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister or friend – perhaps going home for a quiet holiday, or returning after a business trip.

What prompted the mob (eyewitnesses say the mob consisted only of four or five miscreants) to take such a drastic action? Many believe the attack could be the handiwork of Hindu activists in retaliation to the controversial remarks made by Mr. M. Karunanidhi, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

The Government of India recently submitted two affidavits in the Supreme Court saying that there is no incontrovertible evidence to prove the existence of the characters or the occurrence of the event depicted in the epic Ramayana – there is no archaeological evidence to support the claim that a fictional character called Rama built a bridge across the seas to present day Sri Lanka.

The Hindu hardliners promptly accused the government of blasphemy and declared nation wide agitation. Sensing trouble and more importantly loss of votes, the government immediately changed track by withdrawing the affidavits. It suspended two directors of the Archaeological Survey of India and some insiders demanded that Culture Minister Ms. Ambika Soni should resign.

In a shameless volte-face, the Indian Law Minister, Mr. H. R. Bhardwaj conceded that “The existence of Rama cannot be doubted. As Himalaya is Himalaya, Ganga is Ganga, Rama is Rama. There is no requirement of any proof to establish the existence." – Oh! Wait a minute minister! Why did your government submit an affidavit contradicting what you just said that caused the whole hullabaloo?

The atheist chief minister of Tamil Nadu added fuel to fire by reiterating that Rama is a mythological hero and does not have any historical existence and there is no proof that the bridge was constructed by Him. He retorted that “Ram is as big a lie as big the truth of the existence of the Ganges and the Himalayas”.

It is quite natural that any sensible person, inundated ad nauseam with these surreal arguments on tv and print-media, will be quite perplexed and puzzled. What is the truth in all they say? Is there any truth at all?

This is indeed a very sad state of affairs for an ancient civilization. India is perhaps only one of the two countries in the world that has adopted “Truth” as the national motto. (The other nation is the Czech Republic whose official emblem states PRAVDA VITEZI or "Truth Shall Prevail").

India insists that truth alone triumphs – nothing else. Period. "Satyameva Jayate" (Sanskrit: "Truth Alone Triumphs") is the inscription embellishing the national emblem, the Lion Capital of King Ashoka at Sarnath. Its origin is in the Mundaka Upanishad - Swami Krishnanada explains the concept of the mantra (Ch III-1-6) very lucidly. According to the learned Swami, “Truth is more than truth-speaking. Truth is the symbol of perfection, a representation of the Divine Being. Adherence to truth means embracing the universal nature of the Reality. Therefore, truth wins a victory everywhere”.

The ancient sages maintained that truth is incontrovertible and absolute truth is synonymous with divinity. The ancient scriptures symbolized the human aspiration to the highest truth, ultimately the Brahman, which represents the power underlying the universe. In Hinduism, Brahman is the ultimate impersonal reality underlying everything in the universe, from which everything comes and to which it returns. Brahman can be called the unknowable, true, infinite and blissful Divine Ground, which is the source and being of all existence from which the cosmos springs.

The Vedic prayers invoked every day in Hindu temples all over the world, exemplifies this essence:

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya
Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya
Mrityor Ma Amritam
Gamaya
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

(Sanskrit: “Lead Us from Untruth to Truth, Lead Us from Darkness to Light, Lead
Us from Death to Immortality, Aum (the universal sound of God) Let There Be
Peace, Peace, Peace."

Luckily we have a select few adherents to this mantra scattered all over the world. They have adopted it in its true sprit! Any guess who they are or which religion they follow?

I am not sure whether anywhere in the Vedas or Upanishads it says “Faith alone Prevails”, but unfortunately, that seems to be the motto of choice of many who proclaim themselves to be the followers of that ancient tradition. How else can one describe the controversy currently raging in India on the Sethusamudram issue?

Did Lord Rama Exist?

A major controversy is blowing up in India. It looks as if it is a godsend for opportunist politicians to capitalize on the religious sentiments of the faithful. It has been brewing in the sidelines ever since the $600 million Sethusamudram project was launched by the Government of India.

The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project is for dredging a shipping channel through shallow sea between the south of India and Sri Lanka. The channel will link the Gulf of Mannar with the Palk Strait and will allow ships sailing between the east and west coasts of India to have a straight passage, instead of having to circumvent Sri Lanka. This will lead to a saving of up to 30 hours of sailing time. While inaugurating the project, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India described it as "one of the most ambitious project ever to be conceived in the Indian port sector".

The proposed shipping channel will pass through the shallow sea called Setu Samudram, and through the island chain known as Rama's Bridge or Adam's Bridge. It is a chain of limestone shoals, 48 km long. Some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is very shallow seriously hindering navigation.

There is a religious dimension to the controversy. Some Hindus believe that Ram Sethu was built by Lord Rama with the help of an army of monkeys led by the monkey god Hanuman. The 'demon king' Ravana of Lanka kidnapped Rama’s wife Sita, and the rescue team of Rama needed the bridge. The epic Ramayana describes the story in great detail and literary style. Hindus attach a great deal of importance to the story, and believe (like any other religious group) all the characters in the story existed in flesh and blood and all events happened exactly as depicted in the epic. So a group of them petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the formation known as Ram Sethu is a protected and ancient monument and it should not be demolished while constructing the Sethusamudram channel. The court is now hearing affidavits from all parties concerned.

The period of the Ramayana is considered as Tretha Yuga (more than 1.7 million years ago), but the Ramayana was written around 4000 years ago. So did Rama build the bridge with the help of his monkey army? Possibly not, says a research team from the Centre for Remote Sensing at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchi, India. (Rama’s bridge is only 3,500 years old: CRS).

The controversy has reached its zenith, when the government of India filed an affidavit yesterday through its director of Archeological Survey. It says that the petition “primarily relied upon religious and mythological texts, which formed an important part of ancient Indian literature, but which cannot be said to be historical records to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters or the occurrence of the event, depicted therein."

This has angered the Hindus and the main opposition party in India who promptly threatened a nationwide agitation against the government for hurting religious sentiments.

The Sanskrit word Vanara literally means ‘human with the tail of a monkey’, a race of ape-like humanoids’. According to the Ramayana, the Vanaras lived primarily in the region of Kishkindha in present-day southern India, in the midst of Dandaka Forest, where Lord Rama met them during his search for Sita.

Now, what is the scientific basis for the remote possibility of such complex engineering feats nearly 2 million years ago? According to the latest theories in evolutionary biology humans first evolved in Africa and migrated elsewhere. In fact, there were at least three major waves of human migration out of Africa (Humans Emerged "Out Of Africa" Again And Again:
Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, Washington University in St Louis). The first wave of this migration reached South Asia around 1.7 million years ago, i.e. during the Thretha Yuga period of Ramayana.

A good time-line of human evolution can be found at http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/species.htm . The species that emerged in Africa around 1.9 million years ago is called Homo Ergaster. The website also portrays an artist’s impression of H. Ergaster. However, researchers currently accept that "modern" humans emerged approximately 200-250 thousand years ago only.

For Ramayana to be authentic, in all probability Lord Rama was one among those migrants from Africa. On his way to the south of India, he befriended the Vanaras who inhabited the region. He then recruited an army of them and constructed a bridge across the shallow seas, which now the Government of India wants to break!

Do you think the Lord Rama was a H. Ergaster? I do not think any Hindu will accept that. All available pictures and idols depict him as a handsome young man!

Is the Church Safe for Children?

Will you trust your children to be alone in a church, a place for worshipping God? Before saying anything in an emphatic affirmation, just dwell on a couple of news items that appeared recently in the press.

“Massive payout for Sex Abuse Victims” screams a headline in today’s Gulf News (page 25, September 9, 2007. This is an agency report from AFP not posted on GN website). At first glance, the headline gives you the impression that it must be a verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal to victims of some conflict zone such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone or Bosnia. It is not! The perpetrator is not any criminal organization or militia! It is the Roman Catholic Church!!!

The church in San Diego, California, will pay nearly $200 million to 144 victims of sexual abuse by its priests! If you are an ordinary “God-fearing” person, this must be shocking news to you – thoroughly devastating, utterly outrageous! See the same news reported by Reuters “San Diego Church makes sex abuse settlement”

The report says that each of the 144 victims will receive $1.4 million each, but does not say how many priests were involved or the priests-to-victims ratio. The church was initially reluctant to pay that much money – their offer was a miserly $95 million but eventually agreed to double it.

A Gulf News report “LA church in record abuse deal” published two months ago, says that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a settlement of $660 million to 508 victims (or $1.3 million per victim). The report also gives a list of payouts within the last five years that exceeds $1.18 billion! More shocking is the total number of victims – 1700!! This is the data from just six dioceses in the US.

• In 2007, Diocese of Sandiego paid $198 million to 144 victims


• In 2007, Los Angeles Archdiocese paid $660 million to 508 victims


• In 2006, Diocese of Covington, Kentucky paid $84 million to 350 victims


• In 2005, Diocese of Oakland, California paid $56 million to 56 victims


• In 2004, Diocese of Orange, California paid $100 million to 90 victims


• In 2003, Archdiocese of Boston paid $84 million to 552 victims
  

According to Wikipedia there are 195 dioceses in the US. If we take a modest average of 280 victims per diocese, there will be at least 54,600 victims in the US alone. If all of them are awarded a fairly reasonable compensation of $1 million each, the church will have to find $54.6 billion to bail out!

Another headline in today’s Gulf News reads “Pope blasts Europeans for not having enough children” (again an agency report not posted at GN website, but can be read at Yahoo News). It says “Pope Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having enough children in a sermon yesterday in Austria”.

Thanks to Gulf News, I now have answers to some inconvenient questions:

First is the question “Where are those millions?” posed by skeptics about the millions collected by Mother Teresa. No need to guess where those millions are going or why the church is fast-tracking her sainthood!

The second is the Pope's question - Why do Europeans have less children? Isn’t the answer obvious? Either most of the adult European Catholics are victims of past abuse or know too well their churches and priests.

A third question is why are churches in Britain and elsewhere witnessing dwindling parishioners? With no children to go to churches, priests are also dwindling. There must be two reasons for this - a. Which abused child would want to become a priest? b. With no children to be abused, what is the point of becoming a priest?

So what is the solution? At least in Britain, the churches and parishes are outsourced to India! Please read “Indians help keep the flock in UK churches” published in the Gulf News on September 7, 2007

Saint Teresa – Waiting for a “Scientific” Miracle?

“Mother Teresa's sainthood is just one miracle away” says a headline in today’s Gulf News.

I have no comments on that. To anoint or not anoint the nun a saint is the Church’s prerogative and all indications are that they will do it sooner than later. However, one finds it difficult to understand why it is hard for them to confirm a second miracle.

“One more miracle has to happen for the official confirmation of Mother's sainthood. It should be a medical miracle that defies human explanation” says Sr. Nirmala, who is the successor to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Dictionary definitions of the word clearly say that a “miracle” is either “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs” (http://www.merriam-webster.com ) or “an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God” (Microsoft® Encarta 2004 Dictionary). Of course, the divine intervention in this case is supposed to be performed by the nun who died ten years ago.

A miracle by definition cannot be explained by science. Why then the good sister goes on to add, supposedly with a straight face, “a miracle is studied by the doctors and the entire process is very scientific. Even if it is reported in Kolkata, the case goes to Rome. The theologians decide after a study by doctors". Why sister, why do you need the authenticity of science to validate a miracle that cannot be proved by definition?

Mother Teresa had already performed a “miracle” that was validated by Rome in a very scientific process!! That miracle occurred in 1998, exactly on the first anniversary of the nun’s death. Monica Besra, a tribal lady in a small village called Dangram, some 740 km northeast of Calcutta, was suffering from abdominal pain apparently caused by a tumor. The tumor vanished, when she applied a medallion with the image of the nun. In October 2002, the Vatican recognized the miracle, after a “due diligence” study by its doctors and theologians! And thus devised a simple cure for cancerous tumors!

However, an article published in Time (What's Mother Teresa Got to Do with It? - October 24, 2002) contradicts the miracle claim. It quotes Monica's husband Seiku Murmu saying that his wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle. “He concedes that the locket was part of the story of Monica's ordeal but says no one should suppose there was a cause-and-effect relationship between it and the cure. He continues ‘My wife did feel less pain one night when she used the locket, but her pain had been coming and going. Then she went to the doctors, and they cured her.’ Monica still believes in the miracle but admits that she did go to see doctors at the state-run Balurghat Hospital. ‘I took the medicines they gave me, but,’ she insists, ‘the locket gave me complete relief from the pain’.”

What did the doctors who treated Monica at the state-run hospital say? The Time report continues “Dr. Tarun Kumar Biswas and Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, who treated Monica over several months, say their patient indeed had a lump in her abdomen, but it was not a full-grown tumor. ‘She responded to our treatment steadily,’ says Mustafi. Monica's medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions and physicians' notes that could conceivably help prove whether science or the icon worked the cure. But the records are missing. Monica says Sister Betta of the Missionaries of Charity took them away two years ago. ‘It's all with her,’ says Monica. A call to Sister Betta, who has been reassigned to another post of the Charity, produced a ‘no comment.’ Balurghat Hospital officials say the Catholic order has been pressuring them to say Monica's cure was miraculous. Calls to the office of Sister Nirmala, produced no comment as well.”

A well documented and scientifically validated miracle indeed! If you are naïve enough to believe the story, the Vatican now has a miraculous cure for cancerous tumors. They must be wondering why oncologists are not prescribing medallions of the nun for their patients to hold three times a day near the tumor. Have faith, the tumor will dissolve in no time! Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy are passé!

Am I dreaming or what? Why are newspapers like Gulf News prominently carrying such nonsense?

If this can happen in the 21st century and people are gullible enough to believe it, imagine what the church could do when most of the world was illiterate!

Mother Teresa - an Atheist or a Saint of Darkness?

An article in Time hints that Mother Teresa of Calcutta was an agnostic or even an atheist deep inside. A book due to be released on September 4, "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light", includes letters of the mother written over 66 years to colleagues, confessors and superiors.
The author of this book is not any anti-religious investigative reporter, but a member of the Missionaries of Charity she founded, and a staunch supporter for her sainthood, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk.

The letters are on various topics, but strikingly reveal her inner torment. The excerpts quoted in the article vividly bring out the angst she suppressed within her for decades (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html).

• "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself -- for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead". "It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'" (1953)
  
• "Such deep longing for God -- and ... repulsed -- empty -- no faith -- no love -- no zeal. (Saving) souls holds no attraction -- Heaven means nothing -- pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything." (1956)
  
• "If there be no God -- there can be no soul -- if there is no Soul then Jesus -- You also are not true." (1959)
  
• "If I ever become a Saint — I will surely be one of 'darkness.' I will continually be absent from Heaven — to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth." (1962)
  
• "Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear," (1979).
  
• "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God -- tender, personal love," she wrote to a friend. "If you were (there), you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.'"
  "I utter words of community prayers -- and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give -- but my prayer of union is not there any longer -- I no longer pray."

Her anguish continued till her death in 1997.

The letters are unlikely to affect her cause for sainthood as the church is waiting for a second “miracle” to complete her canonization. The church has already come out with arguments to justify her torment. Her successor, Sr. Nirmala, said that the darkness experienced by Mother Teresa (for over 50 years!) was God’s way of leading her towards the path of purification and transformation .(http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/27/stories/2007082761202200.htm ). A former Ambassador to the Vatican said that Mother Teresa’s torment was a struggle with Satan himself and should not block her ascension to sainthood (http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1019490 ).

I have always wondered about the inner feelings of people who spent a “life time serving God” – i.e. what do these professional servants of god think of their elusive master. It appears that there could be no better example than the letters of Mother Teresa written over such a long period of time.

In fact, Mother Teresa wrote in 1946 that Jesus called her to abandon her work as a teacher with Loreto Sisters to be with "the slums" of the city of Calcutta (Kolkotta), dealing directly with "the poorest of the poor" — the sick, the dying, beggars and street children. "Come, Come, carry Me into the holes of the poor," he told her. "Come be My light."

Thus, she abandoned everything and plunged deep into the service of the “poorest of poor”, with a strong belief that "actually we are touching Christ's body in the poor. In the poor it is the hungry Christ that we are feeding, it is the naked Christ that we are clothing, it is the homeless Christ that we are giving shelter".
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/presentation-speech.html)

Then for some reason, Jesus decides that enough is enough, and turns off that light. For the next 50 or so years, she leads a miserable life, struggling and yearning for the light that eluded her for ever.

Now, imagine yourself in the company of the poorest of the poor. You see nothing but hunger, desolation, sickness, and malnutrition all around you. Sooner or later, wouldn’t you start to have doubts about a naked, hungry, or even a homeless Christ? Did He bring suffering to a select group of people in a third-world country, so that certain other pious people like Mother Teresa could serve them and thus touch the body of Christ? How could you reconcile to that justice? Is the suffering of the poorest of poor in India and other third-world countries a gift from God? A toy for the rich to play with – to realize and touch their God by serving the poor?

For the church, Mother Teresa alive was a huge money-making machine – Millions of dollars poured in from every corner of the world supposedly to serve the multitude of homeless and hungry Christs in Calcutta and elsewhere. Skeptics ask “Where are those Millions?”(http://members.lycos.co.uk/bajuu/ ) – According to them, there is no visible evidence to show that money is spent to alleviate suffering – there are no real hospitals, no real schools, no orphanages with humane facilities etc., they say. A video clip available at You tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q1m-8npkJ4) may help you to make up your mind.

No doubt, the Vatican will canonize Mother Teresa sooner than later – they know a Saint Teresa will bring in billions!

Do Gods Read Newspapers?

Do gods read newspapers? It is a question that has been troubling me for some time. If so, do they subscribe to all the newspapers published around the world? Or only a select few? What languages do the gods prefer? English? Arabic? Hebrew? Malayalam? I will never know.

These nagging questions rake my mind whenever I see advertisements praying “eternal peace to departed souls” or for “favours received” addressed seemingly to an “Almighty”. The former category of advertisements is prevalent in Dubai, the latter I see mostly in the Malayalam dailies from the southern state of Kerala India.

An example is the two condolence advertisements (3 col x 21 cms.) by a large Dubai based FMCG company (Gulf News, August 22, 2007) for two of their managers who lost their dear fathers recently. The ads read “We express our heartfelt condolences to” [Name, and designation of the employee], “and his family on the sad demise of his,” [father/mother/wife and name of the deceased] “who passed away on” [date]. The company also implores “We pray to God to rest his soul in eternal peace”. There is a similar ad inserted by yet another company condoling the death of the wife of a top executive (Gulf News, August 23, 2007). The template of all three ads is identical, you just insert different names.

Now there is confusion; a lot of confusion.

1. It appears that one of the dead men is a Muslim and the other a Christian. The unfortunate (or fortunate – depending on your viewpoint) lady is a Hindu. They all probably believed in entirely different gods (assuming none of them were atheists). That means Gulf News must have subscriptions from all gods and deities or deliver complimentary copies every day to their abodes, wherever that might be (ads are not published in their on-line edition, so that possibility is ruled out).
   
2. The position of an employee within the company, who is bereaved of a kin, determines the size of the condolence ad. In general, they do not insert ads for low ranking workers. The quota goes some thing like this - a small ad for middle managers, quarter page for senior managers, half-page for owners of smaller companies and full page ads for owners or directors of large companies. Does size matter to God? Is there a direct correlation between the size of an ad and the duration of ‘eternal peace’ granted to that individual soul?
   
3. Do all these gods read English? Perhaps Jesus can – as asserted by a Texas Governor who said “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.” (MA Ferguson 1875-1961). However, scholars disagree; they say Jesus spoke Aramaic, with a smattering of Hebrew and Greek. We in this part of the world firmly believe that God only speaks classical Arabic – his sayings lose validity if anyone attempts translation into other languages. I do not know what the Hindu gods speak, perhaps Sanskrit, the ancient but dead language of India. Then again, if Sanskrit is indeed the language of gods, why did they let it die?
   
4. A prayer for eternal peace implies the existence of eternal pandemonium or hell awaiting certain other souls. None of the scriptures seem to agree on the criteria for awarding this judgment; it varies from religion to religion and is in general, mutually inconsistent. What will happen to the poor souls, whose sponsors do not insert ads in their favour? Will they never attain “eternal peace”?
   
5. Most people believe their God is omniscient – in that case, He already knows about the bereavement and has decided what to do with that soul. Will He be swayed by an imploration through the print media? Use your common sense to arrive at your own conclusion. In that case, what is the whole purpose of these advertisements?

These are questions with irrefutability attached to any answers you will come up with. Nobody can prove or disprove their answers. It is just a matter or faith!

Inserting an ad in a newspaper like Gulf News will cost a lot of money. It goes without saying that the only party that benefits from this exercise is the newspaper. It is a good source of income for them without any marketing efforts and they will never discourage this practice. Perhaps the advertisers believe these newspapers are peace brokers for the departed souls.

I have one last question. Are these companies not on talking terms with their employees? Can’t their MD or somebody senior, give a personal call to the concerned employee and console him/her or even sent them a condolence by email? And thus save the company a lot of money? Or donate it to charity?

A City That Cares….

We know pretty well that newsmen create some of the news these days wittingly or unwittingly. The intense competition to be there first for “breaking news” by print and television journalists sometimes results in news that is their own creation. I never thought that policemen ever faced such competition. Now, according to recent news reports, the policemen in Dubai started to create their own crimes.

Take a look at a story published yesterday in the Gulf News “CID man gets suspended jail term for firing at car” (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/08/22/10148332.html ). Apparently, a Dubai court sentenced a suspended jail term to a 25-year-old “Yemeni policeman” (it must be a citizen of Yemen working for Dubai Police, not a policeman from Yemen) who fired five bullets and endangered the lives of a young unmarried U.A.E. National couple. The court also found the couple guilty of having sex in a tinted car and sentenced them also a suspended jail term. Another policeman also was handed a suspended jail term for chasing them and blocking their car.

How did the police man notice the couple having an intimate private moment in a tinted car? UAE law stipulates that films with 70 per cent or higher visible light transmission (VLT) may only be used in car windows. Not in these cars. No way. If you live in Dubai, you will notice that most of the cars on the roads have films with less than 1% VLT – they are almost opaque. Probably they did the act in a desolate place, and the policeman’s suspicion was aroused by movements of a stationary car caused by the passionate act of the couple. Who wouldn’t be? Can’t you see an opportunity here? I could see a great marketing potential for a safe AVS in addition to the ABS standard in such cars – an Anti Vibration System that locks a vehicles’s suspension system when needed. An AVS that is guaranteed to arrest any external manifestation of vibration even at the height of intense passion by its occupiers.

P.S. None of our friends, neither the policemen nor the couple, will spend time in prison. They are free as long as each individual will not commit another crime during the term of their suspended sentence. Can there be anything more impressive– a court finds both parties (on either side of the law) guilty, and then serve all parties suspended jail terms. This can happen only in a city that cares.

Advantages of Not Reading a News Paper

“Shop selling offensive T-shirts referred to panel” screams the headline of a local news item recently published in the Gulf News (a popular daily news paper in the United Arab Emirates). (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/08/17/10147241.html )
The news report says that a good humored vendor put on sale a bunch of T-shirts with the name “God” emblazoned on it. This is a sacrilegious crime in this part of the world. Some residents complained to the authorities about the serious offence and inspectors seized all material from the shop and probably closed it forever. The vendor may say in court that he has the permission of God to do so, or even He ordered him to do so in a dream or something like that. But I do not think that will be a sufficient argument. According to common belief, God has stopped preaching to humans centuries ago. Perhaps, He wisely understood that there is no point in doing that.

Another recent news item from India describes the attack on a Bangladeshi writer currently in exile in India. She is issued a "death warrant" if she did not pack her bags and leave India. "Anybody eliminating her would be given Rs100,000 (Dh8,333) and unlimited rewards if she does not leave the country immediately. Her crime - “she has insulted a particular group of people and continued to create problems in this country," as told to a news agency by its top spokesperson. He did not specify what the unlimited rewards are (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/08/18/10147431.html ).

One good thing about such nice people is that none of them reads tabloids like Weekend Review that comes with Gulf News every Friday. For example, Weekend Review carries a list of best seller books and a very interesting book is on that list for the past thirteen or so weeks. I cannot find a link to that page, but the book in question is listed currently at No. 3. Even though, it is the name of a book, it is a bold statement that the Weekend Review carries every week. To me it is a greater offence than the one attributed to recent cartoon controversy. Let us see how long the fun will last. Meanwhile, congratulations to the editorial team of Gulf News for their bravery.

A Leprechaun who evolved from Monkeys!

Recently while on a plane from Dubai to Riyadh, I had a chance to browse Friday (June 8-14, 2007), an expensively and beautifully produced magazine, filled almost entirely (in my opinion) with trash, that accompany the Gulf News every Friday.

I browsed through its pages and stumbled upon the first piece titled Animal instincts written by a Mr. G* Nice.
http://www.gulfnews.com/friday/People/10130683.html.

I was curious to know what G* stands for. Conservative media use asterisks when they have to print expletives (e.g. s**t, or f**k etc., see how useful the asterisks are). May be there is one, but I could not think of a two letter expletive that starts with G. The blurb mentions that Mr. G* Nice is a Dubai-based columnist who writes an exclusive column for Friday. The column includes an unusual photograph of the author; a rear view of his bald pate with an oversize headphone strewn around the head. In the photo, Mr. G* Nice is apparently looking at the blank screen of his notebook PC. Perhaps he is having trouble booting up the device, or he gets his stimulation for his columns by staring at a blank screen (I am inclined to think that he is doing the latter). Since his face is hidden, I cannot guess anything else apart from the fact that he is a male Caucasian, completely bald, perhaps 30-40 years old, prefers to wear blue denims and black jacket even on a very hot summer day in Dubai. I would be interested to know what he is listening on that oversized headphones while staring at a blank screen - music, a podcast, Gospel?

So, who or what is this Mr. G* Nice?

1. An erudite columnist – especially on matters of philosophy, science and evolution, who occasionally gives intelligent teasers to his readers.


2. A creationist, who believes that the Bible’s account of the Creation is literally true and that G** created man to rule over this world.


3. An obtuse, dull-witted humor writer masquerading as a specialist in “creative circles, psychology and stuff”.

I would rather let the reader come to his/her conclusion after reading his column and my comments below.

Since there was no other worthwhile pursuit I could do in that plane journey, I read his column. That confirmed my hunch that he is not only staring at a blank screen, but also is fond of listening to silent, imaginary, non-existent music through oversize headphones. Perhaps, the information that he gathers from blank screens and silent music also fills his brain with the same. How else can you explain such utter hogwash in a magazine, unfortunately read also by at least a few impressionable youngsters, who might believe anything they see in print? Then again, seeing such articles, one feels happy that kids of this generation aren’t that much interested in reading anyway!

In his column, Mr. G* Nice poses a very interesting question: “If you were an animal – what kind of animal would you be?” Can anything be more brainless? What does Mr. G* Nice thinks of himself – a Gremlin, Elf , Goblin or most likely a Leprechaun? - Doesn’t this guy know that he is already an animal, a mammal called Homo sapiens (Genus: Homo, Familiy: Hominidae, Order: Primates, Class: Mammalia, Phylum: Chordata, Kingdom: Animalia)?

In fact, he also has a challenge for his dear readers; his offer of a “life changing mental stimulation”. Perhaps, he intended to ask, “If you were a different animal, what kind would you be?” That makes some sense. If you are not born in the family of H. Sapiens, what else would you be? That is a reasonable question to ask, an interesting thought experiment. Mr. G* Nice weighs up several options – penguin, dog, donkey, lion, etc. before giving his personal choice (after careful consideration and due diligence) – that he would want to be a ‘Monkey’! There is nothing wrong in that, except he did not specify which species of monkeys he would like himself to be when he becomes one.

In spite of our distinct and different looks, whether Black, Caucasian, Mongolian, Chinese or Japanese, we all can interbreed and produce offspring; hence we humans belong to the same species. Unlike H. Sapiens, there are more than 250 different species of monkeys currently living in the wild that do not interbreed at all. Come on, Mr. G* Nice, specify which monkey species you want to be in – Rhesus, Colobus, Langur, Macaque, Baboon, Mandrill, Capuchin or any other? That will pose another problem. Will his chosen species want Mr. G* Nice in their midst? If I were a Rhesus monkey, I know the answer already.

I must assume here that Mr. G* Nice would want to be a real monkey rather than be a member of another ape family such as orang-utans or chimpanzees. From the wording of his teaser, I could easily guess that he doesn’t know that he is already an ape, that the Hominidae family includes chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and humans and is collectively known as the “great apes”.

It is a common misconception to call our ape cousins monkeys. The monkeys and apes (including us humans) belong to the Primate Order, but are different families. How do we differentiate? We humans are hairless (some are baldheaded, like Mr. G* Nice) apes, our cousins (chimpanzees, orang-utans, gorillas etc.) are hairy, but none of us have a tail. Monkeys on the other hand are hairy like the apes, but also have a long and very useful tail. Perhaps Mr. G* Nice is missing his tail. So, when he becomes a monkey, we could probably expect a new photograph to accompany his columns – a photograph of his posterior adorning a real masculine tail!

Then he digressed away from an otherwise interesting argument with a “quick aside” – “if we did evolve from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” I wouldn’t mind a thirteen-year old asking that question, but this is an exclusive columnist of Friday! That’s when I realized that that this guy really spends all his time (except perhaps when writing his columns) staring at his blank computer screen and listening to silent, non-existent music.

Give me a break Mr. G* Nice, where did you get the idea that we evolved from monkeys? Perhaps you don’t know that all animals that we see around us today underwent millions of years of evolution and are the perfect examples of those species that survived?

We, Homo sapiens, did not evolve from monkeys. Let us do a thought experiment. Let us assume that Mr. G* Nice has a family, and that he can trace his family tree sufficiently back, perhaps millions of years. Let us also assume that a wise old Rhesus monkey in India called R* Nice also has a family and can trace his family tree back millions of years. Both gentlemen will trace their respective family tree to find a common ancestor, who probably lived around 25 million years ago, in the jungles of Africa. If an energetic young chimpanzee in Angola called C* Nice will do the same exercise, she will trace her ancestry also to the same common ancestor. That perhaps will be the 1.5 millions-greats-grandpa of Mr. G* Nice, the wise old R*Nice (Rhesus monkey from India) and the energetic young C* Nice (the chimpanzee from Angola). Their greats-grandpa, who was neither a monkey nor a human, would probably have nice narrow, downward facing nostrils somewhat similar to Mr. G* Nice’s nostrils and a perfect long tail almost as our wise old R* Nice has. It is not a coincidence that Mr. G* Nice and our venerable R* Nice share 93% of their DNA sequence.

Incidentally, Mr. G* Nice and the young energetic C* Nice will share a common ancestor much earlier than that, say around 5 million years ago. This ancestor, perhaps their 250,000 greats-grandpa, also lived in Africa, and probably looked more like C* Nice rather than Mr. G* Nice, but this greats-grandpa was not a chimpanzee.

What I am trying to say is that none of us evolved from chimpanzees or monkeys. We, i.e. the apes and monkeys, all evolved from a common ancestor, who lived perhaps 25 millions years ago in the jungles of Africa.

For a very interesting and scientific account of where we came from, right to the origins of life on this planet, I would strongly recommend Mr. G* Nice to throw away his oversized headphones and blank-screen PC to read The Ancestor’s Tale – A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life by Professor Richard Dawkins, a world-renowned evolutionary biologist and author. That will probably help Mr. G* Nice to realize that he is not a Leprechaun and we humans did not evolve from monkeys!

The World's Best Country

Finally, I discovered the best country to settle in the world; a country with a post modern world view that helps mankind to find an easy solution to an everyday problem faced my millions – without any guilt or remorse. It hit upon me because for the past one month I was in great turmoil - my wife is away on holiday and I am leading a miserable solitary life. Every evening I return to a dark, damp and dirty house. There is no one to greet me with a smile - no one to bring me a cup of tea, no one to tell me the neighborhood gossip, no real food to eat, nothing, nada! With a sullen face, I change into my pajamas and make a cup of tea that tastes like muddy rain water. Ignoring the accumulated dust and litter all around the house, I’ll soon settle by my corner table to start browsing on the internet – all in total silence and solitude till I drop off to bed some time past mid-night. Often with a very hungry stomach – because the fridge is empty and I did not feel like driving to a restaurant.

Today, a news item on the BBC website grabbed my attention “Iran talks up Temporary Marriage”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6714885.stm
Aha!! Isn’t that a solution to my problem? Isn’t that a perfectly legal and moral way to solve one’s loneliness without losing face or reputation in the society? The report says that in Iran it is perfectly legal to marry a woman for one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year or even up to a century. I cannot understand how you can have a temporary marriage for a century – perhaps, with all the temporary marriages, Iranians lead a very healthy and active life and live up to hundreds of years. In any case, that will be an added bonus I wouldn’t mind. The report also did not specify whether they will allow temporary gay or lesbian relationships in a similar legal manner – perhaps that is too much to hope for even in a post modern religious country.

Assuming this could be a hoax, that some smart hacker sabotaged the BBC website, I checked for the authenticity of the claim – by doing a quick search on the internet. There are hundreds of websites on the subject, many authored or supported by well read religious scholars

Below is the verse from Holy Quran, the scholars say that will justify a temporary union – (I looked up three translations and they all agree). I couldn’t believe it; the BBC report is true – there is no doubt about that.

These are the three or four popular translations (translator’s name given in the beginning of verse): The previous verse in the scripture (i.e. 4-23) gives a list of women you cannot marry – mother, mothers-in-law, foster mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces etc.

Sura 4 - verse 24

1. YUSUFALI: Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained (Prohibitions) against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek (them in marriage) with gifts from your property,- desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers (at least) as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually (to vary it), there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise.
   
2. PICKTHAL: And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you. Lawful unto you are all beyond those mentioned, so that ye seek them with your wealth in honest wedlock, not debauchery. And those of whom ye seek content (by marrying them), give unto them their portions as a duty. And there is no sin for you in what ye do by mutual agreement after the duty (hath been done). Lo! Allah is ever Knower, Wise.
   
3. SHAKIR: And all married women except those whom your right hands possess (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and lawful for you are (all women) besides those, provided that you seek (them) with your property, taking (them) in marriage not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise.
   http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/
   
4. Another translation is even more specific, it explicitly uses the term ‘temporary’:
   “To women whom you choose in temporary and conditional (muwaqat and muta'a) marriage, give their dowry, as a duty.". http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/Temp.Marriage.htm

It is now very clear. Except for close blood relatives and married women, all other women can be approached legally for a temporary alliance and without any guilt. You just pay for their services or duty from your wealth by mutual agreement. After that, you can do whatever you want and there is no sin. Don’t you think it is a perfect legal and moral solution to a common, everyday problem faced by men all over the world – for example what will you do when your wife takes a sabbatical and leaves you in solitary confinement for a day, a week or even a month? That is longest my wife goes away – definitely not for a century.

The report says a man can have any number of temporary marriages but does not specify how many temporary wives you can have simultaneously. In Islam, you can have up to four wives simultaneously. I am not sure whether that limit is for four legal, permanent wives excluding the temporary ones; I have to ask an ayatollah. Perhaps he could find a justification for four legal wives and any number of temporary wives.

Of course, woman will not be allowed to have more than one husband at a time – permanent or temporary. That means, my wife who is on sabbatical is not allowed to have a temporary husband – unless I divorce her first (she cannot divorce me easily). Isn’t that a beauty? That’s what I like about it – everything is in favor of the males of the species.

There is at least one country in the world where they neither allow women to touch a steering wheel, nor walk alone in the streets. A clever society indeed, who knew from the beginning that women are bad drivers and cause accidents! So they totally banned them from the roads. I could think of a few other places where women should be banned – politics, schools, workplaces, public gatherings. I will have to change my residence to regions under Taliban control for that ultimate bliss. Also, according to these people, women titillate you so much; so to prevent any harm, they are ordered to cover in black from head to toe and wear a face mask and veil with only a small slit for the eyes.

Mr. Mostafa Pour Mohammed, who is the interior minister of Iran and himself a junior ayatollah says that marriage is a human need and temporary marriage should not be used just for sex, but to solve social problems”. He cannot be more correct. How else can I solve my solitude when my wife is away? Who will give me company? Who will make me food? Who do I sleep with? What solutions do other societies prescribe for similar grave social problems? Alcohol, drugs or much worse, cable TV?

A woman MP asked the honorable minister how many temporary marriages his daughter had so far. The MP was promptly sent to jail – that suits her. I do not know why ministers are always called honorable? The only thing these specimens invariably lack is exactly that – honor.

The beauty of the temporary marriage concept is that you do not need a cleric to solemnize it or a registrar to issue a contract. You just read an oath in private and that’s that - you are husband and wife – albeit temporary. The duration is specified at the time of oath taking. Since it is a private affair, probably you could alter it at your sole discretion.

It is also a convenience for young girls to travel with their boy friends or vice versa and share a hotel room without worrying about police knocking at the door at the inappropriate moment. Poor women who need financial support also can legally do it; other societies might use a different word for such temporary alliances but they are primitive societies still in the dark ages who do not know how to solve a basic moral problem. In Iran such relationships are perfectly legal and moral under the temporary marriage act.

It is also a good business opportunity for the travel and tourism industry. Already a Tehran travel agency is advertising holidays by the beautiful Caspian Sea for couples who want to have temporary marriages – the package includes a free one week accommodation in a three-star hotel and solemnization of the marriage by a local ayatollah. So, you are legal in front of the police and morally clean in front of the character in the heavens. It did not specify whether they will arrange a temporary wife as well – probably they will, for a small extra fee.

Good bye for now. I am packing my bags to catch the next flight to Tehran!