This article was written in response to the wave of rage and anger and frustration that has swept the city of Mumbai following the terrorist attack on Taj and Oberoi. Must we forgive? Is vendetta the only option? Is righteous indignation going to take us to a REAL solution? I ponder…..

Then she wept, this old, frail, mother of a hundred sons. The great battle had been fought. Dharma had been established. Around her were the corpses of her hundred sons: some with broken necks, some with smashed skulls, some with open chests, and one with a broken thigh. The wailing of her widowed daughters-in-law filled her ears. They mourned for her sons and her grandsons, all of whom were killed by the Pandava army. Tears rushed out of her eyes, making her blindfold so wet that she feared that she would be able to see those dead faces through the cloth. Unable to bear the thought, she squeezed shut her eyes. The hundred pots from which these hundred were born occupied her courtyard in the palace. But these were bodies of grown men, princes, warriors, each one with a broad chest and long arms. They occupied an entire field. Their bodies still gleamed with their sweat, their armors, their jewels, their weapons. How magnificent they would have looked as they marched out the city blowing a hundred conch-shells?

But they were villains. They had to be killed for dharma to be established. Rather than wishing them victory had she not wished victory to dharma? Did she not doubt their righteousness? Did she not feel they were not quite the children of destiny? That privilege rested with her five nephews, the sons of Pandu. Yes, they had gambled away their wife and kingdom, but they had been punished for it - thirteen years of humiliating exile. They were sinless when they marched into Kurukshetra. But not her sons - they had not washed away the sin of publicly disrobing a helpless woman. They had argued that the thirteen years of exile was not yet over and so they were well within their rights not to return the Pandava lands, but when Krishna had brilliantly argued otherwise, they had simply said, like petulant children refusing to share their toy, “Not a needlepoint of territory shall we part with.” That is when she knew that victory may not be theirs. Dharma was not with them.

Do mothers of villains have the right to weep? Everyone mourns for Arjun’s son Abhimanyu who was killed by his uncles, for Bhima’s son, Ghatotkacha, who was served as a human shield for the Pandavas, for the five sons of Draupadi who were so mercilessly slaughtered at night in that dastardly attack by Ashwatthama. They were heroes. They were sons of heroes. Her sons - must the mourning for them be more muted. They lost. They were without doubt villains. But they were her sons.

When children die violently, in the generations to come, every mother mourning for her son will say, “My son is like the son of the Pandavas, innocent and righteous. Why did they die? No one will say, my son was like the son of Gandhari for Gandhari’s sons deserved to die. ” We want our children to be heroes, martyrs, not villains or terrorists. Hero or villain, martyr or terrorist, they are children. And a mother will weep for all of them.

Wherefrom come heroes and villains? Who creates heroes and villains? Is it you, Vyasa, storyteller? Did you judge who is right and who is wrong, who is innocent and who is not? What is your measuring scale? Where did you get it from? The pain of a villain’s mother is as deep as a hero’s mother. Give her some consideration.

Says Gandhari, why did my children refuse to share their kingdom with their cousins? Why did Karna who accompanied my firstborn, Duryodhana, everywhere not teach them the value of charity? We had so much, surely they could have accommodated five more. Their refusal had no reason except greed. Sheer meanness. Animals are neither greedy nor mean, only humans are. Animals are neither charitable nor kind, only humans are. My children chose to be humans - the wrong type of humans. But they were my children nevertheless and I weep for them.

Says Gandhari, maybe my children became greedy because of me. Their father could never see them; I, their mother, refused to see them. Basking in the glory of being a noble wife, I blindfolded myself from their childhood. I never saw their birthmarks. I never saw their beauty. All I felt was their breath and their sweat. Hundred tiny hands clung to my robes when I walked down the palace corridors. Now a hundred lifeless hands yearn to touch me.

Maybe my children would have been generous if my husband was allowed to be a king. He was the elder son, after all. But blind men are not allowed to be kings. Perhaps that law that denied my husband kingship is the cause of my children’s villainy. Who makes such laws? Ancestors? Then I hold the ancestors responsible for the crime of my children.

Vyasa, storyteller, do you realize that the Pandavas are not of your blood? The Kauravas have the blood of Dhritarashtra, your first son by Ambika. Your second son, Pandu, born of Ambalika, did not father any sons. And laws will not allow your third son, born of a servant woman, to wear the crown. The villains of the epic are your grandchildren. Do you feel noble, an objective keeper of dharma, as you condemn them and described the gory details of their murder? Or are you so great an ascetic that you refuse to acknowledge your fatherhood? Do you prefer addressing the Kauravas are villains rather than grandchildren? Detached, you do not feel my pain. You feel nobody’s pain.

Every day, henceforth, for thirty six years, Bhima will remind me and my husband how he killed our hundred sons. When we sit down to eat, just as when we are about to put the food in our mouth, he will crack his knuckles so that we hear the sound that came when he broke their bones or ripped open their chest. Draupadi will try to stop him, but he will justify his actions, “They must never forget their children’s villainy. They were quiet when you screamed for help in the gambling hall. Their silence led to the death your sons and my Ghatotkacha. Why forgive them? Let me have the pleasure of reminding them how I killed each and everyone of their hundred sons. How they begged me to stop and how I drank their blood.”

If I had eyes, says Gandhari, I would look at Draupadi and demand to know is this the end she wanted when she screamed curses at my sons? Yes, they disrobed you and you have washed your hair in their blood. It was right they were killed. Now, look at me, I am your victim - the victim of your justified outrage: a weeping mother, old, alone, a blindfolded woman with a blind husband, destitute, criminal parents who never looked at their children, wretched couple who were blind to the faults of their children. We are paying the price of poor parenting. We deserve this, yes. Does it make you happy to see us so?

There is a little story that Vyasa has not included in the great epic perhaps because it is too cruel in its honesty to put down in writing. Bards say, that Gandhari refused to leave the battleground strewn with corpses of her children even when the sun set. “Go home,” she told her husband and her servants and her daughters-in-law, “Let me be here alone with my children. Their presence comforts me.” So they left her alone. Old and frail, she waved her stick to keep the wolves and vultures from getting to the rotting flesh of her sons. Krishna came and tried to persuade her. “They are gone,” he said, “Why do you cling to their bodies.” And she replied, “You will never know a mother’s pain.” And he said, “A pain remains until another pain comes along.” And she retorted, “This pain is permanent. It is a mother’s pain. It will not pass.” Krishna left. The moon rose. Hungry wolves waited for the mother to tire. She waved her stick with determination - none would get to her sons. They were under her protection. Suddenly, Gandhari felt a pang of hunger. A hunger she had never felt before. A great hunger that it caused her to bend and bind her stomach. It was as if she had not eaten for a thousand days. She could not think or feel anything. All she wanted suddenly was food. And when the thought of food entered her mind, the smell of a mango entered her nostril. It was the sweetest of smells and it came from above her. She tried to get to it but it was out of reach. So she found a stone and climbed on it to get to it. Still the mango was out of reach. She put another stone above the first one, but the mango was still out of reach. Then other stone and another, a whole pile, before she finally got hold of the mango. She plucked it and sucked on it: it was the most sweetest richest succulent fruit she had ever eaten. She ate it quickly, even the skin, licked her fingers and felt the hunger pass away. With the hunger gone, the pain returned - the horror of her children’s death. What was she doing eating a mango when they were dead? She felt the stones on which she was sitting - they felt softer and wet, almost like flesh! She recoiled. These were not stones on which she sat; these were the bodies of her children. She sat on them and ate mangoes. How could she? Then she remembered Krishna’s words, “A pain remains until another pain comes along.” This was his way of teaching that her pain, though very deep and very valid, was like all pains impermanent. This was a cruel lesson of a ruthless god. Gandhari howled at the truth of her insight. Then she screamed a curse, “May you Krishna witness the death of your children and your children’s children. And may you die alone in the forest, hunted down like a beast.”

Krishna came and hugged her. She wept. And she felt Draupadi weeping next to her. Both were being hugged by Krishna, the mother of villains and the mother of heroes, both being comforted by he who they say is God. He said nothing. He allowed Gandhari to vent out her venom and he accepted the curse quietly - no retaliatory curse. Yes, his children would die as Gandhari had deemed fit and so would he. Let his clan suffer so that the spiral of vendetta does not continue. It has to end sometime. And if this demands the sacrifice of his clan, then let it be so.

Look Draupadi, your hair has been died with the blood of Gandhari’s children. But in getting that blood, so much rage was generated that it cost you the lives of your five sons. Was it worth it? Could you have forgiven? Or was vengeance the only recourse? Is vengeance ever the answer? He who strikes another always believes he is right in doing so - they are heroes, they are martyrs. But ask the one struck down - they will call the hero a villain, they will call the martyr, a terrorist. Gandhari weeps for her children - her heroes, your villains. You weeps for your children - your heroes, her villains. When will this stop? Will humans discover the power to share and forgive, strike the root cause of violence?

Gandhari remembers Sanjay narrating the song that Krishna sang before the war - the Bhagavad Gita. It was not an elaborate excuse to go to war. It was an understanding of wherefrom comes war. Dharma, she realized, is not that which heroes and martyrs believe is right. It was clearly something else.

Dharma is that which makes human divine - our ability to say no to the beast within us, our ability to renounce the law of the jungle. The law of the jungle, that might is right, is acceptable for animals - but when humans follow it and dominate the weak, they subscribe to adharma. From the desire to dominate comes greed, the insatiable urge for power, for land, from the desire to dominate comes the desire to win, even in a gambling match, from the desire to dominate comes the willingness to wager one’s brothers and one’s wife. From adharma comes righteous indignation - the desire to impose one’s will on others.

Dharma is about listening, not speaking; dharma is about giving, not taking; dharma is about helping the helpless; dharma is about affection, not domination. Dharma happens when hungry men share their food. Gandhari’s children died because they refused to share their land. Draupadi’s children died because she could not forgive. So long as we refuse to share, so long as we refuse to forgive, so long as we find excuses to justify our greed, war will happen and heroes will never find peace.

Vyasa raises both his hands and shouts, “Follow dharma and there will be peace in the world. True peace, not peace born by dominating the other.” Is anyone listening?

A God like us

Brahma is the creator god in Hindu mythology. So it surprises most people that he is not worshipped in India. There are one or two tiny insignificant shrines of Brahma, but these are more exceptions than the rule, most likely constructed to harvest pilgrim and tourist traffic through their unique theme. The fact is that Hinduism makes no provisions for any major rituals or festivals or traditions or sects with Brahma as the focal point. So why is it so? What makes Brahma, the creator, unworthy of worship? The problem here lies more with the question than the answer.

When the word ‘creator’ is used we unconsciously associate it with the notion of creator in the Bible. And we ask why is the one who created the world not worshipped? Why instead is the one who destroys the world, Shiva, so venerated? Asking these questions indicates the failure to understand the difference between the Biblical and Hindu paradigm.

The world being referred to in Hinduism when referring to Brahma is not the objective world but the subjective world of thoughts and feelings. Brahma creates these worlds through desire and attachment. Creation began because Brahma wanted to know who he was. Self-realization was the goal for which the world was the medium. But when the world was created, Brahma was so enchanted by this creation that he got attached to it and tried to control it. In his attachment and desire to control it, he lost all sense of himself. And by doing so became unworthy of worship.

This thought is expressed through an allegorical story narrated in most Puranas. In the beginning, Brahma was all alone. He could not see whence he came from. Who was he, he wondered. Finding no answer, he decided that the best way to know who he was, he had to know who he was not. So he created the ‘other’. This ‘other’ took the form of a woman. She was Shatarupa, on of many forms. And she kept changing form. Brahma was so enchanted by her that he sprouted four heads to look upon her at all times. He chased her but she ran away. He tried to catch her but she kept giving her the slip. When she turned into an animal, he transformed himself into the corresponding male form. When she was cow, he became bull; when she became mare, he became horse. This pursuit continued. He was determined to control her, conquer her. In his obsession, he sprouted a fifth head. Watching Brahma chase Shatarupa, the creator chasing his creation, the gods shouted: the father chases his daughter (this allegory is sometimes, most unfortunately, taken literally). In disgust, they called upon Shiva who raised his sword and cut the fifth head of Brahma. Shiva then shut his eyes and became the destroyer.

Thus creation is seen as that which is produced through desire and attachment. Destruction is that which follows desire-less-ness and detachment. Brahma yearns to control creation; he is enchanted by it. Shiva has no such yearning; he is indifferent to the charms of Shatarupa. Vishnu, stands in between. Not as indifferent as Shiva to Shatarupa, who embodies the material world, but not as attached to her as Brahma. He engages with her but with detachment. Thus, Shiva and Vishnu are appropriate responses to the problem that is life. Shiva and Vishnu represents how one should live life - engagement with detachment. This is the Hindu ideal and this makes Shiva and Vishnu worthy of worship. But not Brahma.

Who is this Brahma? Who is this creature who yearns, creates subjective worlds, imagines situations, gets attached to them, seeks to control, to dominate, to possess? Sounds familiar does he not. Could he be us? You and I? Is Brahma who we are ? the creators of our world? Creators of our values and judgments and issues? Is that why there are no temples of Brahma? How can we worship ourselves? We have succumbed to the charms of the world we have created. We have become subservient to our own constructs and our own delusions. We are the creators of our own ambitions, goals and misery.
In keeping with the style of Hindu scriptures, this is never stated explicitly. This is merely alluded to. But the idea provides a powerful framework for interpersonal skills. Every time we meet a person, we must remind ourselves that he is Brahma, an unworshipped god. He inhabits his own constructed reality. How does one talk to this Brahma. He has four heads, no five, if we include that one on top of the four which face the four directions, the one that Shiva is supposed to cut. We can only see one. The other four (facing the back, the left, the right and the one on top) cannot be seen. What can they possibly represent?

Could one represent the head - the intellectual side of man? Could another represent the heart - the emotional side of man? Could the third, the one on the back represent memories - all the experiences of man from which one churns out all understanding and values? And the head on top, could that be the ego - that side of us that makes us so insecure and makes us constantly seeking validation? Yes, we see a man before us, but actually we are seeing a Brahma and when we talk to him, we must ask ourselves - who are we talking to? Is it him or his head or his heart or his memories or his ego? Who is listening to us? And that will determine the outcome of the conversation?

In his career spanning twenty years, Ralph has realized that every Brahma is unique. Some people are intellectual: when you speak to them your approach is rational and evidence-based. Others are emotional: they like it when you open your heart and connect with them sentimentally. Others are stuck on the past: everything that they hear is referred to a past event and accordingly judgment past. And then there are those people for whom everything is about their ego: talking to them is like walking of egg shells, you never know what will trigger their insecurity and sense of inadequacy. Most people are a mixture of all four heads - but what you see is just one face. The rest are hidden and it is these hidden faces that determine how we ultimately connect with people.

The water from a river that flowed on the eastern edge of the kingdom was not reaching a farm. So the farmer went to the king and the king said, Build a wider canal. This was done, but still the water did not reach the farm. If anything, the flow dried up much earlier than before. Maybe, said the old minister, You should consider connecting the farm to the other river that flows on the western edge of the kingdom. The farmer followed the minister’s advice and sure enough water flowed effortlessly to his farm. What was the difference? It is the source, sir, not the canal, explained the minister. The eastern river is rain-fed while the western river in snow-fed. The former has a very limited reservoir; the latter has an abundant reservoir. The impact of irrigation depends not so much on the channel as much on the source.

The story made sense to Shekhar after his field trip to Satara. Eight months had passed since the new sales strategy had been rolled out. Satara was a very small market and Shekhar wanted to see the impact of the new strategy at the grassroots level. He was horrified to find that the team had not implemented the new strategy at all; they were still using the strategy that had been declared a failure a year earlier. But the new strategy was so clearly communicated in my presentation at the sales conference and in my email updates thereafter! he told the local manager. The manager looked at Shekhar and explained, rather sheepishly, Sir, who really listens to presentations and who actually reads emails? Shekhar felt like a fool.

On returning to Mumbai, Shekhar informed the Sales Director of the situation. He then declared his plan of extensively touring small markets and enforce the new strategy. The Sales Director said, You are wasting time and resources widening the canal. Focus on the source, instead.  The Sales Director then narrated the story of the kingdom with a rain-fed river in the east and a snow-fed river in the west. You created a rain-fed river when you rolled out the strategy. Your presentation was good, very logical and systematic. It helped explain the sound foundation of the strategy to the management but it did not connect emotionally with the sales force. There was no attempt made to sell it to the sales managers. Your presentation lacked drama. Your words did not inspire. They did not feel any need to change from the old ways. So they went back and carried on as before. Now, you are paying the price. Instead of wasting time building canals for a rain-fed river, focus on creating a snow-fed source. The Sales Director then told Shekhar how this could be done.

At the next annual sales conference, everyone was invited to a resort away from the city. Everyone had to come dressed in formals. Everyone was expected to register. Everyone got a conference kit and a name tag. There was a powerful audio visual presentation explaining how the new strategy came into being. The background music was grand. Trumpets were blown when the sales performance was announced and drums were beaten to a crescendo when the target for the following year was presented. Break away groups were formed to study and discuss the new strategy and the change in tactics. Opinions of every sales person were documented carefully. The final document of strategy and tactic was presented by Shekhar to the Commercial Director who nodded his head, signed it and presented in all solemnity to the Sales Director who then, along with his regional managers took a pledge. This was followed by a minute long silence for the pledge to sink in, after which the day ended with a thunderous applause.

Why this drama? The Sales Director explained - while emails influence the eye, and logical presentation appeal to the head, dramatic conferences seep into the soul. The drama communicates the passion. It reaches out directly to the heart. It transforms the rain-fed source into a snow-fed source. This time, he told Shekhar, every manager carried the new strategy to their market. The source was strong - the irrigation would be widespread.

He then told Shekhar, In a Hindu temple rituals are performed regularly to re-charge the divinity of the enshrined idol. The more intensely these rituals are performed, longer is the divine potency of the deity retained. You too have to regularly re-invigorate the potency of the strategy otherwise time and distance will cause it to wane. So take full advantage of monthly and quarterly reviews to re-establish the source. This will prevent or delay eventual contamination. All rivers are sacred at the source but only the river Ganga is sacred even at its delta because its source, Gangotri, is the most powerful : it is located in heaven, in the locks of Shiva. Try and make the source of your strategy as powerful as Gangotri.

The Gangotri of the Jewish religion is so strong that despite centuries of persecution and exile the religion still thrives, as evident in the legend of the Bene Israelis of Maharasthra. A few centuries ago, a Jewish Rabbi stumbled upon a group of people on the Konkan coast of India who were known as Shani-vaar-Telis, oil-pressers who did not work on Saturday. While these people looked like no different from others in their village, and behaved no differently, this €˜no work on Saturday’ policy singled them out. He asked the women to make him a meal of fish and noticed that the women selected only fish with scales and fin, and ignored the rest which as per Jewish dietary laws is non-Kosher hence forbidden. Why did these people who looked like Maharashtrians and spoke Marathi respect the Jewish Sabbath and follow Jewish dietary laws? There was only one explanation: they were one of the lost tribes of Israel, the Bene Israel, or sons of Israel, perhaps descendents of oil-pressers who were shipwrecked off the coast of India as they were driven being out of Judea by Assyrian kings over two thousand years ago. Separated from their Jewish homeland by space and time, these people still clung to the practices that reinforced their identity. The Jewish elders had always been obsessed with ritual practices of Sabbath and Kosher. Their rigid enforcement of this practice had annoyed many young Jews who did not like rituals; but it was this very insistence that had endured the test of time and ensured that the Jewish Diaspora, despite centuries of persecution and exile, did not lose their identity. Such is the power of the source.

Published in Corporate Dossier, Economic Times, Oct 24, 2008

This was the agenda: to get Shiva married. It was important for unless this happened the world would be destroyed. How does one get an ascetic like Shiva to change his mind? 

This question is no different from asking - How do we get a consumer to buy our product or how do we get our employee to stick to our company? Every customer - external or internal - is actually Shiva, with the power to destroy us through indifference. How do we get them to open their eyes? Not the third eye of detachment, but the two eyes of interest. 

The most common approach is the Kama approach. Kama is the love-god who shoots arrows that will spawn desire in the heart of hermits. Kama seduces Rishis like Vishwamitra with Apsaras like Menaka This approach means stirring the most primal instincts of man - hunger, greed, lust. 

Chang, the new marketing head of a global pharma company, saw the popularity of the Kama approach amongst most the new hopefuls he was interviewing for the position of brand manager. When asked how to increase market share, the reply was invariably, `By lowering the price.’ When asked how to motivate the sales force, the most common response was, `By giving them better incentives.’ In other words, most of those being interviewed were applying their levers to the wallet. They did not, or could not, think beyond transaction. 

This Kama approach works one visualizes the customer as a Rishi who aspires to be a Deva, constantly craving for the next best deal. Shoot one arrow, get one Apsara to do her dance, offer instant gratification, lower prices, hike incentives and boom - you have success. Instant consumer conversion! Instant employee satisfaction! 

But for how long? Sooner or later there will be another Aspara in the market - a competitor offering a lower price or a higher pay packet. The Rishi who was seduced by one can easily be seduced by another. Lust can never create loyalty.  

In the Kamakshi approach, we visualize the target not as Deva, a common god, but as Maha-deva, God, spelt in capital. This God, refused to be fall for Kama’s cheap tactics; he opened his third eye and reduced Kama to ashes. But he did marry. Not a nymph, but Kamakshi, she who contains Kama in her glance. 

Kamakshi is the name given to Parvati, princess of the mountains, in South India. In the East, the name given to her is Kamakhya. She holds all the symbols of Kama - the parrot, the sugarcane, the lotus flower - but  while there are no temples dedicated to the love-god, Kamakshi is worshipped as the Goddess. 

Kamakshi’s approach was radically different from Kama’s. She appealed not the base instinct of Shiva but to his higher instincts: his head and his heart. Conventional thinking says the world thrives when there is discontentment, that desire fuels market growth. But Kamakshi thought differently. 

Kamakshi knew that Shiva was beyond lust. No dance would arouse him. Was there anything else beside self-gratification that would make him open his eyes? The more she thought about Shiva, the more she realized that beneath the indifference there lurked infinite compassion.  She decided to tap into it. 

She wanted Shiva not to reject human imperfection but to be tolerant of it. She demonstrated her intention by subjecting herself to great penance, standing on one foot and meditating, fasting, not sleeping, immersing herself for days in cold river water, and exposing herself to the elements. Eventually, sensing her integrity, shaken by her determination, Shiva came to her and agreed to do whatever she asked of him. `Be my husband,’ she said. Shiva could not say no. Kamakshi wanted him to marry not for her pleasure, nor for his either, but to save the world from destruction.Kamakshi thus got Shiva to open his eyes not in lust, but in love. 

While Kama thinks of Shiva as a prey to be struck down by an arrow, Kamakshi approaches Shiva with awe and reverence. While Kama believes in instant gratification, Kamakshi things of lifelong loyalty. In the Kama approach, the focus is on lust (price / incentive) rather than the bride (product / organization) or the groom (consumer / employee). In the Kamakshi approach, focus is firmly on the bride and the groom. What does the bride actually offer? Why? What does the groom seek? Why? Can there be a true wedlock, or will it be just a casual affair? This means, less discussions on trimming the cost and more discussions on consumer insights and employee feedback. This means effort, proactive activities not reactive promotions. This means actually looking at the soul of Shiva, not just his senses.

The brand manager that Chang finally selected did follow the Kamakshi approach. When asked how he would increase market share, he said, `But making sure that our product meets the unmet need of the consumer, or by making the consumer aware of a hitherto unknown need that the product can satisfy. Our products should be able to bridge a gap in their psyche.’ And when asked how he would motivate his sales force, he said, `By appealing to their desire to be brilliant. To stoke in them to conquer an impossible market.’ This manager would surely work to open the eyes of Shiva.

Cynics will argue - it all comes down to money. The only reason they say that is because money is tangible and measurable, easy to understand and be turned into a graph. Passion is not. Loyalty is not. How does one capture the soul of a market on a spreadsheet? It can only be sensed. It will always remain abstract. And so, we fall into the Kama-trap, reduce Maha-Deva into Deva, and trust the wallet, rather than have faith in the head and heart, like Kamakshi. 

Yes, everyone wants a good deal. But deep down, more than a good deal, we really  want to feel good about ourselves. We don’t want to be seduced by discounts and incentives. We want our purchases and our employment to bring forth our glory. 

A few weeks ago Jacob was asked by his boss to fire an incompetent employee who had been with the firm for two years. Jacob knew the decision was justified: despite repeat warnings the gentleman had refused to improve, he kept coming late to office, making excuses, leaving his work half done, refusing to admit there was a problem that needed addressing. But firing him? Was there no other option? The boss said, The decision is taken after due consideration. There is no going back. All I want you to do is communicate the news to him. Why me, asked Jacob. No answer was given. Jacob just had to do it. 

That was the worst task Jacob had ever done. When he was made department head, he was never told that firing people would be part of the job. Suddenly the job did not seem as glamorous and exciting as he had hoped it would be. He now realized the meaning of the phrase, `Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’ For nights he was haunted by images of the man breaking down when he was told he had to pack up and leave in seven days and that he would be paid two months salary to help him while he looked for another job. Jacob had to listen to all those piteous pleas, all those requests for one last chance, with a stony face. It was simply horrible. He hated his boss for making him go through this. 

Now Jacob is being asked to do something else. He has been given a junior staff member, roughly eight months since joining organization, declared by another manager to be totally incompetent. The boss said, I give you two months to turn this boy around. Why can’t we just fire him? Jacob had asked. No answer was given. He just had to do it. 

Jacob is not sure he is capable of this. But then, he did not think he was capable of terminating another man’s employment. He had somehow found the strength to do so.  Now, he was being asked to do with very opposite. He was being asked to sustain another man’s employment, develop his competencies. Could he do that? A little voice in Jacob’s heart told him he could. 

Jacob’s boss is doing what Rishi Vishwamitra did to Ram in the Ramayana. In the Ramayana, after Ram completes his education under Rishi Vasishtha, Vishwamitra storms into Dashrath’s court and demands that Ram accompany him to the forest and protect his hermitage from Rakshasas. Dashrath offers his army instead because Ram is just a boy. No, I want Ram, snarls Vishwamitra. With great reluctance, Dashrath lets Ram go. 

In the forest, Vishwamitra first directs Ram to shoot and kill the Rakshasa woman, Tadaka. But she is a woman, says Ram, remembering his lessons that informed him that women should never be harmed. Vishwamitra does not heed this argument. It does not matter that Tadaka is a woman; she threatens the well being of the hermitage and does not heed warnings, hence must be killed. Ram thus learns how all rules have to be contextualized. He therefore raises his bow and shoots Tadaka dead.

Later, Vishwamitra takes Ram to the hermitage of Rishi Gautama. There Ram is shown a rock which was once Gautama’s wife, Ahalya. Her husband found her in the arms of another man, Indra, king of the gods, and so he cursed her to turn into a rock, explains Vishwamitra. Ram is then asked by the Rishi to place his foot on the rock. That touch turns the rock back into Ahalya and she rises to the heavens, purified as she was of all her sins. Ram realises there how there are times when one has to strike and times when one has to forgive.  

The killing of Tadaka and the rescue of Ahalya are two extreme events. One reeks of ruthlessness and the other brims with compassion.  In the one, there is death, in the other there is life. With these two events, Ram’s practical education which began with theoretical education under Vasishtha is complete. By experiencing two extreme roles of a leader, Vishwamitra transforms the boy that is Ram into a man, one who is ready to take on the responsibility of leadership, one who is ready for marriage and kingship.

The education of Ram is the story of how leaders can be made. It draws attention to the power of a leader and explains in what situation this power can be used to take life and in what situation the same power can be used to give life. It demonstrates how there are situations when a king is called upon to take a tough call and situations where the king is expected to be compassionate. This cannot be taught in a classroom; one has to live it. That is why Vishwamitra stormed into Dashrath’s court and took Ram into the forest by force.  

Vishwamitra, one must remember, is not an ordinary sage. Unlike Vasishtha who is born a Rishi, Vishwamitra was once a king who through spiritual austerities became a Rishi. Thus he knows what a king is expected to do and what a king has to go through as he lives his role. That is why he insists on completing Ram’s education and that is why Vasishtha does not stop him. 

Jacob’s boss is helping Jacob learn leadership. He could have fired the employee himself since the decision had already been taken. By making Jacob do what is considered to be one of the worst tasks in corporate life, he was making Jacob sensitive to the demands of a higher office. It is not just about power and perks; it is also about taking calls and accepting responsibility. But being boss is not just about having the power to fire people; it is also about developing the skill to develop and retain people. This is what the boss is trying to do when he asks Jayant to mentor a junior staff who has been written off by other managers. 

Here is for Jacob an opportunity to save a life. Will Jacob do it? If he does, then Jacob’s boss will know that Jacob is a talent, one who has to be retained in the organization and groomed for leadership roles. If he does not, then Jacob’s boss will know that Jacob still has miles to go before he can even aspire to be king.

Published in Corporate Dossier, Economic Times, Oct 3, 2008

When Alpesh took over as the manager of a huge multiplex in a Tier 2 Indian town, he suddenly found himself heading a team of forty people. Some he liked instantly. Some he did not. Some he found positively repulsive. But he did not have the luxury of firing anyone. He had to work with all of them. And he wondered how? And strangely he found his answer in astrology. Not in the content of astrology - but in the structure  of astrology. 

As children he was taught that in Hindu mythology Devas are good and Asuras are bad. But whenever he was made by his mother to visit the shrine dedicated to the Nava-Grahas, the nine gods of Indian astrology, he found there not only Devas and their guru, Brihaspati, but also two Asuras, namely Rahu and Ketu, and their guru, Shukra. In all prayers and rituals, the two `demons’ are acknowledged and included as equals. He was told that all Grahas matter. Good or bad, they formed a team and none could be excluded. It dawned on Alpesh that before him were his Nava-Grahas (not nine but forty) and he had to find a way to work with all of them. Exclusion was not an option. 

Alpesh knew that each Graha had a particular characteristic and this could not be changed. Like the Grahas, every member of his team had a peculiar characteristic that did not change no matter how many times they were counselled or trained. Some were like Surya, the sun, radiant, glorious, and attention grabbing. Some were like the moon or Chandra, highly emotional, with moods constantly waxing and waning. Some were aggressive like Mars or Mangal. Some were sharp, intelligent, good in communication, but slippery like Mercury or Budh. The Jupiters or Brihaspatis were rational, scientific, evidence driven and boring. The Venus or Shukras were sensual, creative, intuitive, creative and crazy. The Saturns or Shanis were exasperating - brilliant but cynical, hence lacking sense of urgency, testing Alpesh’s patience. Alpesh did not like the Rahus of his team, who hid things, blocked ideas, created darkness and spread confusion. He did not like the restless and nervous Ketus either because they had no sense of direction.  Like Grahas, Alpesh had to work with the traits of his people - either enhance them or neutralize them as the situation demanded.  

Alpesh began to see his organization as the sky, Just as the sky is divided into lunar houses (Nakshatras) and solar houses (Rashis or the Zodiac), his organization was divided into departments. The finance, HR, marketing, sales, research, service, housekeeping departments were just starry constellations inhabited by his Grahas. Just as a Graha exerts its influence on the house it occupies, and by doing so influences a person’s fate, Alpesh’s team members exerted their influence on their respective departments and thereby affected the overall working of the organization. If his cashier was a Brihaspati then everything was done systematically and rationally, if he was a Shurka then the work was associated with great ingenuity. A Shani cashier never did things on time while a Ketu cashier was always nervous and restless. 

The question that naturally emerged in his mind was - which Graha was good for a job. He found no answer because it all depended on the outcome he desired and the role a department had to play. There were times he needed a Rahu heading the Human Resource department to hide the actual goings on and there were times he needed a very transparent Surya. Initially he wanted his promotions to be managed by an aggressive Mangal who could get things done. Later he needed a more sensitive Chandra, who understood the needs of the consumer. Situations, Alpesh realized, made a Graha good or bad. He stopped judging people. He focussed on analyzing situations and fitting people to problem at hand.

In astrology, great value is given to the relative position of Grahas to each other. Sometimes a Graha can enhance the power of another Graha and sometimes they can negate each other and sometimes the entire combination had an overall positive or negative effect. This is called yog, an understanding of which helped Alpesh in designing teams. Homogeneity was out of the question.  A team full of creative Shukras or full of detached Shanis led to disaster. Heterogenicity was critical but careful attention had to paid to inter-team dynamics. Keeping an aggressive Mangal with a restless Ketu was nothing short of a prescription for disaster. For ideas, Alpesh needed creative Shukras but for implementation he needed organized Brihaspatis. For vendor negotiations, the intelligent and sweet talking Budh helped and for crowd management teams he relied only on powerful Mangals. 

Success then was a combination of several factors. First, the nature of the Graha. Secondly, the house that was occupied by the Graha. Thirdly, the relative position of the Grahas. Finally, and most importantly, the problem at hand and the outcome desired. No team could solve all problems. The team that could handle the weekend rush was unable to cope with the weekday monotony. The team with came up with innovative ways to solve the water crisis in the multiplex was unable to solve the problem of irate customers. 

Alpesh noticed that much of his success depended on his power of observation - his sense of people, relationships and situation. Without knowing it, he was becoming Indra, the god of the sky, the one with a hundred eyes. His observations helped him determine the role and responsibility of each person. It helped him determine team composition. It helped him take calls - know who had to be leader and when. He realized there was no great perfect horoscope with the perfect placement of Grahas. It was all contextual and it was all ever changing. Sometimes, despite all cautious moves, things went wrong. At those times, he found someone always came up with an Upaay, that trick astrologers always have up their sleeve to counter the malevolent influence of any Graha to resolve any crisis. 

Thanks to this visualization of his organization as the sky with fixed stars and floating Grahas, Alpesh stopped getting annoyed with the Shanis or Mangals or Ketus of his team. He found value in each one. Demons in one situation were gods in another. It made sense to worship the collective and celebrate diversity.

Published in First City Delhi Oct 2008

Trees are sacred in India, and often associated with a god or a goddess. Some scholars believe that it is the tree that was worshipped first, maybe for its medicinal or symbolic purpose, and that the gods and goddesses came later. That may be the case but today trees are integral part of a deity’s symbolism. The mango tree, for example, is associated with the love-god Kama, the Tulsi plant is dear to Vishnu, Bilva is associated with Shiva worship, blades of Dhurva grass is offered to Ganesha, Neem or Margosa is sacred to the mother goddess, coconut and banana is associated with Lakshmi. 

The Banyan tree is associated with Yama, the god of death and the tree is often planted outside the village near crematoriums. It is believed to be the abode of ghosts. Vetals and Pisachas are supposed to hang from its many branches. 

Indians knew the Banyan tree as the Vata-vriksha. When the British came to India, they noticed that members of the trading or Bania community used to gather under a large shady fig tree, which they named the Banyan, from Bania. Technically, Ficus benghalensis, the Banyan belongs to the Fig family. There are various types of fig trees all over the world, some of these are sacred. The most popular one is the Ficus religiosa or the Pipal which became especially popular in Buddhist times because it was under this tree that Gautama Siddhartha of the Sakya clan attained enlightenment. It was the leaves of the a fig tree that Adam and Eve used to cover their nakedness in Eden after they were tempted to eat the Forbidden Fruit by Satan. 

The Banyan tree does not let a blade of grass grow under it. Thus Banyan tree does not allow for any rebirth and renewal. While Banyan offers shade from the sun, it offers no food. That is why it is not part of fertility ceremonies like marriage and childbirth where food-giving, rapidly renewing, plants with short lifespan such as Banana, Mango, Coconut, Betel, Rice and even grass, are included.

Marriage and childbirth are rites of passage; they represent major shifts in life. They are all about instability and flux; Banyan tree is the very opposite. It is stable and constant. It has a long lifespan and hence seems immortal. Its roots descend from the branches and then anchor the tree to the ground, transforming into trunks eventually, so that decades later it is difficult to distinguish root from stem. 

Things that evoke the notion of immortality become auspicious in India, for example the immortal mountain, the immortal sea, the immortal diamond, and the indestructible ash. This is because since ancient times, Indian seers were acutely aware of the transitory nature of things around us. Everything dies - every plant, every animal, even moments die, the present becomes the past in an instant. In an ever changing world, we seek constancy, permanence. The Banyan tree is therefore worthy of veneration; it is evergreen and shady, hence an eternal refuge for all creatures unable to bear the vagaries of life. 

Thus, it emerges that in Indian thought, there are two types of sacredness - one that is associated with impermanent material reality and the other which is associated with permanent spiritual reality. The Banana and the Coconut fit into the previous category; the Banyan fits into the latter. Banana is the symbol of the flesh, constantly dying and renewing itself. Banyan is the soul - never dying, never renewing itself. Banana is the botanical equivalent of the householder while Banyan is the botanical equivalent of the hermit. 

The Banyan tree can be seen as a hermit amongst trees; just as  hermit cannot raise a family, a Banyan tree cannot support a household. Banyan tree represents not the material aspiration of a people; it represents the spiritual aspiration of a people. The Banyan tree is said to be immortal: it is Akshaya, that which survives Pralaya, the destruction of the whole world. 

Mahabharata tells the story of a woman called Savitri who lost her husband as destined, one year after her marriage, near a Banyan tree. She followed Yama to the land of the dead and through determination and intelligence managed to secure back her husband’s life. In memory of that event, Hindu women go around the Banyan tree, tying seven strings around it. This is imitative magic: by symbolically going around the immortal tree, the women are binding immortality into their married life. They are securing the lives of their husband, the pillar of their household. They are protecting themselves from widowhood which is believed by most Hindus to be worst fate for a woman.  

Under the Banyan tree sat the sages of India - those who rejected the flesh and the material world and aspired for the soul alone. This was the favorite tree of the sadhu, the wandering hermit. The greatest of hermits, Shiva, was often represented in its shade as a stone called the Lingam. Being an ascetic, Shiva was not part of the village; he was a hermit not householder; he did not fear ghosts and so was comfortable staying in the shade of this immortal, never dying, never renewing plant. 

In iconography, Shiva is visualized as Dakshinamurti, he who faces the south, south being the direction of death and change. He sits under the Banyan tree, the botanical embodiment of the universal soul, facing that terror of death and change stoically, unafraid because of his profound understanding of the world. At his feet sit sages who are recipients of Shiva’s wisdom. In South Indian temples, Shiva’s south facing form, under the Banyan tree, is placed on the south facing wall of the temple.

Like Shiva, Vishnu is also a form of God. But Vishnu is not associated with the Banyan tree, perhaps becuase Vishnu is that aspect of God who is more associated with change. He goes with the flow - this attitude is called leela or playfulness; he does not fear change. Vishnu is therefore associated with the fragrant Tulsi plant or with flowering plants like Champa and Kadamba. 

But there is one time when Vishnu is associated with the Banyan tree - it is during the end of the world when flood waters rise and dissolve all things. Sage Markandeya who had a terrifying vision of this event, saw Vishnu as a baby lying on the leaf of a Banyan tree, cradled by the deadly waves.  This form of Vishnu is called Vata-patra-shayin, he who rests on the Banyan leaf. The image is rich in symbols - the whole world may seem transitory like the waves of the ocean but all life can renew itself as a baby replaces the older generation because divine grace represented by Vishnu is eternal  like a Banyan leaf. 

If you ever hear an echo remember, you are hearing the voice of Echo. a Dread or a mountain nymph according to Greek mythology, who - the story goes - loved the sound of her own voice that she would engage Hera, queen of the gods, in long interesting conversations. While Hera was distracted so her husband, Zeus, king of the gods, had enough time to slip out of Mount Olympus and seduce nymphs and mortal women. When Hera discovered this, she concluded that Echo was working for her husband, enabling his extra marital affairs. She punished the talkative Echo with a curse: never again would she be able to speak a word of her own; she would only repeat the words of others. 

Poor Echo, even without her help, much to Hera’s exasperation, Zeus kept finding innovative ways to be unfaithful. His actions assume significance because Hera was the goddess of the household and marital harmony. Hera bore Zeus many children: there was Ares, god of war; Eris, goddess of discord; Hephaestus, god of smiths; Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth and midwifery; Hebe, the obedient daughter, who bore the cups of the gods and drew bath waters for them, before she married that greatest of Greek heroes, Hercules. 

Like many heroes, Hercules was a son of Zeus by a mortal woman called Alcmene. Zeus seduced Alcmene by impersonating her husband one night. To protect his newborn son from Hera’s wrath, Zeus got him to suckle on Hera’s breast. The milk made the child invincible, which is why he came to be known as Heracles. On learning who the child suckling her breast truly was, Hera pushed him away, causing the milk in her breast to spurt and form the Milky Way.  

Hebe’s successor as cupbearer on Mount Olympus, abode of the gods, was a boy called Ganymedes, a Trojan prince, who was so beautiful that Zeus abducted him from his cradle by taking the form of an eagle. European art is full of images of Ganymedes, the boy who was kidnapped (and ravished) by Zeus, the eagle. This story was given as the basis of man-boy love in ancient Greece.  

In the form of an eagle, Zeus also abducted and ravished a woman called Aegina. He carried her over the sea and made her the mother of Aeacus who became a great king. When Hera discovered the fatherhood of Aeacus, she killed every man in his kingdom. To undo this great tragedy, Zeus transformed all the ants in the kingdom into human beings. These ant-men turned into fierce warriors and were the stuff of legend during the Trojan war. 

More popular than images of eagles ravishing men or women, is the image of Zeus, the swan, seducing a woman by the name of Leda. He fell into Leda’s arms while trying to `escape’ a falcon and ended up raping her. From this union was born the famous Helen of Troy as well as her two brothers, Castor and Pollux, who so loved each other that when the former died, the latter demanded he die too and the two were cast in the sky as the constellation we know as Gemini. 

Zeus took many other forms to seduce women and nymphs. As the goat-legged Satyr, he seduced Antiope. He took the form of a bull to abduct and ravish the Phoenician princess, Europa. She gave her name to the continent of Europe and her three sons Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, became the judges of the land of the dead. 

Zeus was so determined to have his way that when the amazon, Callisto, refused to submit on grounds that she was faithful to the goddess Artemis, Zeus took the form of Artemis herself and seduced Callisto. An angry Artemis, cast Callisto away, while an enraged Hera, turned Callisto into a bear. As a bear she gave birth to a human child, Arcas, who grew up to be a hunter, and would have shot his own mother dead had Zeus not cast mother and son into the sky as the Great Bear and the Little Bear constellations. 

When Danae’s father locked her in a tower fearing that the child she would bear would be his killer, Zeus impregnated Danae by entering the tower as a `shower of gold’ or probably golden sunshine. The father then locked his pregnant daughter in a wooden chest and threw her into the sea, but she was saved by Zeus. The child born from this union was the hero Perseus, killer of the snake-haired Medusa as well as of his maternal grandfather. 

Unable to control Zeus, Hera invariably turned her rage against his mistresses. Her greatest wrath was against one Leto - she condemned Leto that she would never be able to give birth to any child on firm land and then sent a python chase her around the world. Thanks to Zeus, she found shelter on a floating island where she gave birth to her twins, Artemis and Apollo. It is said that Hera prevented her daughter, Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, from helping Leto and so Leto suffered agonizing labor pains for nine days and nine nights.

Zeus once seduced Hera’s priestess, Io, and then turned her into a heifer just when Hera entered the temple. Hera knew the truth about Io despite Zeus’ explanations and so ordered her hundred-eyed servant Argus to watch over the cow, to check if she turned back into Io. Being hundred-eyed, Argus never slept and was able to watch over Io all the time. Finally, Zeus killed Argus with a thunderbolt to help Io escape. Hera turned each of Argus’ hundred eyes into the eye pattern on a peacock’s feather. She then sent a gadfly to sting the heifer until she went mad. Chased by Hera’s gadfly, Io ran across the world in the form of a heifer, until she finally regained her human form in Egypt. 

Hera once told Semele that her nocturnal lover was actually Zeus. She dared Semele to ask her lover to reveal his true form. Zeus agreed to do so reluctantly,  for such was the radiance of his fully glory that the mortal Semele was instantly reduced to ashes. Within her body was the unborn child that was transferred to Zeus’ thigh. The child born thus was Dionysus, the god of wine. 

Mythographers believe that the stories of Zeus’ infidelities are inspired by tales of patriarchal institutions overpowering ancient matriarchal institutions around the Mediterranean. While patriarchy insisted on one all-powerful father figure like Zeus, the matriarchal systems were comfortable with many autonomous and local goddesses, who later became the nymphs and mortal princesses ravished by Zeus in Greek lore. The story is also indicates the rise of marriage as an institution in ancient Greek society, and the demand of women to tame of the polygamous desires of men. 

Published in First City Delhi August 2008

Sita is the heroine of India’s greatest epic, the Ramayan, and the dutiful and faithful wife of its hero, Ram. By rescuing her from the clutches of the demon-king, Ravan, Ram attains his status as hero and god, with him as the knight-in-shining-armor and her as the damsel-in-distress.  But there is more to Sita than meets the eye and much of it is either subliminally expressed through the metaphors of the original Valmiki Ramayan or narrated in plot variants found in later regional and folk retellings. 

Sita was no ordinary woman. She was plowed out of the earth by Janak, king of Videha. She was called Janaki meaning Janaka’s daughter, Vaidehi meaning Videha’s princess and Maithili meaning resident of Mithila, the city of Janak. But her most famous names, Sita, meaning furrow, clearly establishes her as the daughter of the earth. That she was not conceived in a womb, made her a-yoni-ja, hence a goddess in her own right. 

Earth and agricultural metaphors are repeatedly used to represent women in the Ramayan. For example, the woman who is turned into stone for being unfaithful to her husband is called Ahalya, which means land which is unworthy of being ploughed (a=not; hala=plough). Wild and loose women, such as Tadaka and Surpanaka, who have to be killed or punished by Ram and Lakshman, are associated with wild untamed forests. This makes Sita (sita=furrow), who is neither fallow nor wild, who is neither rejected by man nor untamed by man, the perfect field, fit for plowing and sowing. She is the perfect wife, faithful and demure, who shares both her husband’s fortunes and his misfortunes.  

Beneath the quiet and submissive exterior throbs a great vast underlying power. One is told, especially in folk versions of the Ramayan, that Janak had a bow given to him by Shiva, the great destroyer himself. It took a dozen men to lift this bow but Sita could pick it up with one hand as if it was a toy and wipe it clean. Janak was told by sages that only a man who could pick Shiva’s bow as easily should be allowed to be Sita’s husband. Ram, prince of Ayodhya, performed this feat and so he was allowed to marry Sita. 

When palace politics forced Ram into fourteen years of exile in the forest, Sita followed him willingly. She endured all hardships silently. In the final year, she was abducted by Ravan, lord of Rakshasas, and held captive in his island-kingdom of Lanka. During this period, Ravan used many tricks from gifts to indimidation to magic to seduce Sita but she remained resolutely faithful to her husband, earning the respect of the Rakshasa folk. When Ram finally rescued her, she even went through a humiliating public trial by fire to prove her fidelity. 

Some retellings of Ramayan portray Sita as a helpless victim but others show her playing a central role in causing Ravan’s downfall. In South India, for example, is the story that Sita was as much Lakshmi’s incarnation as Ram was Vishnu’s. A sage found her in a fruit, or in a lotus flower, and calling her Vedavati, or Padmavati, raised her as his own daughter. One day, she caught the eye of Ravan, who was traveling around the world, defeating sages, killing sages, raping women and generally spreading terror. He tried to molest her. To save herself, she leapt into the sacred fire altar and was burnt to death. Before dying, she swore that in her next life she would be the cause of Ravan’s downfall. Her heartbroken father scraped her ashes from the bottom of the altar and put it in a box which he then threw into a river. The river carried the box into the sea and the sea took the box to the shores of Lanka. The Rakshasas who found the box, assuming it to be a treasure chest, took it to their king, Ravan himself. Within the box was an infant girl. Ravan picked up the girl intent on adopting her only to be told by his oracles that the girl would be the cause of his death. Terrified, Ravan put the girl back in the box and ordered his Rakshasas to throw it back into the sea. The sea-god then gave the box with the girl inside to the earth-goddess who in turn handed her over to the childless Janaka. This story clearly establishes Sita as the karmic cause of Ravan’s death. 

There are stories in Indonesia and Kerala and Gujarat that make Sita the daughter of Mandodari, Ravan’s wife. In his terror campaigns, Ravan would kill sages and collect their blood in a pot intent on using it as a sacrificial offering to gain occult powers. Some stories say he collected the blood from sages as taxes since they had nothing else to give. Ravan kept the pot of blood in his private chambers. One day, his wife, took a sip of it accidentally. The blood that entered her body made her pregnant. Now Mandodari knew that she was called Mandodari (mand= bad, udar=womb or abdomen), because her child would be her husband’s killer. Being a good wife, she did not want to hurt her husband but she did not want to her harm her child either. So she gave birth to her daughter in secret and buried her in the fields outside Mithila where she was found by Janak. 

There are many stories where Sita actually uses her power to protect or save Ram. For example, in the Punjabi Ramayan, when Ram is trapped by a serpent spell cast by Ravan’s son, Indrajit, Sita chants the Naga-mantra and liberates Ram.  

In the Adbhut Ramayan, after Ram returns to Ayodhya, one of Ravan’s son, who has 1000 heads, launches an attack on Ayodhya. No weapon can harm this monster. Finding Ram helpless and anxious, Sita steps into the battlefield and confronts the demon revealing her secret identity - she transforms into Maha-Kali; she expands in size so that her head stretches above the clouds and her feet reaches below the nether regions. She sprouts a hundred heads and a thousand arms each carrying many weapons. She has fangs for teeth and fiery eyes. She kills the thousand-headed Ravan, drinks his blood and kicks his heads as if they were balls. Ram terrified by Sita’s ferocious secret form, worships her as Adi Shakti and begs her to return to her more familiar form, that of a demure wife. Sita obliges. Thus is Sita acknowledged as the true power animating the cosmos, the source of Ram’s power, glory and divinity. 

In the Uttar Ramayan, Ram abandons Sita because people refuse to accept as queen a woman stained by reputation by her association with Ravan. The abandonment of Sita is the most tragic episode in the epic. It reeks of patriarchal  bigotry. Sita bears this calamity stoically and single-handedly raises her two sons in the forest. Such is her moral authority that her two sons, barely children, are able to capture Ram’s royal horse and defeat Ram’s army when they set out to conquer the world, showing the whole world that dharma, hence victory, sides with Sita not with the people of Ayodhya or their king. When Ram asks to prove her chastity once again, this time before his subjects, an exasperated Sita says, If I have been a faithful wife, let me return to from whence I came. The earth responds immediately and splits open and Sita is swallowed by the ground she stands on, disappearing forever, leaving Ram all alone and miserable. Thus does Sita reject a society that rejected her and it is this quiet assertiveness of the demure `field’ that makes Sita one of the most fascinating female characters in Indian mythology. 

Published in First City Delhi July 2008

Right in the middle of the Mediterranean sea stands the island of Crete, once the cradle of a great civilization that predated the one in Greece. This was the Minoan civilization, named after its mythical king, Minos, whose stories are scattered across Greek mythology. 

Minos was the son of Zeus, king of the gods, and Europa, a Phoenician princess, who Zeus abducted by taking the form of a bull and tricking her into climbing his back. He carried her over the sea and brought her to the island of Crete where he ravished her. She bore him three sons: Minos, Sarpendon and Rhadamanthus. 

Instructed by their father, Minos grew up to be brilliant law-maker. One of the curious laws Minos established to control population on the island was segregation of women and encouraging sexual relations between men. This institutionalized pederasty or man-boy love was later adopted by the Greeks. 

It so happened that Minos and his brothers fell in love with the same young boy called Miletus, who unfortunately preferred only Sarpedon. In a fit of jealous rage, Minos drove his brother out of Crete. 

Minos had a wife called Pasiphae who, tired of his infidelity, cast a spell on him that caused him to spew serpents and scorpions every time he ejaculated. To prevent the boys and girls he made love to from being killed by his lethal semen, Minos got his great court inventor, Daedalus, to create the world’s first condom made of goat’s bladder.

Minos had a son by Pasiphae called Glaucus who disappeared one day without a trace. Minos sent for Polyidus to find his son. Polydius was a wise man and a diviner. Searching for the boy, Polydius saw an owl driving bees away from a wine-cellar in Minos’ palace. Inside the wine-cellar was a cask of honey, with Glaucus dead inside. He had fallen in while chasing a mouse. Minos demanded Glaucus be brought back to life and locked Polydius up in the wine-cellar until he did so. Some time later, a a snake appeared inside the cellar. Polydius killed it. Shortly thereafter, another snake followed the first, and after seeing its mate dead, turned back and returned with an herb which then brought the first snake back to life. With the same herb Polydius resurrected the child much to Minos’ delight. Minos refused to let Polydius leave Crete until he taught Glaucus the art of divination. Polydius did as ordered, but then, at the last second before leaving on his boat, he asked Glaucus to spit in his mouth (as they kissed?). Glaucus did so and forgot everything he had been taught, much to Minos’ irritation.

Minos went on to conquer all the cities that lined the shores of the Mediterranean. One city, Megara however, proved invincible - it was foretold that as long as its king, Nisus, had a lock of purple hair under his white hair, he would never be defeated in battle. Now the daughter of Nisus, Scylla, fell in love with Minos. Minos asked her to prove it by cutting the purple hair on her father’s head. She did and Minos managed to defeat Nisus and conquer Megara. Once this was done he spurned Scylla for disobeying her father. Heartbroken, she changed into a seabird, relentlessly pursued by her father, who became a sea eagle.

Later, to prove that his kingship over Crete was divinely ordained, Minos prayed to Poseidon and got the god of the sea to send him a giant white bull from the sea. Minos was supposed to sacrifice this impressive creature to Poseidon, but then, in cupidity, decided to sacrifice a more common bull instead. In rage, Poseidon cursed Minos’ wife with zoophilia: Pasiphae had an intense desire to mate with the bull. Realizing the bull had no interest in her, she got Daedalus to build her a hollow wooden cow, which looked very much like a live creature from the outside. The bull from the sea mated with the wooden cow, while Pasiphae crouched inside; she got pregnant as a result and gave birth to a horrible monster, the Minotaur (half man half bull). 

This was the great shame of Minos. Since the creature was partly his son and the son of a god, he could bring himself to kill it. In disgust and embarrassment, he got Daedalus to built a huge labyrinth under his city and put Minotaur in it. There it would live, hidden and trapped forever. 

Minos was lord of a vast empire and he ordered his vassals to regularly send him young virgin boys and girls. They were forced into the labyrinth and were never seen again. Some said they became Minotaur’s companions; others said they became his food. None knew for once you went into the labyrinth, one never came out again. 

Of the many youths who were sacrificed thus was one Theseus, from Athens. When he arrived on the shores of Crete, Minos’ daughter, Ariadne fell instantly in love with him. She gave him a sword and a ball of red fleece thread that she had spun. Theseus tied the thread round his waist and let the thread run behind him, thus tracing his way in so that he could find his way out. With the sword, he managed to kill Minotaur and come out a hero. He took Ariadne with him when he boarded the ship out of Crete to prevent Minos from following him. But once he managed to escape, he abandoned Ariadne on an island, for he did not love her.  

Minos was afraid of losing his master inventor, Daedalus, so he had him imprisoned in a tower. But Daedalus managed to escape by inventing a pair of giant wings, using bird feather and bee wax, that enabled him to fly out of the tower, over the sea, to the island Sicily. Daedalus escaped along with his son Icarus for whom he had built a separate pair of wings. Icarus unfortunately flew too close to the sun; the wax melted and he tumbled down into the sea and drowned while Daedalus flew on.

Determined to find his inventor, Minos traveled around the Mediterranean shores, from city to city, threatening to destroy cities which failed to answer his riddle. He presented a spiral seashell and asked for it to be strung all the way through. In Sicily, the riddle was solved by getting an ant, with a string tied to its back, to walk through the shell. Minos knew instantly that’s where Daedalus was hidden for none by the master inventor could come up with such an ingenious solution. Minos demanded the local king to hand the inventor over. The local king, Cocalus, managed to convince Minos to take a bath first. Cocalus’ daughters and Daedalus then killed Minos by pouring boiling water on him.

Since Minos had been a great king and law maker on earth, Hades, god of the underworld, decided to make him one of the judges of the dead. It was he who decided what would be a man’s final resting place after death - if one’s life was heroic one was sent to cheerful Elysium; if one’s life was full of delinquency, one landed up in the horrific Tartarus; and if one lived an ordinary life one was sent to boring Asphodel.  Such is the myth of Minos of Crete.