‘Tan Man Dhan’

PRITHVI RAJ SINGH

Nowadays scarcely we encounter positive comments and compliments of love and praise for whatever people do, especially when voluntary work is performed with un-selfish intentions. But, Rajesh Bhatia’s kind sentiments and pride in FHA (Mira Nair: Perpetuating Stereotypes, India Post, May 23) about our un-tiring efforts of Tan, Man and Dhan, as he put it, gives us a sigh of relief and pat on our backs. Mira Nair’s mischievous portrayal of Indian culture in introducing the art of Kama Sutra to the sex-hungry Western world, at the cost of compassionate Indians or Hindus, if I may say so, was cheap and senseless. FHA condemns this attitude and wholeheartedly agrees with every word of the sincere expressions of Bhatia. Our ‘Tan’ and ‘Dhan’ are limited but our ‘Man’ shall not rest until we contribute, whatever we could, to undo injustices rendered to our culture of Hindutva by such pseudos. Surely, sometimes the ‘Man’ gets tired, but people like Bhatia make our day and we get re-energized. We shall write, meet, protest and challenge her for a rebuttal. Depending upon her response, we shall ask for a public apology. We realize we missed an opportunity to show our indignation when the dirty piece of art was being shown in the theaters. It was not an isolated piece, but a trend of insults, as exhibited in her previous productions. A mum creates a false impression and may encourage similar intentions. Such Mira Nairs have always targeted the easy Indians, but never touched sensitive and extremely discriminative and shameful human rights abuse of minorities, including women, under the fundamentalist regimes of Islamic rules. On the contrary, it is appropriate, at this moment, to express some praise for Mani Ratnam who boldly experimented the interfaith equation of ‘Muslim girl and Hindu boy marriage’ in his film Bombay, though the director had to face the wrath of the fundamentalists in several ways, including violence.

Through your columns we want to warn such Mira Nairs that time is approaching when many Rajesh Bhatias and many FHA’s will be exposing the dirty agendas in the ‘Man’ of such pseudos, who make ‘Dhan’ by shamelessly selling the ‘Tan’ of our Indians.

FHA thanks Rajesh Bhatia for asking, or complaining, why we had not yet taken up the issue. It shows his confidence in the sincerity of our efforts. We simply love him for his right to demand this from FHA.

[Prithvi Raj Singh is President of Federation of Hindu Associations, California]

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