Dogma: March 2006 Archives

Arup Bandopadhyaya was one of my intimate friends. He was sweet in his dealings and multi-talented. His mind was as clear as a clean slate. It is difficult to find a man so good in a hundred thousand. Though he was born in a middle-class family, he was dedicated to public charity. His wife, Shipra, always assisted him in his noble work. Shipra also worked somewhere. The couple decided that with the income of one they would maintain their family, and the second income would be used for public welfare.

Shipra had a younger sister, Reba. Just after she took her exams for her B.A. from Bethune College, she came to visit her elder sister.

No one knows exactly when a person will be called to family life -- not even the astrologers or matchmakers. While Reba was with her sister, three or four proposals were coming every week. Reba, as was the custom, used to appear at every marriage "interview board" and answer all their queries. Now, Reba was endowed with beauty, intelligence and good character. The marriage brokers would have taken to her, but the problem was the dowry.

Ranchi: Giving vent to their grievances against polygamy among the Santhals, around 800 tribal women from several states demanded abolition of the age-old practice.

At a two-day workshop here, speakers said tribal women as a rule have no right over any land owned by the family. A polygamous male could very well divorce his wife at his will, they alleged.

It is a paradox that the two most populated countries in the world -- China and India -- which together have some 2.3 billion people, are running low on young women. That's because both China and India traditionally value boys more than girls. Modern technology has made it possible to identify the sex of an unborn child and to abort it if it is a girl. Other female babies are quietly disposed of after birth. That could mean long and lonely bachelorhoods in the near future for millions of men unable to find partners.

By society ordinarily we mean a collective body of men and women, but the innate spirit of the word 'society' is not this. Samája or society in the true sense of the term implies an action of moving together (Samánam' ejate). We come across groups of persons in buses, trams and trains moving together; but this occasional movement cannot be termed society either. Being inspired by a common ideology, when different individuals move towards the common goal and become active for its achievement, this can be called a society. The appropriate English equivalent for Samája should not therefore be society. Social advancement, which is a type of social action, means that the tie of mutual unity among the persons moving together has become strong.

"The imam's road trip led to an outburst of Muslim indignation. Copenhagen was puzzled until the Danish tabloid Extra Bladet got hold of the 43-page report that the imams were handing out. It included three cartoons that had never been published in Jyllands-Posten, nor in any other Danish publication."