The spiritual ethos and the philosophical outlook that the Bhagvad - Gita postulates paves the way for the liberation of man, who, as Rousseau said, ‘being born free, is everywhere in chains’. But equally it is a mirror of human psychology, which enables man to discern his debilities for appropriate redressal. All the same, the boon of an oral tradition that kept it alive for over two millennia became its bane with the proliferation of interpolations therein. Besides mud...

This is a compendium of the author’s Indian stage and radio plays: "Slighted Souls" is a poignant love story set in rural Telangana, beset with feudal exploitation of the downtrodden dalits. Besides forcing the dalits to toil in the fields as bonded labor without impunity, the land owning doras had no qualms in reducing the womenfolk of this ilk as sex slaves in the gadis, which results in an armed rebellion engulfing two young lovers. "Men at work on Women at work...

Slighted Souls - A political stage play Scene – 1 Voice Over: Under the British Raj in India, the self-indulging Nizams of Hyderabad abdicated the administration of their vast principality to doralu, the village heads, letting them turn the areas under their domain into their personal fiefdoms. While the successive Nizams were obsessed with building palaces and acquiring jewelry, the village heads succeeded in ushering in an oppressive era of tyrannical order. Actin...

This is a collection of the author’s short stories that deals with women's dilemmas in the Indian social milieu accompanied with unique denouements. While 'Ilaa's Ire' contrasts woman's lot of the day with her eminence in the Vedic Age, '201' Qualms" depicts her predicament, torn between personal loyalty and citizen's responsibility. As "?" addresses woman's marital stress in an alien land, 'Cupid's Clue' is about her acting on rebound in her native place. Even ...

‘Is it a point of no return?’ she thought involuntarily moving to the edge of the chair. Reading his ‘have you forgotten about the castration?’ message, she sank into the chair thinking, ‘is it a lighthearted joke or as a loaded message?’, and for a clue, began to recall the events of the year passed by. ‘Oh, how my life had turned on its head when I turned fifty?’ she thought in wonderment. ‘That’s when I immunized my heart against attractions and insulated my life f...

While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace. What is more, many believe that reading Sundara Kãnda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Well miracles apart, it's in the nature of Sundara Kãnda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn't it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won't it portr...

Canto 20 - Womanizer at Work To fair Seetha he confined Spoke then Ravan in disdain. With thy pair of lovely hands Why block sight of thy bosom Hope it’s not the fear of me Prompts thee squat in like fashion. Is a beauty like thine ever And a lover than me better! What to fear in this Lanka Lost whose Lord his heart to thee. Fair it’s not for thee to blame Granted when it’s to our ilk Force we might all women we fond Never mind ever t...

Bhagavad-Gita is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’ – so opined William von Humboldt. Though it is a matter of consensus that Bhagvad-Gita in the present length of seven hundred verses has many an interpolation to it, but no meaningful attempt has ever been made to delve into the nature and extent, not to speak of the effect of these on the Hindu society at large. The moot point that has missed the attention of al...

All about Life - Chapter 2 This character defining chapter of the Gita comprising 72 slokas, known as saankhya yoga, Realization through Knowledge, is regarded by many, as the peerless part of the great epic. Arjuna’s dilemma, meanwhile, turns into grief, as the horrific prospect of slaying Bhishma, his revered granduncle, and Drona, his venerated guru, sinks into his consciousness. Bogged down by sentiment, Arjuna appeals to Lord Krishna for guidance. The Lord’s respon...

If passing through youth was like crossing the mirage of life for Chandra and Nithya, it proved to be chasing the mirage of love for Sathya and Prema though for plain Vasavi, Chandra's pitiable sibling, it was the end of the road. As life brings Chandra, who suffers from an inferiority complex for his perceived ugliness, and Nithya, who was bogged down being jilted by Vasu, together, they script their fate of fulfillment. And as poetic justice would have it, Sathya, wh...

Shackles on Psyche Youth is the mirror that tends us to the reality of our looks. The reflections of our visages that insensibly get implanted in our subconscious lend shape to our psyche to define the course of our life. This is the saga of Chandra’s chequered life that mirrors this phenomenon in myriad ways. As perceived by the deprived, he had a fortunate birth. Yadagiri, his father, was the prominent pearl merchant in Hyderabad - Deccan, the seat of the Nizam’s...

In a stream of consciousness mode 'Glaring Shadow' is the self-account of the life and times of a man, who liquidates his immense wealth only to consign it to the flames. The agony and ecstasy of his life as he makes it mundanely big, even as he loses his soul, only to regain it when tragedy strikes him leaves one to ponder over the meaning of success in life. This philosophical ‘novel of a memoir’ makes a compelling read that is conducive for contemplation about...

Glaring Shadow He had the soul of our times, and is the namesake of many. He tamed success by the scruff of its neck, only to fuel envy in our neighborhood. When it seemed there was no stopping him, fate dealt him a deadly blow in his early sixties. Besides losing his wife, son and daughter-in-law with their children in that fatal road mishap, he found his leg mangled in the debris of that Ferrari. The intensity of the pity all felt for him seemed to match the magnitud...

It's perilous penning this blurb. It's fine when man is modest about his work. It even affords him the aura of an invisible crown! But what about his work? Were it an art or craft, it is there for all to see. What of a literary work of an unheralded author? Well, lauding the same might raise one's eyebrows. Failing to praise wouldn't make a 'jewel-less crown' either! Why not see, if this is the great Indian novel. This is the story of the rise and fall of...

Party Gone Sour That New Year's Eve, all the nouveau riche of New Delhi seemed to have gathered at the Misty Nest in their ubiquitous wear. While women wore designer dresses, men turned up in safari suits. Hosting them at their grand dwelling in the Defense Colony were the Gautams, Prabhu and Sneha. By the time the last guest was hugged in welcome, Gautam’s silk kurta and Sneha’s mink coat were truly crumpled. Augmenting the warmth of their bonhomie was the Glenfiddic...

Even as Detective Dhruva was enamored of Kavya, whom he rescues from her kidnapper, Radha, an alleged murderess on the run, gatecrashes into his life. But when Kavya too joins him after her man was poisoned there ensues the tussle of a love triangle, which gets unraveled in a poignant end, but not before a series of murders. So, then who could have poisoned Ranjit the realtor, Shakeel the Inspector, Pravar the criminal and Natya his accomplice? Well the needle of sus...

Prey on the Prowl That June evening, the crimson sun gave in to the dark monsoon clouds to let them end its long summer reign over the Deccan skies. What with the thickening clouds thundering in triumph, Dhruva woke up from his siesta, and by the time he moved into the portico of his palatial bungalow at 9, Castle Hills, the skies had opened up to shower its sprawling lawns. It was as if the eagerness of the rainfall matched the longing of the parched soil to receive it...

This is BS Murthy's maiden writing in his mother tongue, whose body of literary work in English comprises of five novels (Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage - Passing through youth, Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel 'n Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel), a collection of short stories (Stories Vareid - A Book of Short Stories), a compendium of stage and radio plays (Onto the Stage - Slighted Souls and other stage...

"ఒక గ్లాస్ నీళ్లలో చిన్న మట్టిబెడ్డ వేసి చూడు. నీళ్ళని మురికి చేసిన కొంతసేపటికి మట్టి వాటం చేరుకుoటుంది, నీళ్లు తేటబడతాయి, కాని అదే గ్లాసుని కుదిపితే నీళ్లు తిరిగి మురికవుతాయి. ఇది గ్రహించే ఈవెన్ అజ్ జెంటిల్ మెన్ రిమైన్ కోల్డ్ టు దైర్ ఓల్డ్ ఫ్లేమ్స్, బ్లాగ్గర్డ్స్ సీక్ టు ఇంఫ్ల్మ్మ్ దెమ్."

This is a speculative theory about the origins of the world and the evolution of humans and other species as well as vegetation on earth.

Creation vs. Evolution ‘One might approach this postulation as an addendum to evolution for it comes in the wake of the great works of the past. It would seem logical that any proposition about evolution cannot bypass the idea of creation, buttressed with a religious belief by those closer to the beginnings of life. Just the same, though all religions propagate the word that God created the world, nevertheless their scriptures differ about the way he went about it. Give...

While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace; many believe that reading Sundara Kãnda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Miracles apart, it's in the nature of Sundara Kãnda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn't it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won't it portray how Seetha, ...

Canto 31 - Rama’s Ballad For Seetha’s ears then Rama’s tale Sang in sonorous tone Hanuman. In lineage old of Ikshvaakus Known to all for his valour Dasarath was the reigning king. Noble as he was the king Valued was he like a saint Power he had to rival gods. Generous was he by nature Took he care of his subjects Ruled he like a god on earth. For his righteous reign Dasarath Earned he fame the world over. Esteemed he his eldest son Know...

It is for the Shudras to realize that in reality, the Bhagvad-Gita was the pristine work of their progenitors that in time got polluted by the others, and it is time for them to reclaim it albeit by ridding it of its obnoxious insertions as was done by the author in his Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations. In so far as the misconception about Gita’s advocacy of violence is concerned, as and when the interpolative issue is settled, rid of the...

The Gita eulogizers, in its present-form, must ponder over as to how these verses of inequality in the revered work jell with the much touted Hindu ethos of vasudhaika kutumbakam (world is one family). In so far as the Gita’s admirers among the Whites, it can be said that having internalized the Semitic religious ethos of the God’s alleged partiality towards certain races and also given the prevalence of slavery in their societies, they saw nothing perverse in the ineq...

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes “Hindutva ('Hindu-ness'), as an ideology that sought to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu values" and India’s Apex Court had ruled that “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism ...”. However, it can be said that their lordships erred in assuming that there is something called Hindu fundamentalism, religious or cultural, ...

Leaving the West to its self-destructive Islamapologian ways, a closer look at India would reveal how the fear of the Hindu Theocratic State is unfounded to say the least. True, the Islamic fundamentalism could usher in theocratic states in many Muslim countries owing to the religious fervour of the believers for the adoption of the oppressive sharia and other depressive Islamic laws that Islam enjoins them to abide by. But when it comes to Hinduism, there are no such re...

Though the dalit tag affords political clout to its desperate classes as a whole, it had failed to buttress the self-worth of its disparate caste groups for in the Indian cultural calculus, caste is intrinsic to the social-worth of its members. Thus, it is imperative to cast a sense of caste-worth in the dalit fold in the ‘Black is Beautiful’ mould for the collective moral upliftment of its member castes. But self-belief being the by-product of the zeal to strive and no...

Though slavery was abolished in America way back in 1865, the undying discrimination against its ‘free’ Negroes remained such that even Jesse Owens, who having symbolized the U.S. sporting power in the Berlin Olympics of 1938, had to keep holding the bias end of its racial stick. Though the innate physical strength of Negro biology continued to yield sporting returns in their scores of Olympic medals that buttressed the American athletic glory, their racial plight remain...

Adolf Hitler had on his hands the blood of six million gas-chambered Jews besides fifty million soldiers, in the flower of their youth, and thirty million civilians of all ages, who perished in the World War II that he started, but yet he is among the most debated about worldwide. Moreover, Mein Kampf, his autobiography with an anti-Semitic slant is not ostracized either by the book world, but in a stark contrast, uttering the very name of Nathuram Godse, the man who ass...

Godse, in his own words, was “Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone,” and that should have...

Owing to the all-pervading purānic narrative that is in tune with ¬¬the above, by and large, the Hindu religiosity has come to be steeped in propitiating the gods through assorted rituals and fervent prayers to avert adversity or for self-aggrandizement and /or both. It’s another matter though that in our materialistic time, it has further descended into a religious barter with gods, or worse, of seeking to bribe them that too only after they second man’s bidding! Hence...

Long before the advent of the Torah, not to speak of the Bible and the Quran that followed it, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad had it that “.. since he (man) created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation.” However, in the latter-day Nārāyana Upanishad, the ‘mortal man’ sought to control the ‘immortal god’ he himself had created thus: “daiva dē...

Why is This Book Now? The Manusmriti, the social doctrine of yore, and the Bhagvad-Gita, the spiritual tome in vogue that lay down the discriminatory dharma (duties) of the four social classes (castes) have been the bugbears of the Hindu backward classes. However, to their chagrin, of late, as the latter is being mindlessly promoted even though the former was constitutionally debunked, they began advocating that it too should be dumped in a dustbin. Ironically, the im...

Bhagvad-Gita, often referred to as the Gita, comprises eighteen chapters, which, in all, contain seven hundred slokas (verses) that is not counting the unnumbered opening number of its thirteenth chapter. Though it has gained prominence on its own steam, in fact it is a part of the epochal Mahabharata, which, with over 100,000 slokas, is the longest tome in the world of letters. Moreover, this epic, probably compiled around the third century BCE, whose authorship is attr...

Needless to say, the copy (from other constitutions) and paste (in the Indian Constitution) work of the so-called framers of our constitution, comprising of the Semitic-naïve caste Hindus and a well-informed, though embittered dalit, as argued above, needs a pragmatic overhaul, for which the level of Hindu awareness about the Abrahamic outrage against their sanātana dharma has to raise to self-respecting heights of Himalayan proportions, hopefully.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah got what he wanted for Indian Musalmans though in time, their Quranic zeal turned Pakistan into a Rogue State. What of India, the product of an irony of a partition in that while some Musalmans walked away with one-fourth of its land, others stayed back to nurse their separatist dogma in its truncated bosom? While the Hindu nationalists lamented about the loss of their ancient land, the Musalman intellectuals were alarmed at their reduced numbers vi...

It can be said that the Gita as it is unmistakably propounds the caste system and unambiguously details the caste characteristics that is besides the earmarked social occupations / obligations of its members. Hence, one should ponder - would have Krishna chosen to reduce Shudras, his own people, literarily that is as Krishna himself was a Shudra, as menials even as Jehovah, having enabled the Jews to come out of slavery, made them his Chosen People!

The sore point to those at the rough-end-of-the-caste-stick in the ‘in vogue’ Gita (short description of the Bhagavad-Gita) is God Krishna’s alleged owning the creation of the very discriminatory caste system thus: chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sruṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam (Ch 4 v 13) Well, the plain reading of this Sanskrit sloka indicates that based on the (human) qualities and (mundane) activates he had created the four varna...