Apropos your cover story Secrets from the Shrine (June 2), I think our nation has suffered enough on account of this issue. It’s time we built a multi-religious temple here to demonstrate the secular fabric of our nation.
Tejas Patel, Brisbane, Australia
I was surprised to read the piece on Ayodhya. How can a story, purporting to report facts, rely only on the emotional responses of kar sevaks? One expects better and more objective reporting as also greater ethical rigour from your magazine.
Raj Chauhan, New Delhi
The discovery of so many objects at the Ayodhya site can only mean it was inhabited for centuries. Only a scientific evaluation, with precise carbon dating, can throw light on the civilisations associated with it. And given that no two archaeological experts might agree on the findings, one wonders where the excavations would lead us. How the high court will take cognisance of these findings remains to be seen. For all you know, we’d end up more confused than we were at the start of this exercise.
D.B.N. Murthy, Bangalore
Your story makes it out that the inscription on a slab found in trench no. J3 is quite significant, though you can only read a couple of words which mean nothing to a lay reader. Whatever the merits of the argument, the moot point is how come Outlook managed a copy of the photograph of the said inscription when as per the high court order no material discovered during the excavation is to be made public? Or is the image a computer-generated one by in-house experts?
Visalakshi Menon, Nehru Memorial, New Delhi
Outlook replies: We have never claimed that the image was a photograph.
The irritating quotes from Irfan Habib apart, this was a good story.
Giridhar, Bangalore
Your cover story on Ayodhya disappoints me. It doesn’t reflect the objective, critical character of Outlook. It looks more like a plant by the vhp. I also wonder how you can publish with impunity details of alleged findings when there’s a court order against such publicity.
A. Thomas, New Delhi
You can’t possibly equate the Aryan ‘invasion’ with Islamic colonisation. There is no proof that the Aryans annihilated the local culture; only that the Harappan culture vanished at that point of time due to some unknown reason. The Vedic culture being what it was, the Aryans assimilated, adapted and even incorporated local traditions, customs and even their gods, like Shiva and Murugan.
Chidanand Iyer, Coimbatore
Your cover story does a great disservice to the cause of journalism by getting judgemental on a case like this archaeological battle. The media is free to choose experts from any ideological school it likes but reporters jumping to conclusions is putting this excavation in jeopardy. Anything published in Outlook is read across the board. Of course, no one can prove anything in a court of law based on your story. But surely, vested interests will use it to promote their cause.
Rahul Malviya, Bangalore
I’m an ardent Hindu myself but your cover story is utter nonsense. Instead of drawing under-educated conclusions and quoting ridiculous opinions of bigoted vhp men on the proceedings, you should let professional archaeologists decide on the matter.
Sonu Trika, Delhi
Has anyone found out the ‘startling’ facts revealed in the story? I read the entire article and found only one. That the article which appeared in Outlook a few weeks back claiming the place to be a graveyard was a complete farce.
Vinoo Ramakrishnan, New Jersey, US
Helping the US (Keeping America’s Peace, June 2) will result in precisely that—helping the US. India needs to wake up to the fact that the sole concern of the US is money and economic power, the rest are just political statements. As the "world’s largest democracy" India surely has a mandate to do what it feels is in its own interests.
Rustam Roy, London, UK
Not one to hold anything against MNCs per se, I got a DJ (drastic jolt) on reading that they are eyeing water (Tapping the Droplet, June 2). I really didn’t know that corporates dreamt in terms of making money out of people’s basic needs. Thanks for giving us glimpses of the corporate game-plan. No doubt, all the statistics and logistics are already in place to explain why we should pay 10 times more for water in the future. My only query is this, is there really any difference between the common PC (petty criminal) and the mnc? I think not, save for the fact that MNCs have the lip (licence to plunder) to do so.
Sunrita Basu, New Delhi
While the murdered "poet" Madhumita might have written some really silly stuff like the bits Anita Pratap excerpts—"exhorting our bachelor PM to marry Benazir Bhutto and get Pakistan as dowry"—the fact remains that she was murdered, for whatever reason. Bad Art, Worse Life (June 2), however, seems to suggest that this silly woman got her just desserts and this is where Anita Pratap is nauseating. No one deserves to get killed because they are stupid, coarse or boorish. I guess civilised people feel free to laugh at Madhumita—as they would at Ms Pratap. Wasn’t it she who wrote sometime ago that the murderous thug called Velupillai Prabhakaran was a direct descendant of Raj Raja Chola? Her whole piece sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Mehul Kamdar, Chennai
That was an excellent piece by Anita Pratap. Seldom does one come across such a candid assessment of a case as she has done about Madhumita’s murder.
Madan Gupta, New Delhi
I think this is journalism at a new-found low. This is one of the worst pieces I’ve come across in Outlook. It’s as if Anita Pratap is trying to bring in the same sensationalism that she so mocks in her reference to Ekta Kapoor’s melodramas. Ms Pratap, the shame is not what you have written, but how you have written it.
C. Shashi, New York, US
It’s good to know that companies in India are moving into product development (Now, Some Solutions in a Box, June 2). Till the going was good, they seemed happy bodyshopping their employees without thinking of long-term survival. Surely, had they done this much earlier in the boom time, most Indian companies would have had a head start over the mncs opening their offices here. But it was after burning their fingers with the bust in bodyshopping revenues that Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro looked towards product development for their survival. Still, it’s better late than never.
Prateek Kaul, Pune
Like a common America-basher, Arundhati Roy (Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy, May 26) forgets that she was standing on the host country’s soil when criticising it and it was accepted without the batting of eyelids. Where else but in a confirmed democracy can a foreigner unashamedly snipe at the policies and actions of her hosts? She lambasts the country yet has no compunctions about accepting its generous hospitality.
B.K. Sarkar, Kolkata
The article Burned by the Blues (June 2) is written well, but the way you put it, you seem happy with piracy since it has brought down prices. Mind you, today it’s music and books, tomorrow it could also be magazines.
Purnendu Kumar, Bangalore
Finally, a food story that made me want to stay home and cook (Table Top Romp, May 26). Can we have some more like these please?
Swati Mehta, Mumbai
The media obsession with Aishwarya Rai is understandable but relentless (Call Her Belle de Jury, May 26). Whether or not she outshone an ageing Hollywood actress, whatever her jury duty or injuries to body and soul at Cannes or Khans, she does deserve every bit of her place in the sun. She has worked for it, do not grudge her that.
Chitra Panicker, New Delhi
Apropos Rising Daughters Inc (June 2), dowry demands are generally made when the groom’s parents are approached. See any dowry case, and you’ll find the bride’s parents wailing piteously that they had tried everything within their means to satisfy the greed of the groom and his parents but they still wanted more. It’s enough indication of the future. Why then do girls’ parents fall all over themselves to get their daughters married to these men? Nisha Sharma too seemed unperturbed and willing to settle into marriage with her prospective husband till her father was humiliated on the day of the wedding. Had she not seen it coming when she went shopping for her dowry? Why did she, and many other ‘heroines’, put up with this cost to their fathers? We have a villain here in the groom all right, but sorry, the bride is no real heroine either.
Anand Rajadhyaksha, Mumbai
Don’t honour Nisha Sharma with awards and cash prizes. Follow the lead she has
given instead.
A.M. Manohar, Madurai
Apropos Thy Hand, Matriarch (June 2), Amma does have a few achievements to her credit, but what tarnishes her government’s image is the rough way her political opponents are dealt with. Madam J’s strong, authoritarian methods remind us of the late Mrs G. Her relationship with the press too is similar. However, her sincere embracing of the reforms agenda really deserves praise. Populist measures are being given a swift go-by; the Planning Commission says Tamil Nadu is the only state which is least dependent on it.
T.S. Pattabhi Raman, Coimbatore
Undoubtedly the conquest (if it may be called that) of Mt Everest, is an event worthy of being commemorated (Ascent of Man, June 2). But yet another event, of equal if not greater importance, and which also struck roots exactly half a century ago, is the discovery of dna. It was in April 1953 that F.H.C. Crick and James D. Watson proposed their double helix structure for the dna molecule which was to revolutionise the fields of biological, medical and allied sciences.
Vivek Khanna, Panchkula
The article Watery Divisions in your magazine (May 26) was an excellent revelation of the blatantly inequitable distribution of drinking water in Mumbai. It’s ironic that the water used by the parks in the city is twice the amount all of Mumbai gets. It is high time the government took up the issue in right earnest and solved the crisis.
A.R. Krishna, Hyderabad
While P. Lal in his review (The Courtesan, Laid Up, May 26) of Krishna Dutta’s Calcutta provides his share of tidbits in the book—Gunter Grass being only one of them—he sticks to the colonial legacy of calling the city by its British name of Calcutta instead of the post-modernist rechristening—Kolkata. The book may not be worth its pages, but nor does the review does itself any credit. Outlook deserves better.
Maloy Manna, Pune
The article Who Ate My Hero (May 26) brings out the travails of Roland Joffe’s The Invaders. The battle of Wadgaon was one of the few setbacks to the East India Company more than two centuries ago. Present-day British sensitivities to the film title aside, in a clear case of flogging a dead horse, a group of retired officers are vying to make this an event, with now even the CM lending a hand. In a land where every movie is turned into an extravaganza, it’s strange that a self-styled military historian should be so sensitive about "facts" and stranger still that he should be treated as the sole authority while other historians of international repute are being totally ignored.
N.T. Thakur, Pune
Reading the cover story Burden of Peace (May 19) makes me send you this painting for which my daughter Jayshree won the consolation prize in the All India Camel Colour Contest 2002. She will be 12 years on August 15, 2003.
The image my daughter has painted—the future she hopes for—is very clear. I hope our leaders understand what the young aspire for and do not come in the way of this future.
It is time that the present day leaders give peace a chance and withstand whatever difficulties they might face to achieve it. Both India and Pakistan have wasted too many innocent lives and our resources in "ticking each other off" rather than sit down and solve their respective problems.
Hemachandra Basappa, Bangalore
