FOR A GENERATION ACCUSED of shunning traditional values and having its nose buried in devices, our youth often surprise us and how.
Only last week, we read about how a 26-year-old Odiya youth rushed to help two women—an Indian and an Israeli—who were being abused by three men in Koppal district, Karnataka. The attackers pushed Bibhas Nayak into a nearby canal, where he drowned to death. Police reports say that the women were then gangraped.
Bibhas was one of three men who rushed to the defence of the women. The other two managed to swim to safety. Hailing from Kandhamal, Bibhas is the son of Mrunalini Nayak, a schoolteacher, and Bishop B.K. Nayak, moderator of the Church of North India. Life is all about choices. And even in this moment of deep sorrow, we can only laud Bibhas’s courageous choice to step in when two women were distressed. May his tribe increase.
But where does the courage to make that choice come from? Senior Assistant Editor K. Sunil Thomas chose the S word over the R word for the strapline of this cover story. Spirituality over religion. He looks at how young India is growing more spiritual in this “post-secular” era. He sounds a warning for conventional religion, too—“the youth may be religious, but they are not blind followers”.
The gem in the cover story is writer Devdutt Pattanaik’s take on the four things that fuelled the bhakti boom. He also looks at the relationship between the state and this boom. He leaves us with a question about maya, like the current nosedive that the stock market has taken. Are spirituality and religion just bubbles treasured by the only animal who seeks God?
Sunil rounds off the cover with an article on how technology is aiding seekers of spirituality and an interview with Kumar Taurani, managing director of Tips Industries, which dominates the devotional music space.
In regional politics, Chief of Bureau (Mumbai) Dnyanesh Jathar writes about how the Santosh Deshmukh murder scandal has taken the wind out of the sails of the Devendra Fadnavis government. The chief minister has trimmed the sails and jettisoned minister Dhananjay Munde to regain control and instil confidence, but it seems another storm is in the offing. Senior Special Correspondent Lakshmi Subramanian has interviewed Tamil Nadu Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on the standoff with the Union government.
For @leisure, Lifestyle Editor Namrata Zakaria interviewed designer Manish Malhotra at his 40,000sqft Mumbai headquarters. From working out of actor Moushumi Chatterjee’s garage, he says, he is not too far from a business that is worth Rs1,000 crore. What was more interesting for me is the fact that he still lives with his 94-year-old mother in Pali Hill.
I am also happy to announce THE WEEK’s upcoming defence conclave which will be held in New Delhi on April 17. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has graciously agreed to deliver the keynote address. If defence is your cup of tea, please do register and come.
Resident Editor R. Prasannan’s column reminded me of something I had completely forgotten—that the government used to give plastic buckets as a ‘consolation prize’ for people who underwent vasectomies and tubectomies. Prasannan says that it was boom time for the plastic goods industry. But, how did a man ever buy a bucket in broad daylight in those days, I wonder.