In August, Tamil writer Bogan Sankar wrote one Facebook post on choices available for Individual wrt Religion, as per him there are only three options 1) Orthodoxy 2) Iconoclasm 3) Reform.
Providentially stumbled on a book called " The Last Brahmin" by Rani Siva Sankara Sarma through twitter recommendations, Originally written in Telugu (2002) translated by D Venkat Rao (2007). This book s theme providentially matched the Traingular Views of the above suggestive actions, Author s Father representing Orthodoxy , Author s Brother a Reformer while the Author himself can be called a iconoclastic.
Book is a semi autobiography and a religious commentary at same breath with Author s self confessed hallucinatory inferences and matter of Facts from Our Country s Long Social History. All Three abovementioned View Points occupy equal space in this book, Perhaps this book can be exaggerated as moving accounts of three people - Orthodoxy trying to maintain ancient order, Reformers trying to negate Colonial Views and Author as a Iconoclast seeing the futility of it all, This book is a work of Non Fiction but due to author s Poetic inclinations he takes us through a dizzying ride with usual pitstops with Audacious conclusions and inferences making it a worthy read.
Sampling amongst quiet a dizzying view points in the book ,If I can choose, "Temples came very late into the scene and it has no reference in ancient vedic order", "Adi Sankara is Buddha in disguise", "Hinduism is Proxy Christianity". Perhaps all were not original thoughts but told earlier by different people in different times.
For a Lame reader what remained is the awareness about the possibility of all three personalities present in a single individual, a schizophrenic , the elusive enigmatic attractive discipline of the Orthodoxy charm refuses to die but cleverly negating with changing times is a Reformer for the worldly proceedings reserving iconoclasm for our self projecting image. Superb Read.
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