I am angry, again. And this time I cannot even contain my anger, it literally feels like I will burst in rage. The reason, I went to a chanting “concert”, I was expecting appropriation, but what I did not realize was my reaction. So to give some background, this is a pretty well-known person, a westerner, who proudly claims that her CDs with chanting are #1 in Amazon world music chart, #1 in Amazon world age chart (whatever those mean) etc. The program that we were given at the door advertises two upcoming events at Blue Spirit Resort in Costa Rica where you are promised of finding the light of love and the love for your beloved through chanting, and obviously if you pay the exorbitant cost for the resort!! Before the concert started, I was calming myself by telling I will just be at the moment and not intellectualize the whole situation and will overlook the whole capitalist, classist and racist plot of selling religion. But the moment it started my brain started burning in anger. On the stage four white people (am sorry for using such a lose broad term but if you keep reading you would know the reason) and a man of colour, wearing super expensive Indian or Indian inspired outfits started chanting Sahana babatu. Instead of being happy about how they have adopted my Hindu culture I started getting very angry, not because I feel I own the culture. But because they just do not know what they were doing, the history and the politics. They “explained” the meaning of OM as a very beautiful sound and invited everyone to join in chanting OM! What they forgot to mention was, for thousands of years women and Shudras (the lowest cast of the four Hindu casts) were barred from saying that word. As almost everyone joined in chanting OM, I was transformed to a horrific scene, where hundreds of priests chanted OM followed by various Vedic chants  to drown the scream of a widow who just woke up from her intoxicated stage and found herself sitting in the burning pyre of her dead husband. In that moment when these performers sold the calmness of the sound OM to privileged white people, they failed thousands of women who were burnt alive to this OM chanting.  I am not saying any human cruelty can take away the calmness of OM but just telling a one sided story of OM takes away the strength of that word. If instead they just mentioned the pain of thousands burnt and killed using that same sound I feel the chanting would have been more complete. But I guess bringing this topic up will bring the smell of charred skins in that air-conditioned room and will fail the whole business strategy.  

I sincerely hoped that I would be able to calm down with the second chant. But unfortunately as it started I felt weak and helpless.  First of all the chant was in incorrect Sanskrit, and the translation was so incorrect that I have no expression. They translated the Sanskrit word Guru as guarding angel! If they had any cultural or theological reference I am sure they would not normalize Hinduism to a Christian concept! For three hundred years of colonization we were shamed for our culture, heritage and religion and were robbed of our languages. And right at that moment I saw them as the white race having the audacity to take my language from me and distort it and to sell it for their own profit. I felt helpless as I know they are still more powerful and they write the history. Already so much of my own history has been rewritten to suit the white race, so many of my gods have been shunned as the whites did not understand them, and so many words have been wrongly translated that we have lost the true meaning of the words.  But right at that moment  I refused to give an inch of my heritage to anyone without making sure they know what they are talking about.

The whole torturous evening continued with one wrong after another. They invoked Hanuman by playing flute (once again no cultural connection between the God and the instrument chosen). I could not stop seeing the grand dome of Babri Mashjid being demolished while hooligans shouted Jai Bajrangbali, Glory to Hanuman.  The deafening sound of screaming kids who along with their families were slaughtered in the riots following this incident filled my ears and brain, but the audience around me somehow did not see the fear in my eyes and kept “invoking” Hanuman.        

The unending pain continued for me as the performers proudly shared their experience chanting in a “prison” with movie like heavy doors and where some people have lived for more than 25 years. The auditorium applauded their greatness when they told us how a “prisoner” for 25 years said he felt free after chanting with them. By this time I was praying to my god for having mercy on me and giving me an opportunity to leave that toxic place. My prayer was answered as they announced they will take a break after a Sufi chanting. As the words  Allah and OM echoed in unison in that artificially created and protected space, I ran, ran as fast as I could, before they could call me mad, tell me I should be happy that they are accepting my culture, tell me my fears and feelings are wrong or before they convince me with their capitalist ideas.