Opinion: Tolerant Bigots -by Gautam Bhatia.
JPR:
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Diverse peoples have been absorbed as easily as Macburger in the land of the tandoori chicken......
What could I tell her?
...That I was an Indian. The product of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother (who converted to Hinduism after marriage). Raised as a Hindu, married to a Kerala Jew; my sister's husband was a Protestant Christian. That on my father's side were a range of Sikh relatives; that when Uncle Latif—my mother's brother—visited Delhi, he used her Hindu prayer-room for his own Muslim prayers. That as kids we received presents for Diwali and Christmas. That when the extended family sat down to eat, except for Buddhism, all major religions were represented at the table. And that my journalist father at the head, like religion's own Kofi Annan, held the group together with his balanced, tolerant—perhaps slightly edited—views.... That beneath the reverential flush and ritual of their religions, the family members were the same sort of people—vulnerable, loving, caring and wary of things like foreigners, inflation, malaria. And war....
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