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Opinion

The Love Guru central: Were the protests misguided?

By: Santosh :+: Under: Opinion
On: ⋅ June 23, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Does the movie “Love Guru” pick on Hinduism? It does use some references to some elements of Hindu origin but there are no direct references to the religion or any gods. Rajan Zed, leader of the protesting Hindus in the US, finally purchased a ticket and watched the movie.
[News Track India]

On the other hand, guru in “The Love Guru” instigates a bar fight, repeatedly narrates penis jokes, mocks yoga (one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy), wears female jewelry, mocks the concept of third eye, makes disciples drink tea passed through his nose, orders alligator soup, induces elephant copulation in front of the crowd, introduces himself as “His Holiness”, lives in a lavish ashram staffed with scantily clad maids, and whose goal in life seems to appear on Oprah Winfrey show, Zed said.

Rajan Zed - crying wolf or just misguided
img: via News Track India

Guru is hardly a Hindu word anymore. It may be derived from Sanskrit but after worldwide usage in various contexts and its inclusion in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary does not stand to indicate “guru” in the traditional Hindu sense. Same goes for the movie. The Guru in the movie, is a guru on eastern philosophy schooled in India, not a Hindu guru. Similarly, in this day and age, we hear the word “guru” being used in various fields - software, philosophy, finance. Why can’t there be a guru for love, or even sex, for that matter? Zed’s argument is based on the concept of the word “guru” representing a Hindu. That train left the station in the last century.

There are some valid points in here. The intro shows Guru Pitka in various contortionist yogic stances including one with his head up his posterior. There is also a scene featuring the third eye, which Guru Pitka can open up in anyone at any time to hold them hostage. “Yoga” it can be argued on Zed’s behalf is one of the basic tenets of Hinduism and the “third eye” in particular could be construed to represent Shiva. But when Zed starts protesting on irrelevant points like “wears female jewelery”, that’s when you lose interest in what he has to say. What’s wrong with a man wearing female jewelery? Such borderline misogynistic remarks make it sound like Zed is nitpicking or was having a really bad day. Perhaps after watching the movie and finding it was more of a Deepak Chopra spoof than one on Hinduism, Zed found it hard to go back on this elaborate “We’re offended” platform he had already built.

“Love Guru” the movie makes fun of everything - yoga, third eye, pachyderm intimacy, human intimacy, little people, phalluses, Oprah, Chopra, Hollywood celebrities, Bollywood, metal ballads, Canadians - the list is long. Not that making fun of everything justifies picking on a religion but the fact is that the connections to Hinduism, the religion, are tenuous at best. “Love Guru” is basically a parody of Deepak Chopra and the brand of Eastern philosophy he preaches. “Hindu” and “Hinduism” are never referred to in the movie but “Eastern”, “philosophy” and “India” are. Sure, some people with no knowledge of Hinduism might confuse the latter to represent the former, but I certainly didn’t expect Rajan Zed, the self proclaimed leader of Hindus in the US, to do the same.

Which brings us to one of two conclusions:
A. The protests were misguided.
or
B. The protesters are crying wolf.

Please share your thoughts and opinions in the space below and keep it clean.

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