Who is Krishna? Is he to be identified by the plywood Sudarshan Chakra he twirls on television? Is Krishna his pitamber? Is Krishna his peacock feather? Is Krishna his flute? Is Krishna his milkmaids and their clothes hanging on a tree? Or is Krishna the very principle of life, of the universe spinning timelessly with its load of the good and the bad? Is Krishna not Death? Why have so many novels and plays been written on Krishna’s last days? Isn’t it because his end comes at a point where one cycle of time has ended and another is set to begin? Into that moment is gathered the very essence and meaning of the events of the past. In that moment Krishna’s garments and weapons have lost meaning; his being a grieving king and a distraught father has become irrelevant. He is now preparing to return to his source. His journey from the body into formless universal matter has begun.

Heads of all religions, ours as well as others, have conspired not to allow even a hint of the sublime philosophy that is at the root of every religion to reach the minds of our common folk. They have, instead, been deliberately bound to the narrowest ideas of religion. Today politicians everywhere are reaping the benefits of this conspiracy. They know full well that it is not blind faith but questions, doubts, discussions and debate that have brought man this far on the path of spiritual enlightenment. But they turn a blind eye to this glaring truth.

Their unhappiness with democracy stems from the fact that it strives to make religion a private affair. That is why those who seek power through religious bigotry will always find democracy an obstacle.

Singh sahib is pleased with this neat tying up of religion and democracy. But there is a nagging uneasiness in his mind. There is bound to be some pest in the audience who has watched the latest news update on television and knows that the chief of the Maibhoomi Rashtriya Party has demanded an apology from his paper for its ‘anti-Hindu’ report on the Banatwala episode. How the electronic media messes up the lives of newspapermen! This pest is bound to ask, ‘Sir, will you apologize to the MR Party?’ Singh sahib must decide his strategy here and now. He mulls over the problem and decides to brazen it out. ‘We will never apologize,’ he will bark. The pest is hardly likely to come after him when he sees the apology in tomorrow’s edition of the paper. He might at most write a letter to the editor taunting him for being such a coward. But it is in the editor’s hand not to publish letters. You cannot be too rigid about ethical principles these days. That is how life is.