Renuka Narayanan is a commentator and columnist on religion and culture.
Articles by Renuka Narayanan
So which goddess do they bow to?
I’m home again all right in confused little India. For my first trip into town, my brother wanted to take me to lunch at the club for old times’ sake. Before that, I wanted my first halt in Delhi to be at the ancient Yogmaya temple at Mehrauli. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jul 06, 2013 11:28 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
A high wai to the bhoot across the Bay
Winding up to go home after nearly four years across the Bay, I was asked, “What will you miss most about Bangkok?”
Updated on Jun 29, 2013 11:07 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
Truth is actually stronger than a lie
Scripture offers dramatic stories to help us hang in there. An example is this intriguing Jataka that sounds like the story of Shakuntala and Dushyant.
Updated on Jun 22, 2013 10:34 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
Guru Padmasambhava’s birthday in Hemis
The Swat Valley was the birthplace of no less than Guru Padmasambhava (‘Lotus-Born’) who spread tantric Buddhism in the north and northwest of the subcontinent
Updated on Jun 16, 2013 12:26 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
A possibly forgotten secret of ‘success’
Best of Luck and God Bless to the young people presently seeking admission to Indian universities including mine, the University of Delhi. As proof of faith I’d like to share a piece of writing that seems to have worked as an enabling worldview for people in several professions through both good and could-be-better times. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jun 08, 2013 11:14 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
Sattva and Shibi or Sembiyan’s Satya
Oh dear, I don’t mean to sound like ‘Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola’ but I’m on a jataka roll and I just re-read two that involve a human being offering himself to animals and birds as lunch or possibly dinner. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jun 01, 2013 11:22 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The sixth weapon and the sticky ghoul
Buddha Poornima cannot but recall the Jatakas and it’s hard to choose which one to share. This little-known Jataka, for one, seems at first to be a ‘so-what’ story until the point stings. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on May 26, 2013 01:20 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The more things change, the more they don’t
With news of alleged unwholesome doings in a major Indian religion, cricket, a Jataka comes to mind that combines stories normally associated with the two epics. Renuka Narayanan reports.
Updated on May 18, 2013 11:19 PM IST
Our Mona Lisa, the Bodhisattva Padmapani
Writing this column spooks me sometimes as you know and it just happened again, the kind of coincidence that I’d love to think of as ‘meant’. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on May 11, 2013 11:12 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
Those unknown ‘Tarzans of the Apse’
That’s a pun I’ve pinched from American cookery queen Julia Child’s lovely book ‘My Life in France’ (her husband, Paul, though suffering from vertigo, gamely climbed the upper reaches of a church to do repair work and won the nickname ‘Tarzan of the Apse’). Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on May 05, 2013 02:28 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The golden deer-king of Varanasi
Which is worse, doing something wrong or not doing the right thing when you should? There’s a view to be found in the Miga Jataka, Pali Canon No. 12, which is the story of the noble deer-king of Varanasi, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Apr 27, 2013 11:10 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
And his work, a human purpose
Between the mindless, heartless incidents this week came the news that the Princie diamond of Baroda/Golconda sold for US$40 million. It makes you think of the fabled Syamantaka Mani in the Vishnu Purana and Srimad Bhagavatam. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Apr 21, 2013 12:12 AM IST
The law, the prayerbook and civil society
Despite the week’s sensations, it’s probably ‘normal’ to secretly wonder if being ‘good’ is really worth it, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Apr 13, 2013 10:18 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The whole six yards and some
It’s fabulous that saris are reportedly red hot again on ramps and at parties, for besides covering a multitude of shins, they let you be a samurai in the politest way, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Apr 06, 2013 11:25 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The Chocolate cake that never fails
First it blitzed chocolate hearts on February 14, then it was American Chocolate Week in the third week of March, it's chocolate Egg Day today, and any time now it will be World Chocolate Day on July 7. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Mar 30, 2013 09:12 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
Of a golden poem a hundred years ago
If your youth is or was charmed as mine and that of a million others was by 'The Golden Road to Samarkand', you may enjoy recalling that this alluring poem is a hundred years old this year. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Mar 23, 2013 10:52 PM IST
The deathbed verse of a great saint
Perhaps it’s time to cast our mind back to medieval Europe, to the 13th century in Italy. A young boy, born to a rich merchant whose trade links stretched from Italy to Egypt to Constantinople, grew up with the best of everything. He was selling velvet one day, when a beggar came up to him for alms. Renuka Narayanan writes
Updated on Mar 17, 2013 04:19 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan
The deathbed verse of a great saint
Perhaps it’s time to cast our mind back to medieval Europe, to the 13th century in Italy. A young boy, born to a rich merchant whose trade links stretched from Italy to Egypt to Constantinople, grew up with the best of everything.
Updated on Mar 16, 2013 11:35 PM IST
Lord Shiva, a very difficult deity, really
Knowing that people all over the world observe Mahashivratri, it's nice to remember why so many feel such immense attachment to Lord Shiva. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Mar 09, 2013 10:49 PM IST
A mystic message from the past
The news of the annual Jahan-e-Khusrau festival in Delhi poignantly brings back the legacy of the Qadiri order of Sufis.
Updated on Mar 02, 2013 10:44 PM IST
What’s in a name? Literally, nothing
Given the Indian craze for ‘lucky’ names and ‘numerology’, I would like to share the ‘Namasiddhi Jataka’ as a reference to file away quietly in our heads, just in case we need it someday to help us choose between sense and nonsense, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Feb 23, 2013 09:37 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Renuka Narayanan, New Delhi
Leelavadee, frangipani and temple-trees
With tropical trees madly shedding leaves this month, noticeable even in downtown Bangkok, I wonder how my temple trees are doing, the gigantic ones in red sandstone pots that I left behind in Delhi more than three years ago, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Feb 16, 2013 10:21 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
Kreng Jai and a smooth society
If Delhi indeed had the most rain this February in seventy-one years, I dread to think what a road must be like outside the NDMC-tended bungalow area: a river runs through it with just five minutes of medium rain. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Feb 09, 2013 09:46 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan
The monk and the worm of jealousy
A Jataka that seems ever-relevant to small and big situations tells the cautionary tale of a jealous monk. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Feb 02, 2013 09:54 PM IST
So, can you manage a Kumbh?
Kumbhing by all means and God save us all. I, for one, just realised that my years as a she baba have done something funny to me. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jan 27, 2013 12:21 AM IST
The story of the second statuette
The Thirty-two Tales of Vikramaditya fly to mind with the Mahakumbh, especially the story that the second statuette on the steps of Vikramaditya's throne challenges Raja Bhoj with when he wants to sit on that fabled judgment seat. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jan 19, 2013 11:52 PM IST
The Battle Hymn of the Republic?
The most important song on the Union side during the American Civil War of the 19th century was ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’. Renuka Narayanan writes.
Updated on Jan 12, 2013 10:08 PM IST
The dwarf's stratagem and the weaver
The intriguing Bhimasena Jataka lets on how to get away with fooling all the people, all the time.
Updated on Jan 05, 2013 10:23 PM IST
With flannelled fools and muddied oafs
Kipling wrote these lines denouncing the British public’s priorities in 1902. They could apply to India in 2012: “Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.
Updated on Dec 29, 2012 11:04 PM IST
Nine years later, this August
Justice delayed is considered justice denied and Indian women must settle for “punishment, at last” much as the “good husband” is defined as one who does NOT beat his wife, writes Renuka Narayanan.
Updated on Dec 22, 2012 11:19 PM IST
None | Renuka Narayanan