The old Indian TV series ‘Malgudi Days’ based on R.K. Narayan’s work may bring back fond memories from our childhood. But there’s no denying that the show has become rather dated. Outrageously dated. How, you ask? This clip from the first episode of the series, ‘Swamy And Friends’ pretty much answers your question.
This scene which has a Christian missionary teacher at an Indian school violently berating idol worship in Hinduism could be one of the reasons. A reddit link gives us a translation of the harangue as:
“(in angry tone) You Hindus worship idols. Can the idol give you blessing, can it speak to you? Can it take you to heaven? No, because there is no life in it. When Mohammed Ghazni destroyed these idols by breaking them into pieces and made it into tiles for his loo, where was your God?
And as if that wasn’t enough outrage-ammo, a righteous young child in this classroom “stands up for Hinduism” and proceeds to rebuke Christianity for worshipping a God that ate meat, that consumed alcohol and that was ultimately crucified.
Watch the complete clip here. You can skip to 1:50 for the scene in question:
*shudder* Thank God (whichever one you choose to believe in) nobody’s going back in time to dig up stuff to be offended about. Otherwise a shameful number of Indians wouldn’t be very far from bringing Narayan back to life just so they can burn effigies of him in front of his window.