Ekam Satah Viprah Bahudha Vadanti
"The Truth is One, but we see it in Different Ways"
In the middle of the summer, I was skimming through articles when I came across an article entitled "Xena Meets Krishna." Before I knew it, I had fallen back into the Xena fandom after a year away and was awaiting an episode that has caused quite a bit of commotion.
And furthermore, a controversy was raised for me that affected me on a more personal level than most of this nature: it involved people of my religion calling to censor something because, in their opinion, it was sacreligious.
Their action, as expected, has lead to a "to hell with your religion anyway" attitude among many fans. While I think that educated people have gathered that the groups protesting are "ultra-conservative," I was nonetheless upset to find letters from angry people proclaiming things like "Who cares what a bunch of people in India think, anyway?" This disturbs me because it treats protestors as outsiders. I am Hindu and an American citizen. There are Hindus all over the world, all with very individual, differing beliefs. I don't represent all of them anymore than the members of the protesting groups.
The other reason that I am compelled to write this letter is the calling I feel not to let all Hindus' reputations suffer at the hands of a conservative few. By pulling the episode from syndication, they succeeded in stirring contempt among fans, making it "Xena vs. the Hindus." None of the Hindus I have talked to (most of whom aren't fans and don't care) objected to the existence of this episode. The writers of the article I read on Hinduism Today reported that they enjoyed "The Way" and thought that it conveyed the philosophies of Hinduism accurately despite the historical discrepencies.
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Xena: Warrior Princess is © MCA/Universal and whoever else legally owns it. This page is © 1999 shilpa.