{"id":5171,"date":"2008-05-02T09:22:49","date_gmt":"2008-05-02T14:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5171"},"modified":"2008-05-02T07:35:24","modified_gmt":"2008-05-02T12:35:24","slug":"you_will_go_to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/02\/you_will_go_to\/","title":{"rendered":"You Will Go To “Nether Region” For Watching “The Love Guru”"},"content":{"rendered":"

These people<\/a> are actually quite serious, when they inform us of the punishments we are likely to receive for making, viewing, or thinking about the upcoming Mike Myers’ comedy, The Love Guru<\/em>. One of the groups leading the protests is the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, which has, based on the trailer<\/a>, judged the film as offensive to Hindus because it mocks the sanctity of the Guru-Shishya relationship. They have drawn up an open letter of protest to the MPAA, and sent out press releases, generating straight-faced coverage like this<\/a> (thanks, PremiumSchlock).<\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, while many news organizations have been attending to the budding protests against The Love Guru<\/em>, few news stories have been paying attention to other creative documents by the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti relating to the film, such as the following table:<\/p>\n\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n
\n

            Act<\/span><\/strong><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n\n

Demerit<\/span><\/strong><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

   Means<\/span><\/strong><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

\n

Making the movie, ‘The Love Guru’<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

30 units<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

2nd<\/sup> region of Hell<\/a><\/span> for 1000 years<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

\n

Watching it for entertainment without knowing the spiritual science\/significance<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

2 units<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/td>\n

\n

Nether region (Bhuvaloka) <\/em><\/a><\/span>for 100 yrs<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

\n\n

Watching it for entertainment even after knowing the spiritual science\/ significance<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

5 units<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

1st<\/sup> region of Hell for 100 yrs<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

\n

Being a seeker of God\/on the spiritual path, knowing about the Movie, but doing nothing to stop it<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n

\n

5 units<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/td>\n

\n

1st<\/sup> region of Hell for 100 yrs<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

(Source<\/a> for the above table.) And how many demerits do I get for finding this table hilarious? (I must admit, I am rather curious about this “nether region” idea.)<\/p>\n\n

Their open letter to the MPAA is also unintentionally comic:<\/p>\n\n

The trailer released by Paramount pictures shows utter disrespect for the deep spiritual significance of the Guru. It shows the Guru in a very poor light and encourages the audience to laugh at the Guru. I could not believe my eyes when the trailer revealed Mike Myers playing a Guru through a whole range of denigrating scenes, some of which are quite lurid, such as the Guru wearing a chastity belt, having an erection, involved in bar brawls, accepting money to playing cupid, etc.<\/strong> In the trailer the character Pitka is proclaimed as the second best Guru in India. Was this a calculated statement or was this pulled out of some juvenile script writer’s repertoire? For a country that has produced revered Gurus and Saints such as Swami Vivekanand, Ramkrushna Paramhansa and Yogi Arvind, does Paramount Pictures actually believe that Mike Meyer’s portrayal of a Guru will join the ranks of the most illustrious Saints\/Guru’s of India? Was your research team \/ script writer not aware of the sanctity of the Guru prior to making the movie? Did they even consult leaders in Spirituality (apart from Mr. Deepak Chopra of course) if the script was potentially hurting?<\/strong> (link<\/a>)<\/blockquote>\n\n

“The script was potentially hurting” — indeed.<\/p>\n\n

The protests to this film might turn out to be funnier than the film itself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These people are actually quite serious, when they inform us of the punishments we are likely to receive for making, viewing, or thinking about the upcoming Mike Myers’ comedy, The Love Guru. One of the groups leading the protests is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}