Kamla Das

13.12.99 Kamla Das’s is a last hurrah act. An urge to be once more in the limelight before the final curtain fall. Watch for Prasannarajan’s essay. He would bare it all. Kamla Das says she felt lonely and fearful that she would have to pay for her sins. Alas, she hasn’t seen that loneliness is a consequence of material living. And Islam, as a religion, does not have an answer for the soul’s loneliness. It can at best distract man from his loneliness through external comradeship or brotherhood of the believers. Till the problem is solved, the individual becomes restless, which is why the Muslim community is a restless community. Kamla Das’s disillusionment with Hinduism is probably because she could not go deeper than its ritualistic aspects. In fact, it appears that she has not understood even the basic aspects of either Hinduism or Islam. Hinduism has the inexorable law of Karma. This is not a reward/punishment law. It is simply the law by which life is organised. Actually, it is Islam, with its day-of-judgement belief, that sees Allah in the reward/punishment mode.