The myth perpetrated by Max Mueller and other orientalists that we are a spiritual people as opposed to those in the materialist West has in turn been internalised by us. While the West is supposed to focus on the twin pillars of consumption and investment, we are doomed to retreat into forests wearing rough clothes of tree-bark and constantly engaging in wild-eyed penance. We actually seriously believe this tosh! Diwali or Deepavali is the best argument to negate this point of view.

This festival is about multiple celebrations, all in the very real material economic world, not in some soporific maya-laden universe. We worship Lakshmi, a goddess mind you, not just a patriarchal ascetic male god! A goddess of prosperity, plenty, wealth and the celebration thereof, a goddess embedded in the earth itself, of this planet, representing the bounties of the material world. The pursuit of artha, or economic well-being, is a very legitimate one for the denizen of this peninsula. The only injunction is that such pursuit of artha must go hand in hand with the pursuit of dharma, or righteous conduct. A modern interpretation of this would be to suggest that a business should pursue profits by selling high quality goods and services to its customers, not by selling shoddy or adulterated products. That would constitute the right combination of artha and dharma. A more contemporary view would be to suggest that the pursuit of market capitalisation must not be at the cost of good corporate governance! In fact they need to be intertwined.

... contd.