Defacing India
Photo from RajeshKrishnamurthy.com
When you search for grafitti on Indian temples and places of historical importance, you really dont have to search too much. This particular photo stood out to me. I'm not sure which temple this is but seems to be somewhere in TamilNadu. Some of the writings on the wall seem to be Tamil (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong).
When I was in India last February, there was this little feature on NDTV, which was focused on the same issue - grafitti on historical monuments particularly the Charminar. Most of the offenders they came across were college students from middle class to well-to-do families from the looks of it. Their reasons for defacing our historical monuments included a myriad of reasons - just for the heck of it, rebellion against the society and their parents in particular, professing their puppy love and, the one that struck me, they wanted to become part of history by writing their names on a historical monument!!!!
This maybe stem from my NRI sensiblities but please lets leave our temples and monuments alone. If we want to become a part of history lets do something more deserving like inventing a cure for cancer, putting man on Mars or bringing world peace.
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