Rohan Monteiro

    This is the 3rd  in a series of posts written originally as part of 'Curse of the Yaksha' but that were dropped from the final version. This piece is about the caste system in India. The Caste system is a social hierarchy that has been prevalent in India since ancient times (2500 -3000 years), according to some sources . For context, particularly non-Hindu readers, there were four broad categories in the caste system:  o Brahmans - Scholars /Sages o Kshatriyas - Warriors o Vaishyas - Farmers, Traders, Merchants o Shudras - Manual Labour Although there are four main castes, thousands of sub-castes further divide India's people. Additionally, there is a separate caste who aren't considered part of the system at all – the Untouchables or Dalits. They are shunned by society and forbidden to live amongst those of high castes. They handle the jobs the rest of the castes refuse to do, such as cleaning latrines, manual scavenging, prostitution, animal slaughter, leather cra

  This is the 2nd in a series of posts written originally as part of 'Curse of the Yaksha' but that were dropped from the final version. This piece is about the likely dates when the Mahbharatha took place . As part of the story and because I am occasionally neurotic about some details, I decided to attempt to calculate the most likely date for when the Mahabharata took place. The primary reason for doing so was that the very first diary entry by Akran mentions a date and I didn't want to get it wrong. However, I found myself enjoying the research process immensely, so let me breakdown my hypothesis as to when the event actually occurred. According to Hindu scriptures, the Kali Yuga began when Krishna left this realm .  The length of the Yugas is almost certainly an exaggeration—432,000 years is the number that gets thrown around most often because a day in heaven was equivalent to one year on Earth. (To put that into perspective, a day on Venus is approximately 243 days on

  This is the 1st in a series of posts written originally as part of 'Curse of the Yaksha' but that were dropped from the final version. This piece was written after reading an article about including certain myths as part of the Indian history syllabus. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY? This was a question I felt I would like to pen down some thoughts on   At the time of writing this, The NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) in India has recommended that the Ramayana and Mahabharata be included in History. It is unclear if this is ignorance or simple stupidity, but the point stands – there are enough and more examples of people being unable to distinguish between the two. History is written by the victors but based on objective fact. The propaganda that creeps into a historical narrative when written by the victors rarely becomes fantastical. Mythology, on the other hand, is an oral tradition that evolved. It isn't meant to