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My Friend Sancho
My first novel, My Friend Sancho, is now on the stands across India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
To buy it online from the US, click here.
I am currently on a book tour to promote the book. Please check out our schedule of city launches. India Uncut readers are invited to all of them, no pass required, so do drop in and say hello.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
And ah, my posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
Ah, modern times. Check out these two amazing news headlines: Community ostracises woman touched by outsider Muslims on social…
Just back from the Galle Lit Fest, rested, and all set to resume blogging. Let me begin with the…
In a few hours, I’m off to the Galle Literary Festival. Blogging will be light till I’m back in…
Reader Ruchir Khare writes in to point me to this passage from the Johann Hari piece on Dubai that…
The WTF statement of the week comes from a Dubai cop: The woman confessed that she had sexual intercourse…
20 December, 2007
Atheism = Not Collecting Stamps
Chad English of Ottawa has sent this superb letter to the Economist:
SIR - You ask what accounts for the failure of atheists to organise or wield influence ( “Believe it or not”, December 11th). The answer is easy. Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. When you understand why there are no ‘aphilatelist’ conventions, you will understand why atheists don’t congregate.
We don’t want power and influence as a group. We don’t care if a government member is an atheist any more than we care if they collect stamps. What we do care about is that government officials can separate their personal religious beliefs from their governing duties. A philatelist government that pushes laws favouring stamp collecting at the expense of those who don’t collect stamps is a bad government. The same is true of a religious one.
The separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of a free society. Failure to embrace this principle is to the eventual detriment of the church, the state, freedom, and society.
See you at the next non-meeting.
Chad English
Ottawa
Bravo!
(Link via email from Joby Joseph. Earlier posts on atheism: 1, 2, 3.)
Posted by Amit Varma in
Miscellaneous
