While searching for Lord Hanuman’s wallpapers, I came across an austrailian website featuring a wallpaper showing maa durga fighting with an “evil robot hanuman”. At first it kinda hurt me to see Hanuman’s name attached with anything evil. So I dropped a mail to the site’s websmaster about it. He empathised with my sentiments on the subject and told me what he actually means by this.
For interested, the whole conversation is attached below. Bolo jai bajrang bali.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Ambuj Agrawal < nerd.jumbo@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 27, 2006 9:00 AM
Subject: Re: Regarding your website
To: “adamford@labyrinth.net.au” < adamford@labyrinth.net.au>
Hi Adam,
Thanks for being prompt in dropping me a mail about it and describing the thought process that lead you to make that wallpaper. I’m satisfied by your answer and believe that my fellow brothers here will be too.
By no means did I intended to doubt on your art. As I said before, its a superb collection!
And consequently its considerably popular too.
Keep up the good work.
-Ambuj
On 10/27/06, adamford@labyrinth.net.au < adamford@labyrinth.net.au> wrote:
Hi Ambuj,
Thanks for your email.
I certainly do not wish to upset any religious sentiments with my
wallpaper designs, which is why I have specified that the character who
durga is fighting in that design is not Hanuman per se, but an evil robot
version of Hanuman, quite distinct from Hanuman himself, for whom I have
the utmost respect.
The stories of hanuman are some of my favourite stories from Indian
mythology and I would never intend to besmirch his greatness.
The idea for the evil robot version of hanuman came from a news story I
read some years ago, when there was reportedly a strange monkey-man
terrorising some small villages in India – I cannot remember exactly
where. Some of the reports mentioned that the monkey man (who was dubbed
‘hanuman’ by some of the villagers) had metal claws and red glowing eyes.
I have no idea about the veracity of this report, but it tickled my fancy
and became the germ of the idea for the robot hanuman character.
My wallpapers are only intended to be a little bit of fun, something silly
to pass the time. By making them so cartoony and outlandish, this
intention is, I believe, quite clear.
But to reiterate, I do not intend to dishonour the great Hanuman, and I
have endeavoured to separate my character from him by designating him as
the evil robot version of Hanuman, quite distinct from Hanuman himself.
Again, thankyou for taking the time to email me with your concerns. I
appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with you.
Regards,
Adam Ford
> Hi Adam,
>
> I’m referring to a webpage [http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~adamford/pages/Wallpapers.htm] on your
> website.
>
> First, its a nice collection of ideas pertaining to wallpapers.
> And I certainly hope that through this site you would not like to hurt
> anyone’s religious sentiments. But unknowingly you are hurting
> hindusentiments in your section (on the same page) named
> “Wallpaper Three: Durga vs. Evil Robot Hanuman”. Here I would like to
> inform
> you that Hanuman is a name of a highly pious GOD and is very very strongly
> followed throughout in INDIA. Propogating him as an evil robot make us
> feel
> really unconfortable.
> If you are unsure, I’m talking about the image “
> http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~adamford/Images/DurgaVsHanuman.gif “.
>
> I’ll like to hear from your end about this issue.
>
> Ambuj Agrawal
>
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