NEW YORK, NEW YORK, January 31, 2005: Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hindu mythology, states this article in the New York Times, the author, editor or translator of 20 books, and a professor with multiple appointments at the University of Chicago, where she has taught since 1978. In her new book “The Woman Who Pretended To Be Who She Was” (Oxford) she catalogs myths and movies and plots about characters who disguise themselves as themselves, says this review. There is Hermione in Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale,” who pretends to be a dead woman pretending to be a live woman. There is Kim Novak’s character in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” who is covered with so many self-reflexive masks that only at the end does James Stewart see the awful truth. Hindu stories are also related. Through it all are hints of sexuality misdirected and redirected, sexuality that tricks or reveals, continues the review.
No stranger to controversy, in 2002, for example, Ms. Doniger and some former students were attacked in an essay on Sulekha.com, an “online community” for Indians. The essay, by Rajiv Malhotra, an entrepreneur whose foundation is devoted to improving the understanding of India in the United States, accused Ms. Doniger and her colleagues of Hindu bashing with their obsessive preoccupation with sexuality. A Sulekha.com article posted in 2002 accused Ms. Doniger of denigrating Hinduism in her article written for the Encarta encyclopedia. Microsoft, the encyclopedia’s publisher, ended by replacing Ms. Doniger’s contribution. For the full article, click on “source” above. The article is rather uncomplimentary to Hinduism.
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