Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Michael Rabe]

After thanks to S. Paliniappan and N. Ganesan for their citations, I'm
forced by the logic of my own
arguments to note the following tradegy in this morning's news:

January 23, 1999
Three Burned to Death in India
              Filed at 10:09 p.m. EST
 By The Associated Press
[http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-India-Australians-Killed.html]

Bajarang Dal members burn to death an Australian missionary and his two
sons, ages 8 and 10, after 34 years of working with lepers in Eastern
India.   Forget about Sita's ordeal, this is more reminiscent of Hanuman's
burning Lanka.  The indological links have been anticipated by Sheldon
Pollock, among other places in his article written in response to the
Ram-janam-bhumi violence:

  Pollock, Sheldon I.  "Ra-ma-yan‡a and Political Imagination in
India," Journal of Asian Studies 52:2 (May 1993), pp.261-297