Neil of course you are hurt by the atrocities committed on the Christians. This is not done by Hindus but by a few fanatics. I tell you majority of the Hindus are good and peace loving. They are not happy with what has happened to the Christian community. May be that they have some reservations, but heart to heart they do not like the atrocities committed on Christians. They know that it will not bring blessings to them and their children, for they are God fearing like most of us. We too would not like to desecrate any temple and bring curse upon us.

But don't you think that we need to build bridges and not closed compartments.Without bridges we cannot have a dialogue with each other.For ages Hindus have visited us on our vodlem fest, and they have invited us for their celebrations. This was the congenial atmosphere existing in Dakshin Kannada, which we are lacking today.

I admire the initiative taken and all those who participated. Now let us not go to sleep, but organize more festivals like these, and build a peace loving community of all religions.We need to encourage more open minded people for the welfare of the society. Why can't we share our sufferings with the Hindus friends? I feel that we need to avoid generalizing and keeping all in the same category.

Dear Anil Doha, a very true and touching comment... its better to give Bharat Ratna award to LK Advani for changing the face of India, its not the new thing what we Catholics used to do, I have a couple of awards and certificates for participating and winning the first and 2nd prizes in Ramayana, Mahabharata exams and assays in my school ( Pervaje Karkala ) we were in front row in every ‘ bhoothada Kola ‘ Yakshaghana .. we used to go to pady field in all three days to keep deepa in field a mark of respect to Baliyendra when deepavali celebration we used to go to our Muslim classmates house to learn Hindi as most of used to take Hindi as 2nd language but today ….

Becoze of some dirty politicians we lost our brotherhood … I wish and pray 91-92 days will not repeat in Karnataka any way hats up to Catholics .. that’s what we are keep going no turning back Monthi main pusteli amchin Dukan !!! VR Desouza

This is a great gesture from the Catholic community. This will isolate the few people who hate Catholics. This will also isolate the New Life movement and other divisive groups who work against the Catholics. Majority of the Hindus were never against Catholics and they never will be.

After all do we not have wonderful Hindu neighbours? For any of our functions, is it not the neighbours who give us the bulk of the support, including helping in preparing the sweets during Christmas or helping in every way possible during a marriage or birthday function? For the information of all, it is the Catholics who have adopted a number of things which are Indian.

No Catholic marriage is now complete without the Mangalsutra (Kariamani). Our ladies now freely apply tilak on the foreheads. You must have noticed most of the Catholics have now Indian names. Agarbattis are allowed to be used in place of incense. (though incense is still allowed to be used). We have the hymns from Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali sung in the Church. (Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high ....,

There are numerous strings in your lute .. etc.). The late Sr. Genevieve was an expert in Indian art and had painted all her pictures on Jesus, Mary and other saints the traditional Indian style. We also have adopted some of the good practices from the Muslims as well. We still have a long way to go but we have already on the journey.Once again my best wishes to all the peace loving people of Mangalore. May God Bless Mangalore. May God Bless India.

When I was a kid this was the most common site in our society. Those were the good old days when the ganpati arti would not start till my brother and I would reach the pandal after we had finished our rosary.

There were no time limits on how long we would dance at navratri and then go droopy eyed to school the following day. Diwali was not all crackers and the dussera puja would be followed by seeking blessing from elders and exchanging leaves of the wild berries. then came the cable tv and changed everything and the kids prefered to stay indoors except a few of us who were later labled the gunda gang.

1991/92 changed everything for us. the very friends who would eat beef and pork at my place started changing 'Pehle Kassai phir Isai' thanks to the VHP and the RSS shakhas that opened next door. our muslim friend left the area when one of our own was involed a dirty act of driving them out. the few hwaks in our society barred us from having the yearly mass in the building compound.

We were stopped from sitting to distribute prasad at the yearly puja. sad but true how things changed. how i wish all the boys could come back again. the gunda gang that i so miss. yes some do come up to meet me when i am down but a few still do keep away. some of the old hwaks have died and the some are on the last leg of their journey.

 I guess the old days will never return. we have now grown and have children of our own and we have taught them what was never taught to us while growing up. so i guess they will keep away and will never know the real diwali, christmas, dussera, eid, holi or govinda that we experienced and lived. we live in a different world now where we are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsis we are no more humans but known by the religion or caste that we are brought up in.

We are all not Indians anymore but are defined by our religion, caste and creed. the sad reality is that Mother India is seeing her children fight over crappy issues and crying and there is no one to wipe her tears