Dear Reader,My survival mantra, “Nothing holds,” has unexpectedly received a hearty endorsement from my celluloid guru, Philomena Cunk, who has been savagely taking down all high-falutin ideas and their begetters in her stellar shows. The recently released Netflix “documentary”, Cunk on Life, finds her at the apex of her intellectual powers as she shatters all rosy beliefs about life and religion in her search for the meaning of existence.Cunk spells out the truth as only she can. Sample these: the apple that Adam and Eve ate was “an early example of an Apple product hastening the downfall of humankind”; Moses was the “most successful influencer of Old Testament times”; “Every life form is made of cells, like a prison. Which is probably why existence is so depressing. It’s a life sentence…” Is it any wonder that the experts she consults in her show are left tongue-tied after her bombardment? Their knowledge is evidently no match for Cunk’s deep wisdom about life’s puzzles.Under Cunk’s relentless gaze, all deeply held notions—religious, scientific, biological, artistic, existentialist, nihilist, quantum physical—are shown to be what they are: nonsense. For example, she points out that if god is everywhere, surely he can be found in a cupboard too? Or if god exists, he might as well have a brother called Simon. And if god knows everything one is thinking, does that not amount to a data privacy nightmare?If these questions make you suppose that Cunk is a nihilist, then she mangles that idea too by getting a phone call with an annoying ringtone just when Nietzsche is arriving at his hypothesis that god is dead. Her most severe roasting is reserved for the existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, whose cross-eyedness is diagnosed as the reason behind his distinctive insights.Watching Cunk on her demolition drive, I was reminded of that other great destroyer of monoliths, Folly, in whose honour the Renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus wrote his celebrated tract, Praise of Folly. And Cunk’s readiness to engage with that bodily process we usually shy away from discussing—pooping—took me back to Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.In the novel, Kundera raises the most important, yet often hushed-up, dilemma of religion: does god have intestines? Because, if we are made in the image of god and we have intestines, then god must have them too. But intestines would suggest the digesting of food, and, erm, excreting it. But excretion is disgusting: it is unholy to have poopy thoughts in a place of worship. If it is god himself who ordained excretion, can we conclude that not all of creation is meant to be aesthetically pleasing or good? That is, there are flaws in creation? And if religion is as defective as any of us, should we allow it to control our lives? Should we bathe in the Ganga at Kumbh when the waters are murky with pollution? Should we believe in a just and kind god if crimes such as the wholesale slaughter of civilians in Palestine are allowed to happen?I brought in the Gaza war here because right-wing fundamentalists harp on the religious reasons behind the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict. If religion makes no sense, then the religious argument behind the war must surely be a trick devised by humans to divert attention from the deeper political and mercenary motivations?To learn more about this crime against humanity being peddled as a religious war, read Bashir Ali Abbas’ review of Stanly Johny’s aptly titled book, Original Sin: Israel, Palestine and the Revenge of Old West Asia. Read it alongside novelist Tabish Khair’s pertinent interview with author Pankaj Mishra, who says, rather ominously, about the world after Gaza: “We should prepare for many great calamities”.And don’t miss Latha Anantharaman’s review of the novel, You, by M. Mukundan, translated into English from Malayalam by Nandakumar K. I have a feeling that Philomena Cunk would approve of the review.See you again soon, with more nonsense-bashing.Till then,Anusua MukherjeeDeputy Editor, FrontlineCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS