ABSTRACT
Recently, a colleague and I hailed a taxi in Toronto, Canada.Once inside, conversation with the taxi driver revealed that,he was from Bangladesh and that we were attending the same conference on religion. ‘What do you think of Hinduism?’ the driver asked. My colleague gave an answer far less cautious than I would have after I spotted a red plastic sign with an Arabic prayer hanging from the driver’s rear-view mirror. I had had experiences in which South Asian Muslims posed this question as a prelude to disparaging remarks about Hindus and Hinduism. This time, however, the taxi driver went on to say how much he appreciated Hinduism and often celebrated Diwali and other Hindu holidays as well as Muslim ones.
