Paper Boats

At Haridwar

It would really become troublesome for me if anyone ask me about my first encounter with my own religion.  It would become even more difficult if I would have to submit my religious opinions considering liberty is the most cussed peripheral of society in today’s time.  Our religious opinions are sown into our subconscious mind at a very tender age and probably that’s one of the reason why fear God, only we are familiar with.

If I trace back, the first time I realized that something like communal integration exists was when I saw a kid in my class with a turban. I was curious. And I started believing that somehow our distinctiveness is associated with our clothes.

Meanwhile I was struggling with this, one very fine day God started drinking milk. I don’t remember which day or month it was but it seemed like a carnival.

People carried buckets of milk with them and seemed really happy once gods have had those offerings. It started in the morning and continued for the whole day. At some places gods stopped but people didn’t.

Very later I came to know that it was capillary action and I laughed my heart out because my mother was hundred ten percent sure the half liter that she had offered had surely reached Ganesha. However explaining her about the particular phenomenon didn't made a single dent in her faith and when I asked her why she has such strong beliefs she replied, ‘because we need faith and hope to live’.

For her our studies were the most important thing. She often used to say, ‘Agar tum log padh likh loge tou mere naam ke aage padha likha nahi lag jaaega’ and due to my incompetency to understand and appreciate what she had said I could not deduce what she meant.

Going, again, back in time, I remember the first time when I was asked about my caste. I didn't knew what to tell so I said Hanuman because I used to frequently visit hanuman temple and I was very notorious that my uncle used to call me chote-hanuman. I was in First standard at that time. My teacher had asked me this question. He laughed at my idiocy and asked my surname. When I answered him he seemed impressed by that and added, ‘Don’t let us down.’ I was confused and amused at the same time.

I went back home and asked my mother about my caste and she gave a lot of enlightenment on the matter and she also said that I should not call myself Hanuman as it is wrong thing to do, very later in my life I realized how correct she was when she said this. If I would have said the same thing as an adult then people would have painted my buttocks red.  This was also the time when I came to know that we eventually have evolved from apes.

(Continues...)