BELIEF

This happened a year back. I didn’t make it to the first merit list of a college I had interviewed in. I had been instead waitlisted. I called up my dad to give him the news, and in came the answer from his side, “Don’t worry beta. Believe in Sai. He will set everything right.”  I couldn’t help smiling at the way he said it, with so much conviction and, perhaps, blind faith that anybody would feel like believing in it, unless ofcourse one is vehemently sceptic. At one level, it is his helplessness which prompts him to surrender to an unknown presence (maybe ‘absence’ is the right word) which he ‘thinks’ will magically let everything fall into place. It honestly beats my imagination and understanding of the scenario. However, it also doesn’t leave me without some food for thought. 

I too have turned into a sceptic over the last few years, which by the way is enormously disturbing to my parents. But I must confess I have not been able to choose a path yet. I call myself an agnostic. It’s safe, you know. A great man has said, an agnostic is an atheist without balls. True I say. Perhaps people like me are too proud to call ourselves a believer and too scared to term ourselves an atheist. It’s a tight rope we walk, of faith and belief. 

 There have been a myriad stereotypes attached to the way an ardently-religious person conducts himself/herself. True, people here truck religion with faith. Many people either do not understand the difference between the two or, even if they do, they don’t want to differentiate.

Just the other day, we had planned a family-outing. We were rushing through things, trying to finish up the daily chores in a frenzy, so that we make it on time. My dad, despite knowing the urgency of the situation, comfortably did his daily rites and rituals and took his own time. I felt this was the height of impractical behaviour. I was angry and irritated.       

Frankly, it is easy to do an out-an-out dismissal of the very many ritualistic practices people involve themselves in. But somewhere it would be a lopsided view of things. Maybe we fail to realize that for some people the only way they can express their faith in god, or whatever it is they call it, is to light a candle, an incense stick or burn a diya before an idol. Some, like my own mother, do fail to experience god, unless visualized in a well-defined form or face. Not many find it plausible to work in a realm of complete abstraction, you see.

I am not advocating idol worship or any form of ritualistic and religious practice. It is rather an attempt on my part to comprehend what possibly drives people to ‘believe’.  There cannot be no reason at all, for over time I have realized that it isn’t difficult to get your faith shattered. It is, to keep it firm and intact, come whatever may.

It is easy to question. But it is difficult to accept. It takes guts to be a rebel. But it takes wisdom to be a wise man.

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