How I Found My God...

I am a firm believer in god. I believe that He (when I call god, He, my dear feminist friends, do not get agitated. Am also a hardcore torchbearer of female superiority, power and prowess. But it is just my personal way of referring to the almighty) is that invisible creator and protector of everything around me.

My god is not the one with multi-dexterous limbs or with a halo round his head, wearing stiffly ironed and starched clothes and tonnes of expensive jewellery. Well, neither is he the suave god as in the film OMG! Oh My God riding a bike that costs millions. The one I believe in is formless and with whom I share multiple relationships as my state of being may be at that point of time. He is my father, guiding and preaching me, my friend, walking the mile with me, my sore enemy who poses challenges so I may stumble, challenge him to a duel and fight till I win, and also my mother, holding me when I am down, hurt and weeping.

I question him when life turns against me and thank him when he makes me smile. I talk to him each day and I also chant his name. I write long letters to him and also bribe him to fulfil my dreams.

But this is not how it was, and it has taken us, both him and me, 27 years to reach here. Like any Indian, and especially a bong child, my tryst with god began with seeing my entire clan folding hands, chanting mantras and visiting temples to appease him. An eager learner, I imbibed the ways of the elderly, parents and relatives at home and teachers in school. I believed then that god dwells in those tiny structures constructed for him, be it the temple near my house or the statue of Mother Mary in school that all students invariably bowed down to  every morning and prayed of respite from punishment before entering their classes.

 I remember, at one point of time, my parents feared that I would convert under the influence of my ‘convent’ schooling when I started questioning why Ram is considered a god when he couldn't even stand up for his wife and let her perish and Krishna when he himself dwelled in lies and let his Yadav clan die fighting each other.

No, I did not give too much thought to religion then, and did not even know the word ‘spirituality’. Mythology interested me more as it tickled my teenage sensibilities and helped me fantasise. So often I would wish to be a celestial nymph like Urvashi or Tillotama, dancing my way to a god’s or even a sage’s heart.

Then I was in college and as luck would have it, got stuck with history rather than political science which I was passionate about. It was a sign.

I do not know when, but I started gulping down and understanding the complexities of religion as a student of history. Come to think of it now, this was the only aspect of my course that attracted me and made me remain loyal to it. I spent hours in the library reading about the birth and history of religions and their philosophies. When my classmates were busy making presentations on topics like Marxism and American Revolution, impressing all my professors with their in depth knowledge, skill and unfathomable passion for the subject, I was presenting papers on ancient, long forgotten and tribal religions of the world. I now understood what my so-called kasyapa gotra actually means, why Hinduism has such a huge pantheon and what is actually behind the Christian concept of Trinity.

And I was moving away from being religious. I was becoming ‘spiritual’. I worshipped him now for helping me live and the strength to survive. I did not do away with my idol worship and daily pujas though; they were too deeply engrained and had by then become a way of life more than a belief. But I started understanding and connecting with people who like to be known as the true believers of ‘faith’; faith that does not rise out of fear but reverence and belief.

I finished my studies (formal that is) and got a job that required me to do what I love the most – read – the Mahabharata. Suddenly cluttered pieces started falling to place and stories that I had heard of, read and seen all along, shone to me in their true sense.

The epic is the most amazing, spell binding and enthralling read for anyone who has a liking for (Hindu) mythology and religion, trust me.

With the myths and beliefs now visible to me, I was able to delve deeper and define the god that I would want to worship; a god that is omnipotent and omnipresent, but doesn’t need to display his greatness by taking mortal forms.

Though finding him had been such a long journey and finally I wanted to dwell in him alone, I was yet again forced to oblige to 'worldly' practices. I was made to worship idols and stones and fire and earth, and also the moon to top it all; the god that comes alive only in objects and only on particular days of the year and time of the day. This dormancy of the so-called god irked me. I had reached a stage in my beliefs where I resisted.

Let me tell you, this I did at the cost of attracting threats, all the while laughing to myself that what my ‘birth’ parents never compelled me to do (it was me who had followed their beliefs), now some petty beings were, challenging my relationship with god and calling my beliefs blasphemous. 

I could not give up the bond that existed between him and me for the sake of worldly obligations, relations and duties.

I am not an atheist and not a ‘regular’ theist either. I still believe in durga, but she is my second mom who visits me each year just to bless me and not threaten me with dire results if I voice an opinion against her. And she listens to my stories of love and pain. I also keep a fast on shivratri but something definitely has changed. I don’t feel guilty if I don’t fold my hands in front of him each day. But I know when he is upset or angry with me. I know when I have done wrong and he wants me to apologise and reform myself. I believe in him more, talk to him every day and when angry, I shout out loud to him and say that am never going to turn to him again. I challenge him too and he gives me the strength. No, he does not pick me up when am down. He just kneels down beside me, whispers in my ear and I stand up and walk again (though in pieces and scarred and bloodied). And time and again, he turns and looks at me, gives me a sign and tells me it is for me to see or ignore, follow or leave behind.