Religious Race

Recently I received a FB request from a gal named “Shabana Mallik”. Before accepting any new requests I make it a point that I know the person; I am usually always bad at names but fine in identifying the ‘face’. So within a jiffy I recognized the belle but her name, it was so Islamic. I recalled that the girl behind that face was an Orthodox Tam Bam with oiled hair neatly made into 2 plaits with a maroon tape at the end.

I anyways went ahead and accepted the request, but a shock awaited me. Her FB statuses had nothing but ‘Quran Quotes’ and how ‘Allah’ is the only almighty. Another friend updated me that she left home, married an Islam guy and now follows Islam as her religion. You see basically I am not against love or inter-caste nuptials. But what is the whole point in quitting one’s religion and adapting another. Does love ask for that? If so then it really isn’t love. True love is about accepting the reality, of how you are physically, what you are economically and it never asks for a change.

“Love Jihad” is the ongoing hot issue that targets economically superior girls aged 18-24 in conversion to “Islam”. Media has reported more than 50 cases on TV over the last few months.

This concern has to deal with people who are mature; their age gives them an edge of thinking power. But have you ever wondered about kids of age 4 and onwards?

Language and public speaking has never been a problem to my mum. The sole reason being that her entire education until secondary was in a “Convent”. Those were the late 60s and early 70s days. Only convents said to have taught their pupils “Grammatical English”. But the kids were also taught little other stuff.

Girls were not supposed to wear the traditional “Bindis”, “Bangles” and “Flowers” to school. They had to attend an hour of mass compulsorily on Saturdays. Praise the “Father”, Pray to “Jesus” everyday and sing carols during Christmas. Every week a class on “English” was preached which had lessons on “Christianity” and why it was good. Certain Hindu festivals like “Shivrathri” or “Ramanavami” were never given offs on pretext of special classes.

One study has found that the brains of children from 3 to 11 years of age use twice as much as energy as the brains of adults. The restoration and believing is 80% higher at that tender age. One can imagine how many kids would have refused to visit temples or wear the bindis in day to day life. I am not saying that wearing them portrays “Hinduism” but if it wasn’t then why would some people from the other community try to forbid such habits?

& I sometimes wonder, for all these years I still haven’t learnt 50% of the customs, procedures followed and must-dos of my religion. How can one 100% belong to a newly adopted religion all of a sudden?

God Bless Em!!!