The first thing the wife asked when I drove home with the new car was: Have you done puja for it? The background is that at one stage we had a spate of accidents on the Gurgaon highway which we had to use to commute to Delhi. My wife was convinced this was all because we had not done puja for the car when we got it as I was a firm non-believer.
So the next time we got a new car, we had a little puja done, and lo and behold, it was virtually accident-free till we decided to pass it on recently. It is another matter that accident levels in Bangalore are very different from those that prevailed on the Gurgaon highway before the new expressway came about. The truth is also that I am no longer as strongly against religious practice as I was when I was younger.
The most memorable encounter (it was actually a non-encounter) I have had with religion was when I firmly refused to let it into my life. Against the wishes of both my family and my in-laws, I had said I would only have a civil marriage and not go in for both — a visit to the marriage registrar and also the elaborate Bengali Hindu ritual — as is common with today’s aspirational young people who have one eye on a US visa for the spouse and another on keeping the old folks happy.
The guests at our wedding found it a huge novelty. The bride and I were dressed in the usual finery. But there was no priest and all the paraphernalia for the elaborate religious ritual was missing. Instead, there was a very respectable looking marriage registrar dressed the way he would when going to a wedding, armed with a register. Bride and bridegroom signed in a jiffy and it was over, contrary to the normal wedding ritual that goes on for an hour or more and ends with going round a fire that brings water to your eyes, even as mothers and grandmothers wipe theirs for entirely different reasons.
Religion in the south is well-organised. The temple priest was familiar with the ritual of blessing a car. I paid the per-determined rate of Rs 51 for a car puja, got a printed coupon and he did his job efficiently and speedily. At the end, he matter-of-factly asked for dakshina (this is for me, he said) and gave me no indication whether I had over or underpaid.
As I turned the car back for home, I mused whether I had gone soft on religion with age. The truth is I have become somewhat indifferent to it. I would go along much more readily with a ritual just to please somebody. My old militancy against religion is gone. That mantle has been passed on to my son who, with the usual vehemence of youth, does not even want to go near a puja pandal, saying that we should not socialise religion and make it more acceptable.
I started off with life not believing in luck. Everybody has his due share of good and bad luck, I held. It statistically evens out by the time your time comes. You tend to remember only the bad luck and not the lucky breaks. Besides, it is all in your hands what use you make of good luck. Four decades since I worked out these thoughts, the only revision I would make is that I didn’t realise earlier how little of our well-being is in our hands.
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My earliest memories of religion are of Narayan puja (to invoke the gods’ blessings) and Shani puja (to keep away bad omens) being held regularly every month in our rambling joint-family household. The best part of the pujas were the prasad at the end and the best part of that was the shinni, a concoction made of milk, flour, banana, resin and copious amounts of sugar. It was sweet and lovely and my grandmother made a great job of mixing it. The best day in the year was Saraswati puja when you put all your books before the goddess and so didn’t have to study. Religion was fun!
Life in a Christian missionary-founded boarding school meant the New Testament was driven down our throats and the clear message sent that we all needed to be saved. This religion was not as much fun as the home religion was but now that I look back, some of the hymns and passages are part of my life’s collection of things that touch me when I need solace. I get a catch in the throat every time I hear the bands play “Abide With Me” during Beating Retreat.
College on Kolkata’s College Street was a severe antidote to religion of any kind. Religion lies at the root of all superstition, misery and most of history’s wars, we held. Those who could steer clear of the gospel according to Marx walked away with a clear head and a light heart, sans baggage and ready to take on the world.
After four decades, I realise that if money can’t by me love, neither can god buy me luck.