Goodbye, my friend!

It's a mixed day for me. Sad and happy at the same time.

My collegue and very close friend left for the US last night. He's moving back to the role that he was doing in my company in the US before he moved here to India for personal reasons. And this time, I think he's gone for good.

I'm sad because, together, we had a lot of fun in office. Either of us would practically refuse to go to office if the other was not. Our cubicles were right next to each other's & working thro the day was really fun. And now, he's gone. It's only been half a day for me in the office & I already miss his wise cracks & my jabs at him. And I dont even have an excuse for not coming to office anymore. I have to work alone from now on.

But I'm really glad for him. He's got a terrific break. He's had more than his fair share of trouble here, both personal & professional. He deserves better. And he's headed to the place the enjoys being in. So I'm happy in a way.

All this while, it was I who was leaving to go places & my friends coming to see me off & wish me luck. This was the first time I was on the other side of the street. Seeing this guy off at the airport & realising that I am not going to see this guy for some time made me feel quite depressed. I was wishing him all the best & saying my goodbyes, something that I have never done before. And realised that it is not a pretty feeling.

This is probably what Madonna meant when she was singing "The Power of Goodbye".

I just hope that there is a lot more in this friendship & that it lasts despite us being half way around the globe from each other.

Goodbye, my friend! All the very best in life.

God Almighty - Part II

Faith has no limits.

To see people, who are physically incapable of walking, climb 3690 steps of sheer mountain to reach a temple on the other side is a humbling experience. To see people applying turmeric & BINDI to each and every step they climb, while you climb panting away, makes you forget the effort that you are putting in. Seeing small children walking along with their parents to see their favourite god kind of puts things in perspective.

I am talking about Lord Venkateshwara who resides at Tirumala, seven mountains away from Tirupati. Tirupati is a small town based at the foothills of the mountain range that provides inspiration to millions of people. Tirupati is where one starts his journey to meet the lord.

The first 2087 steps are the most daunting of them all. Enough to test your faith. It is a climb of almost 60 degrees for almost three kilometers. And this is where you see most of the faith. You see people from all walks of life walking up there for their time with god.

The legend, I am told, goes like this: The Lord had two wives who were constantly bickering at each other. The Lord, one day, got furious at this & left. He took seven steps, which turned into mountains, and on the seventh, he stayed there & turned into stone himself.

The eleven kilometer walk only gets you to Tirumala, the town atop the mountain which is The Lord's resting place. From here, getting to actually see The Lord is another thing. Just to put things in perspective, there are more than a hundred thousand people who come to see The Lord...EVERYDAY! Some wait for more than a day to catch a glimpse of the deity.

We had our "darshan" (literally meaning "sighting" in the local lingo) scheduled for 4am. By the time we waited in the really long queue for our time, it was close to 6.

As I approach the inner sanctum, I can see the deity in His full glory from afar. And my head automatically bows in reverence. I say my quiet prayers while moving toward The Lord. And when I am finally there, inside the sanctum sanctorium, I am completely blank. Not a thought, not anything. No consciousness of the thousands of people joustling for a view, nor the helpers trying to keep people from holding the crowd up, not anything. Just a calm, serene feeling which The Lord inspires.

And after about 30 seconds, my darshan is over. I follow the crowd into the outer sanctum, still in a state of complete calm. And I realise, millions of people go through a lot of struggle for this glimpse at their God. And the deity inspires them to things which would otherwise be considered humanly impossible.

And yet, millions of people come from all over the world for a darshan. And no one complains about the little time that they had with The Lord. Everyone talks about the next time they will go to see The Lord.

Faith has no end, not boundaries. And it is places like there where I realise that my troubles are not as bad as I thought. That there is much more to life. That there is something bigger & brighter than anything you can see. And all this while, you always had it inside of you.

God Almighty

My last blog "Which religion is right for you" prompted me to think about this concept. If you look at it, every single civilization that we know of has had the concept of God (or multiples of them). And these concepts evolved without any exchange of ideas between the other civilizations. And yet, we see so much similarity in what each religion tries to teach us.

Things like be nice, dont go around killing people, the concept of a good place and a bad place where you might end up after you die, possibilities of reincarnation, etc. etc.

But there are always people who take things too far. The people could be your own parents, your neighbours or even your friends. It's, I think, a problem of taking things too literally.

When I say - too literally - I mean the fact that the Almighty will wreak havoc on your life if you .... I don't know, something nasty or something very sensible, but which does not agree with the published blueprint of that particular religion. And that's where I have a problem.

This thinking got triggered after I read the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. While you all might say "Aah, now we know what you're talking about", I don't think you do.

The book basically talks about the genesis of the Christian religion & how the Church went all out to make it what it is today. Now I am no authority to say whether the facts in the book are indeed facts. All I can say is that the story is quite persuasive. But this blog is not about the book, it's about the central figure in the book.

A friend of mine, after reading the book, said to me, "How can the Christian people continue, after reading all this stuff?". And my simple reasoning was, "Religion is a matter of faith, not facts"

To elaborate on this point, I say the following. I subscribe to the Hindu religion...maybe because I was born a Hindu. In Hinduism, we worship gods of all kinds. My favourite is one with a human body & the head of an elephant (His name is Ganesha) and he is the god who removes all the obstacles from your life. We have goddesses who represent learning, power, anger & money. We have a representation of the creator of the world, a king of the gods & the ideal human. We have a lot more gods than you can count.

Now the point is not whether there actually exists a being with the head of an elephant on a human body. The point is that all these gods are representatives of faith. And you usually recall gods when you're in trouble, when you're faced with the unknown.

There is so much we don't know about us. How we came into being, how the universe works, what actually happened. We have a lot of theories, but we still have a lot to know. And if it's evidence that we are looking for, I guess we don't have any evidence for the presence of a mind, just the presence of a brain. We can look for the heart, but not the driving force for life.

There are so many unexplained things that we live with in our lives. And that is where faith comes into play. Putting your trust into a higher order when it comes to the unknown.

Everything is just derivative of the concept of faith. Rituals, traditions, beliefs are things that someone interpreted from the base concept & which got passed on through generations.

Which brings me back to the original point (I am not sure whether there was an original point, but then, I would like to think there was, instead of a useless ramble). Which religion is right for you...the one you were born into, the one most universal, the one which you most agree with. What?

But then again, if it is all about faith, you don't need to change religions. Just keep your faith, whatever it is. All religions have the same base concepts, just the interpretations differ. And remember, these interpretations were made by people. So you can have your own interpretations. I believe, that if you keep your faith & keep your mind open, life is a lot better.

Something I dont understand is the concept of forcing religion onto other people. I agree with people believing in their religion, but I do not agree with forcing that faith & that value system on someone else. So I cannot understand the holy wars. But like I said before, there are so many things that I dont know about.

All that matters is that I keep my faith.