No-Man's land

Of recent, I happened to attend a two day Inter-Faith conference on Woman and Child's Health which was attended by religious leaders belonging to various faiths. I have no clue why I had an invitation in the first place, I am no religious leader but I shall blame my Head of the Department entirely for that. In order to avoid getting bored, I landed myself a translation job and managed to drag my mentor, Arshad bhai along with me to help the religious leaders with language interpretation. I remember sitting on one of the round tables and scribbling to Arshad bhai on the sheet containing the programme for the day while some religious leader who was bilingual went on and on in two languages, rendering the two of us quite useless. 'Funny, I am attending this conference, I don't even have a faith'. 'I do. You want to borrow for the day?', scribbled back Arshad bhai. I smiled back. After the religious leader had stopped talking, Arshad bhai turned to me and asked,"you believe I exist?". I poked him on the shoulder with my pen and replied, "Of course I do". "Well, then you have faith", said Arshad bhai and gave me the smile which I simply hate because it tells me that he is wiser than I am.

There was a part in the conference where all the religious leaders had to get into groups according to their faiths and discuss problems that women face in their own communities and come up with a plan of action to improve the situation. My biggest question right at that moment was which group would I go to. Arshad bhai would obviously go with his own faith group. And I would not know which way to go. In fact, I have always hated situations like these. I remember never wanting fill up my religion on the West Bengal Board of Secondary education forms before exams. I remember not taking a form to join the Indian Inter-Faith Coalition for HIV/AIDS because I had to specify which faith I would represent and the truth is I don't know. Anyway this group discussion was to take place in the post lunch session. During lunch, I went to my Head of the Department and asked him which side I should take, only to be met with yet another wise smile and a pat on my back. After lunch, when the next session started, I scribbled to Arshad bhai, 'which side?'. He wrote back, 'whichever your heart says yes to'. I swore at him under my breath and called him 'useless' but I appreciated him for not imposing and for not taking the decision for me. Oh damn, he is wiser than I am! The Hindu leaders were asked to form a group and move to a table. I did not get up. I could not. I have never belonged there. I could not go and barge into something that is not mine. And moreover, who am I to talk about the condition of women in Hindu society or how the religion can do something to make it better. How much of Hinduism do I know anyway. The Hindu leaders who knew me as the Hindu girl doing Islamic Studies gave me a look of abandonment (or so I imagine) and moved to their table. Arshad bhai smiled to my "now what?" The Muslim leaders got up to move to their table. Most of them knew me. The Imam of Okhla's Jama Masjid patted me on the back and said, "join us. You do Islamic Studies. You are one of us". I smiled courteously. I have no clue why I did not join them, probably because I will never understand fully their plight. I can only provide an outsider's point of view and give my own well-read solutions. They would never be those of a person who lives the faith. Arshad bhai was still sitting beside me. "Go join your clan".I said. "Nah", he replied, "I want to be faithless like you for a while. Lets go out for a walk". I grabbed my pack of smokes and walked out, smiling at the Christian leaders as I left.

The other thing that I noticed during the conference is that when the Hindu leaders spoke, I listened open mouthed. I hardly know anything about the religion I was born into. I was probably more oriented about Christianity, while I knew much much more about Islam than what the Muslim leaders said. Obviously, they were just making things simpler for everybody to understand. But I am so much closer to Islam than I am to the faith I was born into. A friend recently asked me what spirituality I see in Islam. The thing is I cannot put down my finger on spirituality and say, yes this is it. I can find a thousand things to criticize as far as our Muslim society is concerned. I can even tell exactly why we are this way. But somehow that never spoils the charm that Islam has for me. Even when I feel distanced, there is something that always pulls me back to it. And unlike many of our so called scholars, I have learnt not to reject any particular faith. The only thing that matters is that you HAVE faith. And that is exactly what each of our institutionalized religions say. And in this case faith does not indicate the language (religion) in which we receive it. It just means acknowledging the Omnipresence of a Power beyond our comprehension. As far as I am concerned, in some strange crazed corner of my heart Islam is the language I receive my Faith in.

For some reason I have not managed to get this incident out of my head. It told me exactly how I would react if I ever had to make a choice. I would simply sit in no-man's land and smoke a cigarette.