identity

It’s one of those days when you can sip a cup of coffee and gaze at this huge banyan tree, forever.

The streets, filled with people and vehicles, looked quite normal and harmless. Being normal, that’s the default value everyone takes unless you are crazy, or inspired by something or someone. You don’t want to stand out; you can’t fit in either, well almost.

But we never bothered about an “image” or “being normal” when we were kids. We did what we wanted, and we just said whatever we felt or whatever came to our mind. Even our prayers were so simple, sometimes ridiculous but we had a lot of faith then. Faith in almost everyone and everything around us.

I was born a Hindu, but I began to fall in love with Christianity at a very early age. I used to tell my parents that I want to marry in a church, that I want to be buried in a coffin in a beautiful cemetery and everyone who loved me would visit me and lay flowers on my grave. Mom would just look at me and say something like, “Oh my God!!” whenever I talked about these things.

I don’t believe much in any religion anymore, but I still find Christianity a quiet and beautiful way of life.

In my pre-teens, I began to talk about girls with my friends. Virginity was still a very strong issue in those days and I used to declare my opinions and beliefs quite strongly. And it shocked my friends, and later, my parents. I used to tell everyone that I would marry any girl if we love one another – let her be a young girl my age, let her be a kid or an old woman, and let her be a divorcee or a widow. Nobody can or will stop me, if we love one another. And everyone would say that I was goddamn fucking crazy. Come to think of it, still now I can never figure out where those ideas came from. All I know is that I still believe in them.

And my prayers when I was a kid…God must have uttered just one word whenever I closed my eyes and folded my hands, “GOD!!!” I had asked him to make me a martial arts expert, Superman, a Casanova kind of a man whom women will find irresistible, Mandrake the magician, and so many other superheroes and adorable villains. Maybe, I stop believing in him when he absolutely and stubbornly refused to listen to my prayers.

You and I, we were kids then. But each one of us was so unique – from the little scars on our over-active bodies to our small silent prayers. Society and the whole concept of an ideal and civilized society made us scared. And then came time, the great leveler, and we find ourselves unable to recognize or differentiate one another, anymore.