I moved into a hostel for the first time in my life. The old building was in a dilapidated state and could collapse under its own weight. The residential block was separated from the washroom (toilet + bathing) block. No mess facility was available. No hot water facility either. Mysore, in those days, had a nip in the air in the early mornings in general. Cold water baths were a test of one’s survival skills. There was no shower. It was a bath from the bucket. There were no washing machines or dryers. Instead, we used good old vageyo bande (washing stone slab). We also relied on solar dryers (i.e. plastic ropes tied outside our hostel rooms to dry our clothes under the sun). The first thing you would notice when passing our hostel was our underwear clipped to the solar dryer.
I would miss home terribly during the first few months at the hostel. I tried to keep the small routines I had at home. You can read more about these in my earlier post [Link]. I realized that I could develop my own routines to stay connected to home. These routines would also align more closely with how I felt or thought about them. I remember the first thing I did was to have two bedspreads as we used to have at home. One bedspread on top of another. Nobody did such things in a boys’ hostel. I removed the top bedspread. Then, I folded it and kept it inside the cupboard so I could get into my bed to sleep. Small routines to do things the only way I knew and that was the way it was done back home.
I performed actions that contradicted my beliefs. One such action was that I did not appreciate going to a temple though I claimed to believe in God. I would define God as a force that is unseen or unheard of. You were limited in how you felt it. Wanting to see God in an idol was, in a sense, a limitation. It restricted the very definition of an omniscient and omnipresent God. Hinduism gave me the freedom to believe what I wanted to. And that I used to believe was a hallmark of a great ‘way of life’ not religion you see. This made me move into the service road of religion i.e. spirituality. The seeds of which were sown through exposure to the likes of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharishi, Shirdi Sai Baba, and Satya Sai Baba. Spirituality seemed to be a calmer more relatable version to my rebellious nature. Idol worship seemed too basic. I was far bigger in my head than to do idol worship. The sheer arrogance of that hits me today as I think about it. But then, it came from within. The fiery nature of youth fanned the spark of adolescent beliefs into something I could relate myself to. Henceforth, I would be “Spiritual, not religious”. New label found. Sounded cool too.
I was what I was not.
- Spiritual – not religious.
- Eggetarian – not vegetarian.
- Linguist – not a monoglot. Speak to my mother in Kannada and dad in Telugu. I knew both languages well. Studied Hindi in schooldays and watched infinite Hindi films. Learnt basic Tamil through AR Rahman songs (story for another day!) and Mani Ratnam/ Kamal Hassan movies. Sanskrit was something I chose in my high school and pretended to know it.
- A pan Indian individual much before SS Rajamouli‘s movies – i.e. not from any single place. I was born in Delhi. I grew up in Hyderabad and Mysore with majority of my extended family living in Bengaluru.
As my 4-year course went on, I don’t remember engaging much with either religion or spirituality, for that matter. Was too engrossed in building friendships, exploring Mysore as a student, and eating at every affordable vegetarian or eggetarian place. I like to believe that I discovered eggs on my own which is clearly untrue. My aunt, Shubha chikamma, would regularly feed us eggs for breakfast when we visited her. Notwithstanding the brilliant eggs she fed me, I rediscovered eggs during my engineering days. Oh how much I loved them and continue to love them! Eggs are a no-go in my house. However, off late, we have relaxed it by using separate utensils identified for their use. These utensils usually consist of the ones supposed to be thrown out. Alternatively, they might be damaged in some way. They are then allocated to the dishonourable process of cooking of eggs. I digress. I would eat eggs at every opportunity I got though I enjoyed vegetarian food. Somehow could never bring myself to eat meat in any form. But eggs, bring them on anytime!
After I finished my engineering, I went to a B-school at Tiruchirappalli. Again another two years of so-called studying, following those small routines, eating eggs, solidifying my tamil knowledge (Tamilians will not let go of a chance of letting you know if you are pronoucing a word wrong – Zha being their favourite sound which almost every non-native Tamil speaker struggles with in the beginning!), expanding my bourgeois knowledge of Tamil films to now being a crazy (as if there is another type!) fan of Rajni, and the world of non-sweet sumptuous sambhar! I had stumbled upon the golden combination – a Mysore/ Bengaluru dosa with TN’s hot piping sambhar! Added to my delicious concoction of mixed identity. Did I mention that I was an incorrigible foodie?!
At Trichy, I learnt the basics of Management. We had a rather interesting subject in our first term called, “Indian Ethos and Values in Management”. Full disclosure – I was among two out of 120 students that failed the subject in my first attempt! It was a subject that focused on management techniques emerging out of the Indian culture – mainly Hinduism. I don’t remember much of it. However, not making the passing grade was an embarrassment I still feel in my gut. It was one of those papers where you just wrote a lot of English words and passed. I was so lazy that I would refuse to belabor my point and failed. Also, my philosophical grey zoning was not quite in-sync with what the subject was professing. I thought that the leaps of logic were largely subjective and extremely open to interpretations. Worse, it seemed like hindsight was the best friend. The mixture of Management with a grey identity is a dangerous combination. I was loaded with skills and techniques of managing people. Yet, I did not know what I stood for. The management principles seemed like a smart and lucrative way to get ahead in a soulless capitalist world.
After completing my MBA, I got my first proper job in Chennai. I began bachelor living with a few of my classmates from Trichy. We were quite different beliefs-wise. One devout Christian read the Bible twice a day. He would begin and end his day this way. Three of us were non-performative Hindus. The other two visited temples regularly. They also performed basic rituals inside the house at times. We had a Muslim cook for a brief while. She would make fantastic Biryani every Sunday. I couldn’t eat it because it would have some meat. But I didn’t care for it much either as I had discovered my newfound love for Tamil food! The lady was not keeping good health and found it difficult to continue with us. So we switched to another cook – a sweet talkative Christian lady. She was with us for the longest I remember. We did not plan on having cooks of a certain religion. It just ended up being that way. Religion wasn’t even a lens we were having to look at anything. It was a deeply personal thing – to each his own. We enjoyed a common culture of togetherness.
I wasn’t quite aware of these differences till an uncle visited me. He stayed with us for a few days. He came with a portable stove of his own and some homemade pre-mixes (first time I ever saw such thing!). We were four of us – two each in a bedroom. So he had to live in the living room. He didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Neither did any of my roommates. I noticed that he wouldn’t eat breakfast at home. He would return home late at night. Then he would cook his own dinner, eat and go to sleep. I used to wonder why he was behaving this way. We were willing to share our food with him, and he would always politely refuse. Only later did he tell me he couldn’t eat what a Muslim or a Christian made. That revelation shook my mind. I remember calling my mom and asking her what exactly do such people expect. He’s co-living in a space paid for in-part by a Christian to an owner who was Christian. Yet, eating food prepared by a Christian was against your beliefs?! In fact, the more he explained himself, the more bizarre it got. He enlarged the definition of cooks to not eating from the hands of any non-brahmins. I had not even bothered about the caste of my roommates. Till date, I don’t know. Since I wore my ceremonial thread, I am guessing they knew which caste I belonged to in case they cared. Though they never mentioned it or made it a thing. But let’s assume these are 3 people whose caste you don’t know. You are okay living in a space they are paying rent for. Still, you are not okay to share food with them. Oh, the hypocrisy was stunningly unbearable!
Moving on…
Like I said, I was figuring out ways of holding on to routines that reminded me of home. Every Sunday, my parents went to the local Ramakrishna Math. They attended weekly discourses by the Swamiji in whichever city we lived in. So I started doing the same in Chennai. A way to hold on to what felt like home. I used to furiously scribble notes during the discourse that I would later put up on a blog the next day. It (the blog) was quite the hit with people in my family, extended and friends. It used to be from ‘Kathopanishad‘ [Link] or deep stuff about the ‘Advaita’ [Link] philosophy. In short, Advaita Vedanta deals with the thought of how the ‘brahman’ and the ‘atman’ are one. I would find it very fascinating to listen to these. It spoke to the idea of a connected world. I had begun internalizing these philosophies. I embraced a worldview that all humans are one. We are the same at the fundamental ‘atman’ level. I would then go to the library and buy small books (big books intimidated me!) exploring more about Hinduism and the associated philosophies. A few I read, most of them adorned my decorative imaginary bookshelf that I would read one day.
In Chennai, someone introduced me to Osho Rajneesh [Link]. They played the audio of one of his speeches in their car. In it, Osho argues that creation does not need a creator [YT Link]. And another one in which he explains what the soul is. It is strange. I remember the entire visual of how I was stunned by the logic. However, I do not remember who the introducer [car owner] was! Osho had opened me up to another philosophical worldview. And I would download and listen to Osho non-stop. It was such an immersive experience. Both his ideas and the medium I was listening to him in – both were brand new. I used a mobile phone to download hour-long mp3 files. Osho’s voice was weirdly seductive, and his philosophies were intriguing!
Osho took me far deeper into the spirituality world. He made taboo topics easier to understand and place within my head. Some terms became demystified. But still experientially neither was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa nor Osho within reach. Philosophies were great to read and, at times, I would also believe that they were real and true. However, the connect with experience of any of it was still not within reach. I was not entirely aware that these were just ideas/ philosophies. With immense history backing these highly revered schools of thought enjoying unquestioned authority of those that I looked up to made it seem like this was in fact ‘it’. There was no felt need to know anything else. No investigation needed. Because there was also this part of Hinduism that all the answers existing within the self. ‘I’ had all the answers apparently – I just did not know yet. And looking within was the way to go.
When I looked within, I found only a huge stomach that was craving all sorts of tasty food. Rice was not just my staple diet. It was also my favourite item. To top it off, I was in Chennai. This combination was disastrous for the shape of my body. I had developed a paunch. People called it a budding beer potbelly. I took it as seriously as Trump took India. Not a care in the world but made the right outward noises like “I should lose weight”, “If I lose just the weight around my waist, I would look perfect”, so on and so forth. I felt fine. So I didn’t see the need to do anything about it.
The way I looked was not my problem, it was yours! Also, I hated going to gyms and/or running. Physical activity was not my cup of tea. I would enjoy a game of cricket, table tennis, volleyball, tennis or any other game instead. Again not football – it is another form of running behind a ball. I used to play cricket on the weekends. However, my paunch began getting in my way of fielding any ball below my knees. So I wanted to do something about it. But not too much. Just enough to enjoy my cricket.
It was mid-2005, a colleague said you don’t have to do anything about your weight. Without doing anything significant it will come under control. Just go and check out this new yoga class starting in Anna Nagar called ‘Inner Engineering’. And I went.
Shall write about this in the next part of this Atheism 27-40.