'Belief' was a strange word for me. I say strange because nothing I believed in ever stayed on for more than a year. I believed I would always use my teeth to chew on the chicken and chiclet but I was losing those one by one. I believed I would fit into my pyjamas for a long time, but had to throw them out in 6 months when I outgrew them. Every year I was made to sit in a different classroom, on a different floor with a different teacher. To make matters more complicated, my little brother just kept getting taller and more irksome. I didn’t know who or what to believe in anymore. 

 

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My idea of belief didn’t stem from god or in the traditional sense, from religion. I did mention the cult my parents made us follow, right? My idea of god at this point was a bearded man in white robes who spoke in Telugu, Morgan Freeman walking on the Atlantic ocean and George Burns being a bother; all of which were contrived and didn’t make sense to my 8-year-old brain. One thing I didn’t lose though, was my hope in finding my belief. And as it turns out, I had my first encounter with this emotion while hearing my grandfather’s discovery of it.

 

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He was orphaned at the same age I was when I heard this story. The number one question that a child of eight needs to find an answer to is that of hunger. How do I feed myself now that I can’t yell at my mom about what I want for lunch? Walking the clamorous road that led to the well-known murugan temple in Vadapalani this question on his mind, my grandfather in an attempt to divert his attention from the growing uneasiness in his stomach, began repeating names of popular gods in hopes of satiating his hunger.

 

He started with the rhythmic chanting of Shiva's name and as he got to the third time, he hit a stone and was interrupted. Maybe I should try a goddess, he thought to himself. There was no easy mantra to summon lakshmi; guess she is a little too expensive to make herself available at your beck and call. Let’s try a younger god, maybe from some other religion? He began calling out to Jesus as he continued walking. 

 

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Now, if you have ever visited the road leading up to the Vadapalani temple, you’d know that it is wet, loud and filled with a constantly moving crowd that is easily distracted by godly paraphernalia including coconuts and bananas. But this child had nothing to give to buy and eat them in return. As he got tired from the scorching Madras sun, he found a corner and plopped himself down, wary from chanting. His hunger was nowhere close to disappearing, it was only intensifying which has now resulted in a lulling throb in his temples. 

 

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This was a busy time for the temple as devotees thronged there in hopes of having a propitious start to their day. My grandfather, a child of all but 8, was starting to lose patience and belief until he looked up and saw the universal symbol for the god muruga: the vel and started uttering his name. As if miraculously, he had found new energy in his step and started walking towards the temple. A good few furlongs later, he stumbled upon a coin, dirty yet shiny. 

 

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I imagined my grandfather's childish face beaming with delight as he told me about how he devoured a hearty breakfast after three days of tortuous starving and how he owed it all to lord muruga. After he finished his narration about finding belief in his god, my grandfather had a look of parental triumph. I looked at him confused and asked, “But why did god have to make you starve in the first place? If he had the power to make you find the coin, surely he must have the power to have saved your mom?”

 

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Perplexed is an understatement for my grandpa’s reaction to my question. Guess he never thought about the incident that way. I could satisfy my grandfather later, I am still on my journey of finding my belief. Especially after hearing the heart-wrenching story of my orphaned, 8-year-old grandfather, I lost all the more belief in this surveillant god who only cared about your exams, job interview, who you date and what you eat; everything he cared about seemed petulant of him. Almost, human. 

 

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As I began to reflect and recall this story, another thought surfaced. Although the ashram seemed more like propaganda where emotions ran high and there was little space for any logical reasoning, there was some good happening. All the adults who went there, including my family, considered it a form of therapy. To put it more conclusively, they considered it a place for spiritual catharsis rather than an awakening. This is the place the adults went to lay down their problems in front of a self-proclaimed saviour all of which happened with its own share of theatrics: tears ran rampant, bodies swayed in the renunciation of their sins. And yet somehow, they came out of it with the belief to go on with life. 

 

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For a non-believing kid, this exercise seemed futile, wasteful even. I’d much rather immerse myself in the preachings of Kermit the frog rather than Krishna the saviour. God may be popular but it is not universal. A friend of mine once told me that a newborn baby would know just enough about god as much as the saints and the sinners do. 

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