Written by Aji’s Maker Shiro Moktan

It was but natural to know the Lord’s prayer and the Hail Mary when for fourteen years the nuns in school and college made it your life support. It was just as natural to sit cross legged for hours and pretend to meditate and look pious when you are born into a Buddhist family where regular gatherings of monks and chants and smoke and prayer wheels happened on a weekly basis. A rhetorical question of whether to stand on pulpits and spread the good word or shave your head and don the orange robe. So much of religion around but my belief was not strong enough to embrace any and I just had too many questions.

In the midst of all this noise in my head I chose to go against Nature and Nurture and married a Hindu. Way back then, this was a rebellious move! So it was a Hindu priest who officiated the marriage. A very enthusiastic young man who was literally jumping while he enveloped the drama with his commanding orders. This had been going on for sometime when he suddenly stopped his chants, looked directly at me and verbally threw some verses at me for a couple of minutes. When he finished, he looked down his nose at all present and announced that now I was a Hindu… and that was what it took…a few minutes and some unintelligible words and I had a religion!!

When he finished, he looked down his nose at all present and announced that now I was a Hindu… and that was what it took…a few minutes and some unintelligible words and I had a religion!!

He had not been asked to play the maestro but his performance made a big impact in my beliefs . I was in shock not because of the ‘what’ but the ‘why’. Thankfully religion was never of any great significance in my marriage because there were other nasty things rearing its head. So, I prayed to whoever and whatever it concerned and waited for them to be answered. One day, however, I read something which changed my perspective on life itself. The quotation read “When God wants to punish you, He answers your prayers”! So is “be careful what you wish for” a prelude or a sequel to these ominous words? I was definitely not doing much praying or wishing out of faith, but life puts a person in circumstances which borders on desperation and helplessness and calls for an anguished pleading for intervention from the powers above. The process is a call for help which rationally should be answered and life becomes easier…but is it? Did the earnest prayers bring hope and consolation? Remember when you wanted what you currently have? Just Thinking…

In the process of my disorganized mind working overtime with time as not a problem to spend in thought, I indulge to wonder and question the beauty and ugliness of life. I have had moments of happiness without reason. I have known breathtaking, tearful and speechless happiness in a solitary moment. The joy… a fleeting feeling which has become my happy place to go searching for when life throws its numerous challenges and says.. “lets see you win this”. The never ending time at home with people one has not ever spent so much time with, is not always a good time….I think!

Ladies, go to your happy place when there is temptation to lose yourself to frustration or anger, hurt and humiliation. The time traveler in me does it very often. It can be a place, a piece of music, anything or anyone where you knew pure happiness, lose yourself in the memory for a while, love yourself and then face the world again. In this period I can only be at one place for forever; taking a walk to let off steam, retail therapy or visiting loved ones is not going to happen, so retreat into the soul and take a break.

Two women inspire me and teach me. One is Maya Angelou and she says “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I try this everyday. I am not the woman who gives fiery speeches about the rights of women in a fancy hall and ends the day with a fancy meal. I am the woman who says: “Did you make a mistake when you made your first bread… do the best you can until you know better. Did you die just a little every time you were told you were not good enough…pull yourself up, look in the mirror, say I love you to the person you see there and then smile. Nothing is more scary than a smiling woman sitting in silence!”

The other person I look up to is Oprah Winfrey. “I am a woman in process. I’m just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull,” she says. Life’s many lessons has taught me that nobody can make your life interesting, you have to do it yourself. When was the last time you did something for the first time? Just Thinking…