“Women menstruate. Get over it!”

For how many more years will we follow an archaic practice in the name of religion and God?

I am appalled. And heart-broken.

Over dinner yesterday, someone visiting us shared the horrifying story of how a young lady in her extended family is being ill-treated by her (the lady’s) in-laws. We know the young lady to be very talented and so it was particularly hard to stomach her story.

Apart from being asked to follow meaningless, archaic, rituals, in the name of religion, the young lady, I understand, has to face the ignominy of being isolated from the rest of the family during her periods each month. Apparently, she cannot even read a book in the time because that would mean “polluting Goddess Saraswati”. However, it appears that she can go to work because her income goes to supporting the family. Seriously, things can’t get more pathetic and hypocritical than this!

The young lady is an engineer; she works at a large MNC. She is hardly 27, so I presume her in-laws may possibly be in their 50s; which is, they belong to my generation. What gets my goat is that someone my age, in today’s world, practises a ‘custom’ that tramples on the self-esteem of a woman. And we are mute spectators, unable to do anything to stop this atrocity? How will we step into someone’s home and question them, when the girl herself is not protesting the treatment being meted out to her? Her father, her mother and her brother too don’t appear to have an issue there. So, how can we, “rank outsiders”, get involved?

I just don’t get it. You need a woman to be your son’s wife, you need her salary, you need the grandchild, but you don’t think it is important to respect the woman for who she is?

To be sure, I know so many young people who stand up for empowering women. But I guess their crusade is often directed at the uneducated, underprivileged segments of society. What do we do when in our elite, educated circles, folks my age behave in such a regressive manner? Would the in-laws of the lady have allowed it if their daughter was treated the way they are treating their daughter-in-law?

On a wall, opposite to the Russian Cultural Centre on Kasturi Ranga Road in Chennai, there’s a graffiti that screams out a message, loud and clear, for all of humanity. It says: “Women menstruate, get over it!” I wish someone painted that graffiti on the walls of this family’s house.

The wall graffiti opposite the Russian Cultural Centre in Chennai

Honestly, I am lost, I am appalled, I am heart-broken. And I am clueless. I believe all I can do is pray. With due respect to Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, I pray that my land rises into a heaven “where, without exception, women are respected”.

Not fear, not devotion, only surrender and humility can help you get through Life

The God debate is a wasted one. The issue is never about God – it is about you and me!

I read this interesting story in The Hindu the other day. The paper’s Resident Editor for Mumbai, Sachin Kalbag, shares how he recently survived a near-death experience. He talks about how a set of “coincidences, seemingly, contributed to the ‘miracle’ of him being alive today”. Please do read the article. Sachin raises interesting questions on the God theory, the role of prayer and also explains his point of view well enough to remind us that we may never find the answers we are looking for.

Whether or not you read Sachin’s story, whether or not you believe in God, the questions will remain. Who powers the Universe? Who created you and me? Why do ‘bad’ things happen to ‘good’ people? Why isn’t Life fair or predictable? Yes there are explanations for everything – if you study metaphysics, human evolution and philosophy long enough you will find everything logically laid out and reasoned. Yet, there is an inscrutability that governs our lives. In Sachin’s case the inscrutability is over a series of ‘coincidences’ that appear to have conjured up a ‘miracle’ for him. In my case, the physical act of surviving in a cold, brutal world, my Life laden with debt, often with no money and no work, is unexplainable and inscrutable. Truly, this is a miracle – in a worldly, material sense of the word too. And I have been, with my wife Vaani, experiencing this miracle for 8+ years now.

If you look around you, there are millions of people living miraculously like Sachin is or like we are. I have come to realize that there are two points of view possible – one that makes you believe that everything, and everyone, is a miracle; and the other view that holds that nothing is a miracle. My views on Faith have evolved through my awakening (thanks to the cathartic experience of enduring our bankruptcy) that everything around me, within me, is a miracle. I only see miracles. For instance, I believe if I can write this blogpost, if you can read it, if you can understand it, process it and internalize it, well, that’s evidence of a miracle that is happening. In the present continuous sense.

Even so, I don’t think of God the way we are encouraged to think of him or her. To me this God theory of an energy outside of us, as someone residing some place else, doesn’t cut any ice. I sure do believe that there is a Higher Energy, that is far more intelligent than us, that powers this Universe. I know that it is the same Energy that powers us too, through this lifetime. So, my Faith has evolved from being religion-centric and God-centric (God as a person, as someone who has to be feared and worshipped per rituals prescribed by religion), to being Life-focused. I look at Life as a great teacher, as a giver of this experience – that’s peppered with ample adventure and abundant learnings – called this lifetime. When I do encounter blind-spots when I don’t know what’s going on, and when I don’t know what to do, I simply surrender to Life and offer myself to be led. This is how I pray. To me, since I was created without my asking to be born, I know and believe that when I pray, when I surrender, I will always be provided for and cared for. This is my belief. This is my Faith.

Therefore, it is irrelevant to ask if God exists. The issue is not about God. The issue really is with your awakening. Do you realize that you don’t – and can’t – control (much of) your Life? When this realization dawns on you, all questioning will cease. And you will approach everything with enthusiasm (interestingly, the word comes from the Greek en-theos, en = within and theos = God; so enthusiasm = the God within!), seeing everything as a miracle. Perhaps then you will agree with me that what you need to get through this inscrutable Life, is neither fear nor devotion, but surrender and humility!