Scene 1:
3:00 am – a girl quietly gets up so that she doesnt disturb anyone, steps into the bathroom for a early morning shower. Gets ready, does her morning Sehri, reads namaz and sleeps again
Scene 2:
6:30 am – another girl gets up, takes bath so that she is fresh to please her Gods, quitely sips her morning cup of tea and gets busy in cooking the various sweets, makes a flower rangoli in the entrance of the house, decorates the place where her friend Ganesha will reside for next 3 days.
Scene 3:
7:30 am – another lady gets ready with a lovely saree and flowers in her head and does her sunday round of the Church, lights a candle and brings one home.
9:00 am – the first, second and the whole family along with the third girl do the pooja for Ganapati. The candle that the third lady brought is also lighted in the pooja room.
The first girl and third lady are my live-in help and house maid respectively and yes the second girl is me.
My live in is a person who keeps fasts during Ramdan though she is a hindu by birth and she broke her Roja in the evening by the Ganpati Pooja prasad.
I cant tell you how proud I was of my household yesterday. It seemed to be my wish for India coming true, if only this whole thing could prevail all over. Why cant we have all the religions existing everywhere together.
Yes I did have problems in this intially, when my maid told us that she wants to keep roja, my mother-in-law did not take to it well but me and N sat with her and reasoned that what is the problem? Just because you have someone of another religion in you house does that make your own belief less stronger and till ones own belief is strong enough I dont think it matters what is happening, God is within oneself after all.
Then came a point where she was like ok she can keep the fast but she will not do namaz here and she will not enter the pooja room and this is a point where I gave me, no hypocrisy in my house. Either she stays here be normals as she is.. or we just let her go and after lots of debate and convincing my mil let her do keep the fast and I respect her for this. Its really difficult for the people from that generation to accept and I am glad an proud that she did.
So it was a sunday for all religions in the house hold and yes I made the visit to the Gurudwara to mark the last end of the sqaure.
It might sound cliche but “hindu muslim sikh issai indeed bhai bhai”
Amem!!
PS: thanks for all those heart warming comments in the previous post, that post is the next I promise
