IMPORTANT

My parents always wanted me to attend those prayer workshop sort of things where you are confined in a building for 3-5 days and have to follow a strict prayer routine and diet with many other restrictions. Its not really as barbaric as it sounds.

So I did do it once. Willingly. And I came out of it with greater realization of the world around me. Surely not what my parents had in mind!

At the time I was living those two different lives that I mentioned earlier. One was with the family that I had been born into. And the other, well-hidden, was out of choice. It was hidden due to the fear of society - as it went against all the laws laid down for unmarried young girls from well-to-do families (or for anything with boobs for that matter).

During the three days that I spent trying to connect with god, the realization of the bigger picture dawned on me. I saw life so clearly inside those walls. I understood the pettiness of my fears and the insignificance of the people around me in the bigger scheme of things. And I knew what I hoped my parents knew already.

That life is bigger than society.
That our life choices have the power to transcend worldly norms.

It is a big lesson - which I often forget from time to time. But I'm glad it has stood strongly in my head whenever I made the big decisions.

For this I also thank my parents, whose lack of discouragement I always understood as encouragement :)

God Vs. Rationality

I never worried about my parents when I was a child. I was brought up in a safe and secure environment with a strong belief in God. God who takes care of us if we remember "him" regularly. Though I was never regular in remembering "him" (I wasn't too bothered about my own well-being), it gave me great relief to watch my parents be ardent followers of their God. Day after day I felt that they were accumalating so many brownie points with the Lord that they can never be faced with any trouble in life. And secretly I also believed that their good score with the Lord also overflowed into my account!

We had a few hiccups but my parents were always optimistic and considered the accident/fire/robbery to have been far less damaging than its potential, due to the Lord's blessings. They gave credit to God for all good and bad things that happened to us. In my early teens it became intolerable - to be told that I did well in class/in sports/in life because of God. Add to that some freaks, who happen to be the children of my parents' religious friends. would do exceptionally well in some tough exam and say it was God who wrote the exam and not them. Here I saw the same extreme modesty that is so integral a part of my Mother. The kind of modesty that goes far beyond humility and unpretentiousness - it reaches an obnoxious point where you belittle yourself in front of the mighty Lord.

I jumped from one side to the other of this religious ping-pong at home - God Vs. Rationality.
And the game goes on till today..