chetnaishere

I am writing this article in response to my dear friends’s  beautiful and touching article http://noheadgirl.blogspot.in/2014/10/deciphering-power.html.

My grandmother is a self-literate woman. That means my grandfather taught her to read and write, but she educated herself about matters of life, death and everything that comes in between. She always, always has an answer for all my philosophical questions I come upon with. She is a perpetual believer. In all her children (if you must know, she has 9 of her own ), in her grandchildren(lets skip the count , shall we) and everyone else who comes with their stories . But, the condition is, you must believe in your own story in order to convince her. So, a big believer of life , but not a religious one, I must convince . Even through her rosary beads, she does question God in his actions. I remember asking her once ‘what exactly is God? ‘ .

She said ‘you can believe God as being the supreme creator/destroyer, someone who decides your destiny or you can believe that life is just a cosmic accident. But either way, you have to believe. You have to have faith.  For me, God is within us.  We are our own god. We are our own creator/destroyer. Every moment, every day since birth, we fight for our sustenance, and yet are alive. Isn’t that God-like?  A mongrel on the road is as much as God as the high priest of Puri. The 21-grams we lose when we die is God. Just like everything else with life, we wither away.

“What’s so God like in dying?” – I munched on my nariyal laddoo, one of the numerous incentives of spending time with her.

And she smiled “don’t you see? That is the thing that makes you the God. You just don’t live for yourself; you create a life for others. No one’s life is easy. But you push on. The life you have made useful for others, to inspire, to guide. And when we die, we live on through people who love us and will remember us.”

Now I realize how it makes sense perfectly. She always said “don’t be afraid of God, but be afraid of the image in the mirror. Because it will never lie to you .you will lie, cheat, gamble, sin and hurt people, but the day you can look into the mirror and explain all your actions, you have become a monster.”   This line has always stayed with me.

I don’t say that I am God. But, yes, I have to have faith. And I do. Eternally.