In my youth, I sneaked a sherwani clad Muslim Hafez friend inside a Sivalayam. He hid his skull cap in his pocket. We lingered around for a while and left as the archaka grew suspicious.
In my youth, I slept in Madrasas, woke up to the murmur of ayat recitations.
Coming from a ritual heavy family background, that was nothing short of an adventure.
My family’s attitude ranged from being circumspect to abject disdain for the Turaka.
In my youth, I roamed with the panchama converts with Telugized Biblical names. Lourdu Raju, Moshe, Izraelu.
Flocked to organised conversion camps (suvarta sabhalu) along with friends out of curiosity. Witnessed mass baptisms. Climbed Gunadala hill to visit Mother Mary temple.
All this while harbouring a firm belief that brahmins are divinities on earth. All my friends and neighbours spared no efforts in reinforcing my conviction in my own (community’s) demi divinity. Some even believed that my tongue had actualising power.
Interesting times they were. Neither Babri demolition nor Kargil war excited passions.
I even watched Sarfarosh movie in cinemas along with Omar and Ilayas. I remember a pumped up Omar saying ‘I want to join the army’ as we came out of the theatre.
A couple of years later, saw the same Omar elope with a Hindu girl against his parents’ wish. I attended their wedding shortly after the families reconciled.
Attended Ilyas’s wedding where Hussain introduced his ex-Hindu wife who had a dream of Ajmer sherif that inspired her to accept the new faith right before the wedding. I thought she faked the dream to get married to him.
Ilyas had a crush on his neighbour Padma but was too meek to even strike a conversation with her. He was married off to a girl from better off Hyderabadi family.
In all the 20 years in Vijayawada, with all the mingling with the pasmanda and panchama converts, I remained a proud Brahmana, in spirit and in practice with an innate sense of cultural boundaries and an acute awareness of my special standing.
Strangely, I developed secular proclivities after I moved to Hyderabad when being Brahmin held no special importance in the cosmopolitan culture. I had to adopt to modernity while at the same time reconciling it with the life I led thus far.
Vivekananda came to my rescue. His teachings helped me interpret my ritualistic past in respectable non-dualistic philosophical terms.
Now, I was a young seeker. What I had in the company of Ilyas, Omar etc., was just boyhood fun.
Now, I was interested in the esoteric.
Was Christ a Yogi?
Was Muhammad a Sufi?
Was Buddha a Gymnosophist?
Were all these Advaitins?
Can’t we just have an OM temple?
Is enlightenment really just a meditation away.
If Brahman pervades everything, then what’s Muslim, what’s Brahman? – other than external forms?
The proud Brahmana in me was slowly giving way to an overtly compensating spiritualist.
I was on the path of secularisation. What years of intermingling with ‘mlecchas’ couldn’t achieve was accomplished by reformist philosophies.
La ilah il Allah. No God but God.
But then Allah is Al Haq – The Truth.
La ilah il Al Haq – No God but The Truth.
Voila ! Ekam Sat !
I remained a great bhakta of Vivekananda for a good two decades.
Then my viveka returned
lakshmiprasadj 