Khuda Kahan Hai (Where is God?) - The Quest

Having had more than my fair share of failed relationships, I used every excuse in the book to say no, when the question of me getting married came up. But Baba was unrelenting, more so after Papa succumbed to cancer. The fact that Parag was an atheist was another excuse in my armour but Baba would have none of it. Having come from a multi-cultural, multi-religious background, I remained a nomad in my quest for answers and understanding of spirituality. My little sister Tulsi, all of 20 or 21 at the time, pronounced me agnostic! And here I fancied myself as the eternal Sadhak......

I argued long and hard till I was blue in the face. I did not want our children to go through ambiguity in that sphere of life. Be that as it may, my Baba counter argued saying that,”He is a good man and for now his way of life is his spirituality. He is also very intelligent and so he will eventually find his way to the quest.” I did not buy into it but nevertheless got married; because I wanted to and not because of the pressure I was under. I must confess though that I do blame Baba for my woes on days that Parag and I fight!!

But on a serious note, at some level this no religion, no faith, no prayers, only rationale bit, worried me, as the family grew. I always second guessed this aspect of our parenting style. I kept trying to understand Baba’s words and look for answers myself. And there it was, a simple forward from my dear friend Mini Naidoo, an artist and sadhak herself. She sent me a lovely story about three greats of Urdu literature – Ghalib, Iqbal and Faraz – and in a clean sweep, very vintage Mini-like, she set aside my misgivings and drove home the message that Baba had tried hard to make me understand.

Here is the story, in her words:

These three poets are legendary in Urdu literature as also their following couplets. The poets Ghalib (1797-1869), Iqbal (1877-1938) and Faraz (1931-2008) present their views on the universality of God in the couplets. It was not a feud. At best you can call it a poetic difference of opinion by intellectual and witty minds, spread across centuries.

Ghalib started it: In the 19th century, it was a bold statement. But then Ghalib was never known for meekness or following the crowd.

“Zahid, sharaab peene de masjid mein baith kar
Ya wo jagah bataa, jahaan Khuda nahin”

[Let me drink in a mosque; or tell me the place where there is no God.']

Allama Iqbal was not convinced and decided to reply about half a century later. So in the late 19th-early 20th century, his poetic reply to Ghalib

“Masjid Khuda ka ghar hai, peene ki jagah nahin
Kaafir ke dil mein jaa, wahaan khuda nahin”

[Mosque is the abode of God, not a place to drink. Go to the heart of a non-believer because there God is not.]

Faraz had the last word. (Later half of 20th century).

“Kaafir ke dil se aaya hoon, main ye dekh kar Faraz,
Khuda maujood hai wahaan, par usey pata nahin”

[I have returned from the heart of the disbeliever and I have observed:
God is present in his heart too, but he just doesn’t know it. (he is ignorant/sleeping].

Irshad

Thank you Mini. Loads of love coming your way.....

Balloons

This is again a cute forward but did not threaten me with "dire consequences"

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't

Believe everything happens for a reason..

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Friends are like balloons; once you let them go,

you can't get them back. So I'm gonna tie you to

my heart so I never lose you. Send this to all your

friends including me and see how many you get

back. Send this balloon to everybody you like. You

may also return it to me. Send a lot of little balloons to

your friends!!!

Good Karma

I am constantly besieged by forwards on e-mail urging me to read the pieces and forward it to "n" number of people, it should leave my hands in "x" number of hours, not to break the chain and so and so forth, else bad luck would befall. These were the new age chain letters that I used to get as a kid. India in the seventies and the eighties had a lot of them. The carrot for not breaking the chain in those days was that it would create a world record and find a mention in the Guiness Book. You have no idea how much of my precious pocket money I have wasted in this exercise. Added to that I also ran errands and did odd jobs to earn a little extra to take care of the postage. Really a stupid, naive fool.

Anyway back to this story. In the early days of being on the net and some, I used to diligently do as told. It was my way of sending good wishes and also letting friends and family know that I was thinking of them and not sending a mere forward. Until one day my sister Tulsi threated to spam me. I was most upset that this "mere chit of a girl", the baby I had once held in my arms had the temerity to "talk" to me like that. However, I realized that not everyone would appreciate what I was doing and rightly so. These were friends and family, my loved ones that I was sending them to and it was certainly not on that my mails would carry threats of dire consequences if instructions were not followed. No matter whether or not one believed in these things. My baby, that mere chit of a girl had taught me an important lesson in cyber space courtesy; I had to hand it to her.

But then there were those who sent me these forwards and meant well. They truly wanted me to receive the blessings and be safe, prosper, be happy, get a windfall, etc. etc. I could not let them down either. Quite a dilemma. That is what it was until a few minutes ago when I had this brilliant idea. Hereinafter, I was going to put up these forwards that I liked on my blog. That way the world would read the piece and I would meet more than my target of "x" number of people to forward it to. Also the people reading it did not have to forward it or face any consequences or any such thing.

Really I surprise myself with my ingenuity and genius!!! Genius??? Just kidding, dear reader. Here is the first of these forwards.....Enjoy