So much to celebrate

My house help informed me that she would be taking a day off for Ramzan. But aren't you a Hindu, I asked her. Yes, I am, she said, but I need to help my neighbour, a Muslim, to make elaborate preparations to receive guests, do the cooking and prepare gifts. I felt stupid for asking that question. This is elementary, my dear, I told myself. She doesn't have the baggage of an elite education that leaves you with a bunch of degrees, preconceived notions, prejudices and ideologies that make you think in compartments. She just knew life as she lived it. And she was truly secular without even knowing the word or its meaning.

The breakthrough in secularism came to the West, it is believed, when Church and State were separated. In France, secularism meant complete avoidance of anything to do with religion, religious symbols and so on. But separation of identities and avoidance of what exists cannot really mean that one is secular, can it?

Undue attachment to one's religion, ideology, country and community only ends up making one miserable with all the divisions, angst and anxiety, creating the 'other' rather than connecting everyone with positive energy.


Instead, how about embracing belief, faith, places of worship, symbols and rituals so that life becomes one big celebration of all that there is, and all that there could be? A rigid, exclusive, uncompromising life is one that is full of suspicion and sadness. Creative, inclusive living creates joy.