Unshakeable faith

Most of the time, the mind wanders when we pray. A glimpse into how random and cloudy thoughts can be in the most peaceful and meditative moments. An Indian family in the prayer room...

Unshakeable faith

The young man was thinking. He noticed how the twirls of smoke moved across the hazy image of the Ganesha idol which lay a few meters away, beyond the smoke, well hidden and holy. They were twirling upwards he decided after some deliberation. After all that is what his science teacher had failed to make him understand, but through after class detention had succeeded in drilling through his skull. But focusing right then at the smoke, he had his doubts, maybe it was twirling downwards back into the agarbathi. The agarbathi suddenly caught his eye, black as Dhanya’s hair, aah Dhanya, pretty girl with a cute british accent. How he loved the british accent and their sport, football, his favorite club had been beaten the night before which he gloomily had watched the last 5 minutes off with his friend, Kartik, who drove a bike that was bigger than him and had a helmet that was big enough to save two, too bad he hardly wore it, without it a man might so easily die in an accident, then they would throw flowers on roads only benefiting a few lives, that of flower sellers, who stood diligently on road turnings and even more outside temples, so many temples, Siva, Krishna, Ganesha, golden statues with agarbathis lit in front of them, with the smoke twirling upwards….he grimaced..or was it downwards.

His mother looked proudly at her son, his unshakeable focus, concentration at the deity in front, it made her feel proud. What bakthi, her son, what bakthi, her son! Wearing the new white shirt she had bought for him from the nearby mall, a nice mall it was, new and shiny, like shoes that her mother bought for her when she was little, red ones like what Dorothy wore in the Wizard of Oz, laugh, that lion, with the pony tails and the cowardly face, not like the one she had seen in Thailand, those were ferocious, sharp teeth, white teeth like the ones they show on toothpaste ads, her husband made them, not the toothpaste ads but he did make others, after a year of marriage they had a wonderful boy, religious, a man of unshakeable faith.

Her husband looked at the woman in front of him, She was short enough to look over, and see a crisp white shirt, but he chose to look at the top of her head, a few white hairs, his wife, bedecked in her mother’s jewels and her father’s composure, standing perfectly straight and immersed in concentration at the statue. He wished he had half her faith, maybe he would win more at the races, what a wonderful feeling when the horses shot off at the sound of the gun, he had never used a gun, but 007 movies did excite him and he could see himself saying his second name before his first, and then saying them together in the right order, did sound a bit demented when he put It in that perspective, demented but cool he concluded, he had been the cool guy on campus, the ladies tripped on their heels and each other to talk to him, yet he had chosen to talk to the quietest girl on campus, there she stood, the woman in front of him, what composed devotion, he had been fooled into believing she was quiet, now his wife, also a woman of unshakeable faith.

Their maid went around on her chores in the background, cleaning white hair that the lady kept shedding, and dirty white shirts that the boy threw on the floor. She wished someone would tell his mother that she had bought him 6 last month. “Raam Raam”, only god knew her worries, about her alcoholic husband and about the son she couldn’t afford to send to school. Yet she said His name “Raam Raam”, it made her feel stronger, and she picked up white shirts off the floor with a smile. Not today, not tomorrow, but He would hear her call someday, maybe He wont, but she would keep working till the loans were paid off, till her son got a good education and her husband drank more water than alcohol. She would work and they would get through this she decided. It made her feel even better than before. She smiled again, two teeth broken, but a smile nonetheless. She paused to look at the family, peering inside the puja room, she remembered how diligently they prayed every day. They must be so devoted, they must have unshakeable faith.

What a pretty smile, He thought, from the other side of the twirling smoke of a lone agarbathi, past a boy looking at the smoke, a woman looking at her son, and a man at his wife, past the doorway, at a maid looking, peering inside the puja room, what a pretty smile He thought, definitely a smile of a person, of unshakeable faith.

Agarbathi : Incense sticks commonly used during prayer

Raam Raam: Repeating the name of Ram, an avatar of Hindu god vishnu. An expression often used when praying to God.