Do You Believe in G(H)OD(STS)?

I’ve never quite been able to answer these 2 questions honestly in my life. The first one is, ‘Do you believe in GOD?’ and the second one on similar lines, ‘Do you believe in GHOSTS?’


If someone asked me either of them I’d simply say, “I DON’T KNOW.” It’s not because I really don’t know, but I find it very tedious to answer it as YES or NO, since it indisputably will start the age old debate of HOW-CAN-YOU-BELIEVE/NOTBELIEVE-IN-IT.

It’s not that I have not tried to contemplate over this, but I know that I will end up back where I started from. Like whenever I’m in my hometown, I visit my favorite Panchalingeshwara (Shiva) temple. And I make it a point to visit some temple or another when I go to a new place. I never leave home without applying ‘kumkum’ (Not the serial; but the red powder offered in most of the temples, which is popularly known as ‘sindoor’) and the holy ashes (that again is offered at select temples but mostly in the ‘Sai Baba Temples’). I always make munificent offerings at each of my temple visits (ok I confess that most of the times these offerings are made because of guilt and it is more like a bribe to the God’s).

But I have never been a religious sort of a girl, I do the minimum required to please the God’s, I don’t know many long ‘Sanskrit Shloka’s’. I don’t understand any of the ‘pooja’s’ that are conducted twice a year at my parents home nor do I like being asked questions about my religion and then being condemned for not knowing any of the history of my religion. It surprises most of my relatives that my father; a quite a well known member of the society, is a very spiritual and a god fearing man; and my mother is equally spiritual. Sometimes my dad jokes that I am more of a Catholic than a Hindu, as I was one of the few girls from my community who studied in a CONVENT school all my life run by the A.C (Apostolic Carmel) nuns, and then went on to pursue my graduation in a Jesuit Institution. But to my relatives, it is a shortcoming in my upbringing and they blame my parents for this- they say I’m somewhat ‘loose’

But honestly all my life I have only done what I have felt like and have never been influenced too much by anyone; even through the toughest phase of decision making in every students life at the end of their 10th grade board exams- to chose SCIENCE or COMMERCE; (no offense to the ARTS students but that was considered to be the lowest in the academic caste system-to be chose by the dullest of the lot). Honestly Arts was my first choice, I wanted to get into psychology and literature but ended up compromising by taking up Commerce and then borrowing my ARTS friend’s psychology text books over the weekends.

Unlike other people I have never had conventional ideas of GOD and SPIRITS, I treat both with equal respect and sometimes when I’m really lonely I talk to a close, deceased member of my family. Like just the other night I was telling my grandpa, how it felt like being alone in Bangalore with no friends to hang out with on a Saturday night. But I have never seen any form of a ghost or spirit in my life. Then again I don’t profess this to anyone, as I don’t think anyone would understand the concept. I even do the whole GOD-IS-MY-GUARDIAN-ANGEL-WHO-IS-BY-MY-SIDE-ALWAYS and sometimes talk to my version of God: who is this formless, nameless, male spirit (call me a prejudiced, but I find it easier to talk to guys).

Recently I came across the weirdest of “GHOST STORIE’S” that a friend of mine had encountered. But this story comes with the usual disclaimer: Believe it or not!

‘So it was just like any run of the mill weekend where the guys got drunk and challenged each other to do some really off the wall things. This time it was Naveen’s (my friend) turn. The challenge was simple, since he did not believe in ghosts and was an atheist he was told to go inside a “haunted” mansion and get footage of checking out 2 rooms inside the house and come out ALIVE! They struck a deal for 1000 green ones (or red ones, whatever suits you). So after they gulped down the last drop of some cheap booze they all led him to the “SCARY HOUSE”. As they reach the big iron gates, Naveen in his now sober state of mind (or so he claims, as the so called “high” drops down when u walk for 20 minutes) goes up to the large main door and unlocks it. He then sets up the camera and walks into the house and enters the main hall room, suddenly he hears a screeching noise and sees a shadow zoom past his head and goes right out of the door. Undeterred he walk into 2 rooms inside the house and gets a good footage and then his cell starts to vibrate! The guys ask him to narrate his actions and as he is moving to the third room he stops at to look at the latch on the door. He had never seen anything like it before. It was not rusted like any of the other latches and looked pretty well used! He opened the door and saw a passageway. Onto his left he saw stairs leading up to the top floor of the house. As he is continued narrating this to his friend’s he tells them that he would climb up the stairs and check out the top floor. Suddenly his friend’s ask him to get the hell out of that place as they found something fishy about his description. And the fully charged phone suddenly conks off and he can’t get it back on. He was not in a mood to leave this challenge half done and decides to go ahead he climbs the first step and just as he is about to climb the second one he sees a bright light and suddenly slips off the stair and falls down. With a little panic, he gets out of there and walks back to his friend’s, who are now frantic!

Even after repeated questioning his friend’s don’t tell him what the matter is. The next morning, they all head out to the same house. And check out the place in broad daylight. All the rooms are just as he Naveen had captured them on his camera the previous night, except door which had led him to the passage. He saw that the door was latched back shut.

So as he unlatches it and walks through the door, he sees an open backyard, which was not how it had seemed the previous night. As he turns to his left to check for the stairs he sees an open well and his shoe print on the rim of its wall!!

Now he never misses Sunday Mass!

And I have just another reason to believe that there is a greater power above US!