एक ऐसी जगह बता जहाँ खुदा न हो

my religious/spiritual/etc etc type of views (or some semblance of it) have already been touched upon in this post. it is something i am extremely uncomfortable talking about or even being asked about. i find it a complete invasion of privacy when people ask me questions about my belief in a supreme power...it is something which i don't even discuss with people who i am tremendously close to.

why this sudden blog about my sentiments about this issue then? my recent trip to shirdi is the reason for this blog. to be completely honest, i didn't go to shirdi for the sake of going to 'shirdi' per say- i am no sai baba devotee, despite some of my closest relatives being ardent worshippers. i went coz i love travelling, i love seeing new places (yes even religious ones!), i love interacting with people on a journey- i have noticed (in all my travels!) that we are much more relaxed when on a trip, thus tend to be much more interesting to talk to ;)
so thats how i joined a group of six women- aunties, as one of them proclaimed (older girls i say)- on a four day trip to shirdi. it was a super fantastic trip- feminists might even call it liberating, since there was no male accompanying us. there was lots of talking, lots of information being shared, new things being learned about people, certain memories revived, and many more formed. it is extremely difficult for me to put into words the moments of the train journey, the peculiarities of the group members which everyone eventually adjusted to, and grew to love, the insane giggling which one would usually associate with teenage girls, the endless cups of chai, the sometimes superficial-sometimes heavy duty serious conversations....it was as awesome as a trip could and should be.

the experience of visiting shirdi was an eye opener in many ways- for starters, i went as a non believer...and while i wouldnt call myself a convert (although some people assume i am one since i visited shirdi), i have perhaps softened to the idea of sai baba.
but apart from this, there is a certain observation which I made. during the whole trip, there was a lot of talk of 'miracles'- instances of how someone was in trouble and baba saved them, how someone was in a mess and baba had showed the way...and many other events. the cynic and the atheist might dismiss them, the believer swears by them. as they say ना मानो तो पत्थर, मानो तो भगवान्! if you listen to the stories, you will be absolutely spellbound, by not just the content, but also of the deep faith that is reflected in each word of the narrator- its a strangely interesting sight!

as i see it, miracles happen to us, around us, every day. if we just stop and notice the little things around us, we would see that we're literally surrounded by miracles. things like classes being cancelled at the last minute, impromptu meetings with friends, relatives visiting, your favourite song coming on radio, coming home sans insane traffic jams- if you pay close attention, i guess these would come under the 'miracle' category. but we usually don't pay close attention. for us in our normal day life, we are too hardened and cynical to really notice anything, to really feel anything simple as something great. but when one is in a religious place, people generally seem to have a sense of heightened awareness and a strange sense of positivity- and anything remotely positive happening becomes a 'miracle'. i have generally seen that people are usually in a perennially good mood in religious places (the exceptional tiff with the security guards and pushing/shoving notwithstanding). perhaps its the vibe of the place, perhaps a sense of bhakti...i don't know. it is very utopian of me to perhaps wish that people everywhere carry that sense of peace and joy to their normal lives. to me, that would be a shining exemplar of belief, and faith.

{this post hasnt really followed a pattern...i guess it is because i feel extremely fragmented in terms of my sentiments about the various aspects of the trip- the different emotions and experiences havent really merged together into one post. oh well...such is life :) }