It all started with the story.
No. Actually, it started with a question. Lots of questions actually.
My mental image of myself in my childhood was a mind full of questions.
Childhood is also about stories and being raised in a certain society I was exposed to certain stories. Like stories from Panchtantra, Isapniti, Ramayan and Mahabharat. Also there were other less significant stories we came across here and there. But these were the ones which had a major impact on me. They made me think and wonder. But as I grew older they made me question as well.
Like, Why are these so called Gods, so imperfect as per our current standards at least. Yet, we are supposed to be perfect. In that case, clearly we can never be Gods! Funny. Isn't it? That's why I hate religion. It just does not make sense.
How am I supposed to Look at Lord Rama and feel devotion for him when all I remember from his story is a man who abandoned his pregnant wife for stupid society. Why can't society follow him if he was such a great man? The feminist in me is very mad at this character but somehow I miss the injustice part of it where his step mother started the historical "Game of Thrones"
With all those questions, I was still lucky we didn't have "Google" in our childhood. Otherwise I would have had hundreds if not if not thousands of opinions and explanations by unqualified, self proclaimed experts. After spending so many hours reading them, I would have had felt a subconscious pressure to believe in at least one of them. Just like I used to feel while shopping in real stores where the salesmen personally spend so much time persuading you to finally come to a decision of buying something. But off course that only happens in India. How I love the opportunity of not having to deal with it. Instead I can now spend hours in big outlets, trying new clothes and then rejecting them guiltlessly. For there are many vacant changing rooms and no clingy salesmen in Germany. Such blessings for having such less population. Hail family planning!
Anyway, back to the story...
Questions are my best companions. I have lived with them ever since I remember. Along with them and my introvert nature, I carried a shield of ignorance for a long long time. I even questioned the authenticity of answers if anybody tried to convince me into some widely acceptable theories. But I was all ears for them. In fact I have tried my best to convince myself into believing in at least one of them, but thanks to my "Logic" it failed every time. 😇
So now that I am pregnant and my husband can translate the original version of "Ramcharitmanas" to me, we have a story hearing session every morning at tea time. Where we listen to these 10 minutes episodes everyday. It makes perfect sense to stick to that small dose of information coming out from an authentic source, so that I can spend hours thinking over it and perhaps discover some hidden treasures of wisdom that it claims to have. To my delight, it is indeed working on me so far. I learnt a lot of new "behind the scenes" of the best selling version of Ramayana. It is so fascinating to learn these things that I decided to pen down my understandings as an ignorant questioner for my future reference.
If you've read it so far and are still interested in finding out more about my learning experience, feel free to follow my next blog.
Thank you Google for providing me this free platform. I still need you 😁
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