Religion or its religious people.
Which one makes the other?
Last week the fun tradition of ‘Garba’ the Hindu traditional dance form of celebrating the women goddess was happening worldwide. Every Hindu community, comes together to make it happen in their local halls or temples. What I find very intriguing in different cultures is the way people pray. So this form of dance is very intriguing, fun and meditative. I always wish to learn it. So whenever the opportunity arises, I ask my friends to take me and I join them.
This year, as we are in Arusha, we did not know much about where it happens and what it looks like. Until, we met someone at a restaurant and while making small talk with my partner, invited us to go for the ‘Garba’. I got super excited about it but obviously felt weird about going alone when we knew no one. Thus, we asked a friend to join. We all went fully dressed and hyped ready to join and learn the dance form. Not much time had passed and we were spotted by someone and asked to leave if we did not belong to the Hindu community. And we left.
I posted a reel about how we were removed from the hall and so we just did our own garba at home - mostly because I was really excited about dancing that night. The reel was not taken too well. It first started with people apologizing and then other people defending their rights to not include others in the celebration. It soon turned into a battlefield where people presumed I made the reel as a clickbait to get more likes, people throwing death threats and fat shaming us. I just never ever thought that this would encourage the already rift growing between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India. I thus removed the comments and the arguments stopped there.
Link to the reel:
This made me wonder, “Do religions make the religious or is it vice versa?” Did people start calling themselves better than the other or did the religion tell them that they were the better species? On the right path? If Christians believe their path is right, and Muslims believe their path is the right one, so do Hindus, Buddhists, Jews or any other religion for that matter. Who decided then that my path is ‘righter’ than yours? That I have more rights than you? And if we think our path is right, why are we so exclusive to not let others feel the beauty of yours? Why aren’t non-Muslims allowed in Mecca or non-Hindus allowed in the temples?
A conversation some time ago with my Jamaican friends who follow completely different schools of thought agreed with me on this. “We are all looking for an end goal - the pathway to God, to reach Nirvana, Heaven, the higher power, the Ultimate truth, the meaning to life… whatever each one of you may call it. We just choose different paths to reach it. Everyone’s path is the correct one, just a different one.”