At The Beginning There was This

I grew up in a multi cultural world. My grandfather was the Hindu Prime Minister of a Muslim state during the British Raj. It was the one state that retained its statehood. 

He espoused Muslim customs, married 6 Muslim women and one Hindu one, of unknown descent or heritage. It was largely believed she was Brahmin, but since she was also an orphan and unbelievably beautiful, everyone presumed she was royalty. My mother was the product of this Union and grew up in an atmosphere where Hindu, Muslim and British mingled freely and happily - Infact she herself refused to go to school and my Nana employed a British Governess to teach her the alphabet, a Hindu Poet to teach her the vernacular and a Sufi Saint who taught her Urdu and poetry.

Her cousins were Muslim and her siblings Hindu and her beloved Nanny read her the Bible. Yet my mother grew up worshipping Krishna and singing his hymns, even while she reverently held the Quran and kissed the Bible. It was a choice she made, or perhaps one that came naturally to her. No one ever told her who or what to pray to in the large palace where different Gods and Scriptures nudged each other and sat cheek by jowl.

My father came from an equally eclectic background - Blue blood Punjabi, born in Pakistan, settled in a tiny Uttar Pradesh village, studied in England, he believed in No God but a Peer Baba, whose grave happened to be in the family Mill compound under a large and stately bargad tree, tended to by wispy bearded Qazi. Why he believed in the Peer Baba and scoffed at my mother's Krishna is not something that ever caused me any confusion or any grief.

And what of us? We grew up with zero knowledge of any organised religion. We had free access to all of them, including atheism.

So I never really recall being much of anything as I grew up. I didn't realize I needed to choose a side. And I was never confused about who or what I was...I was Indian, and it began with and ended at that.