It was a few days back that I had to fill a form for a course. There was a lady who talked to me after the trial class. She asked, “your name?”, I replied, “Sonia Bhatia”. God knows how she heard Sonia Thakur, though Thakur and Bhatia don’t rhyme at all. She said “Sonia Thakur, so you must be a Bengali or a Gujarati”…I told her that the name is Sonia Bhatia not Sonia Thakur….
Something that happens always is that the moment I tell my name to people, they say, “you must be from a Punjabi family, right.” Now this is how people might be reacting to these names..
Sonia Sharma, …….. must be Hindu……..
Sonia Khan…….. must be Muslim…
Sonia Ghosh …… must be Bengali…….
I am not using the name Sonia because its my name but because it happens to be a very common name and almost every last name goes well with it……
I just kept on thinking bout this....... how the hell does that matter… why is it so very important for people…why are people wanting to know bout others’ religion…. Why are they wanting to classify people…..
Talking about religions, honestly I believe in ‘agnostic theism’…. I don’t believe in any religion at all… we can live without religion but we cannot live without human affection….I would have been exactly the same person even if I were Sonia Khan Or Sonia D’Souza……and why should Sonia Khan follow Islam and Sonia D’souza Christianity….. why cant it be a person’s choice to choose his/her religion.. I had actually tried to do so, but I didn’t find even a single religion worth following and I don’t even feel that it is essential for any person to follow any religion at all …. therefore, I am an agnostic theist….. Yes, people from different regions have different languages, different customs, different religions…this is diversity…but I don’t find any ‘unity’ in this ‘diversity’…I completely agree with Jonathan Swift , “We have just enough religions to make us hate, but not enough to make us love”…. Yes, more than 90% riots in India were due to religion…I was absolutely shocked when I read a scrap in a friend’s scrapbook on orkut…. It was regarding the number of Hindus and the number of Muslims who were killed in Gujarat riots…. How does that matter.. Something that is more important is that ‘innocent people’ were killed because of something which is actually not at all important, not at all required……It was religion that helped the British to divide and rule and it is religion that politicians use today to do the same.. I feel ashamed that parties like MNS and people like Raj Thackeray exist in my country…
Akbar’s din-i-llahi was a brilliant idea, great concept….. but it failed….and it failed because people didn’t even think about it…. people considered it to be ‘blasphemy’…… it was around 400-500 years ago…but even today people would never accept something like din-i-llahi, something like paganism, something like agnostic theism, something which talks of peace and humanity…….
I know…. After reading this article… some people would agree to this, some wont…but this is not a debate…. This is not even an opinion……This is a humble request…. The next time, if you hear a name…. please don try to figure out if the person is a Hindu or a Muslim or a Gujarati or a Bengali or whatever…. Just ask yourself this question “ Who are you?”…just try to describe yourself in 100 words.. I hope your answer wont include the religion that you follow or the language that you speak or the state that you are from……n then , try n imagine a world without any religion or caste… a world with humanity, love and peace…. We were definitely born with no religion….. we all are homo sapiens, human beings… there wont be any riots, any wars for things that actually do not have any importance at all…. And for the sake of peace and humanity, ask yourself “ Do I really need a religion to live..Why do I need a religion to live.?. Cant I have my own principles and morals instead of following rituals, customs and superstitions that constitute a religion ? We all are Indians, we all are human beings, so why do we need to classify ourselves, to divide ourselves...?" Just ask yourself. Simply ask yourself.
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