I believe in angels

Is this what comes to your mind when someone says “angel”?

Or this?

That’s because you may not have had the good fortune of actually having met one. They can come in any shape, size and colour.





When I visualize an angel this is what it looks like. Can you see the halo? Look carefully, it is clearest in the tail portion.





(Latin angelus; Greek aggelos; from the Hebrew for "one going" or "one sent"; messenger).
Angels are messengers of God in the Hebrew Bible , the New Testament and the Quran. The term "angel" has also been expanded to various notions of "spiritual beings" found in many other religious traditions. Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks.

happily everafter.....

My daughter is on the threshold of marriage, and my head is full of advice – do this and don’t do that.

As though by following these she will sail smoothly through her marriage. As if it is that simple. As if there was a formula for success.

As if I followed all the rules.

I didn’t. I probably broke every rule in the book. And see where it has landed me – married to the same man for 28 years, squabbling, nagging, finding fault, not seeing eye to eye on anything except in defiance, but not willing to exchange places with anyone else .Would like to believe that the spouse feels the same way (known devil is better than.....)

I tell myself, my daughter too will find her place in his heart and mind, grow to love the idiosyncrasies, stand up for her rights and opinions, be the co-navigator, the wind beneath his wings and live through all the highs and lows together everafter.

God help me

Every Thursday I go for satsang along with my mother-in-law. To begin with I used to drop her and fetch her, then slowly started sitting through it. The idea was that it would give her an opportunity to socialize and at the same time spend some “quality” time. Apart from the bhajan singing and chanting, there is usually a discussion on God, the importance of the holy name and chanting it and other philosophical tenets of the particular sect. I do not completely understand or subscribe to all the views but I continued to participate because at least once a week I thought I was doing something religious.

Last Thursday, the discussion veered around belief/non-belief in God and that death would be cruel for those who did not believe in God (at least this is what I understood). While we all know that death is inevitable, it is true that most of us live our lives as though we are immortal, despite reminders. And even the most pious amongst us seems to be as afraid of death as anybody else. When we hear a diagnosis of cancer, the first reaction is fear – fear of death. Why should non-believers be more frightened of death than believers, I wondered. In what way does belief in God lessen the fear?

This discussion set off another train of uncomfortable thoughts. Am I a believer or non-believer? Essentially how would belief/disbelief in God impact the everyday life of an average person? Its not as if non-believers are “bad” people, nor can one say that believers are “good” people. And who defines “bad” and “good’? Does life have more meaning for believers than non-believers? Or is it vice-versa?

Till that instant, if I had been asked whether I believe in God, I would have said “yes” without much thought. But the point is, I had never really thought about it. Like I am born a Hindu, it seems I was born believing that there is a (?) God (s). And so for 52 years of my life I never questioned the existence of God or my belief. I have questioned practices and rituals but not the existence of God.

I wondered what makes believers believe. As I got thinking about it, I could see more arguments for not believing in God. Yet it is not so. Only a small fraction of the world’s population is atheist.

Then what is it that has sustained this concept through the ages? For the common person has it been the proverbial security blanket - something to clutch and hold on to when disturbed and bewildered by the vagaries we call life?

Or that which is beyond human comprehension is conveniently attributed to God. (Many such divine theories have bitten the dust over the ages with new scientific discoveries.)

Or has it been promoted tacitly by society to ensure some degree of order in the human world?

Having said all this, I still cannot let go of God. I feel insecure and incomplete without my belief. Why I wonder? Is it just a habit? My comfort zone? Am I secretly afraid that I will be punished if I let go of this belief (which just means I believe in someone all powerful up there watching over my thoughts and actions)?

Or is God Hope? Hope for better things, hope for forgiveness, hope for meaning which I can’t see today, hope for miracles, hope for guidance, hope for redemption, hope for another chance…..

My head is full of questions and doubts. Wish I could just open the lid and empty it out. And be a simple person for whom faith is all there is. Faith and simplicity go hand in hand. I am neither simple nor do I have faith.

GOD HELP ME.

Mummy ka magic

Becoming a mother is momentous enough but becoming a mother-in-law is much more so – here is an adult whose nappies you did not change, whom you did not baby talk to, who did not cling to or hide behind your pallu (proverbial or otherwise) , who did not keep you awake at nights as a baby and then an adolescent and….. so on but who is calling you “Mummy”. When my son-in-law to be addressed me for the first time as “Mummy” I was overwhelmed – cannot pinpoint the emotion – a mixture of happiness, tenderness, motherliness (don’t know whether this qualifies as a valid emotion). It evoked in me the same feeling as when my daughter uttered Ma for the first time (which was quite late and even after she was addressing me as Nitu as I was called by everyone else). "Mummy" is a magic word. Till SK had not uttered it, he was a nice boy and all that but it ended there. But after that, I worry about his health, his eating habits, his comfort and discomfort, I look for things in the men’s section of lifestyle stores that he might like (otherwise I would just skip that floor or drag my feet behind my husband). My daughter cannot understand this and is beginning to show signs of spousal rivalry( aka sibling rivalry) and I do not know how to handle this. If I had had two children, maybe both of us would have known what to do but here, both of us are new to this emotion.