I’m Infant Jerin, a Shiva bhakt, prayed to Allah, practiced Buddha because I’m Indian

Infant Jerin
Nov 1 · 6 min read

2o13 August, We were at Thalakaveri, a beautiful place in Karnataka where Cauvery originates. Thalakaveri is one of the place on our industrial visit. Entire CEG 2011 computer science H batch was there, 73 out of 75 students were part of this industrial visit. One of the accomplishments that I was proud of being my batch representative is convincing all of my batch mates to come to this industrial visit because I was very stubborn to go to trip with more than 90% of my batch mates or to abandon it. Finally, I along with my batch mates were happy because only in our batch more than 95% of students had turned up, only few were not able to come because of health issues. I believe in this say, ‘its not the place but its the people that make you happy’.

This happened in Talakaveri, we were going to temple to worship the mother Cauvery, I had this vermilion mark on my forehead, few people accompanied me. My friend Akila asked me, ‘Jerin you are christian right, why are you wearing the mark on your forehead?’, I asked ‘who said I’m christian?’, she asked ‘then what are you?’ I said, ‘I’m indian’

I would always say ‘I’m Indian,My life is for India’ not because India is my country but because this is the land of freedom & this is the land of spirituality. One thing I enjoyed being Indian is my freedom to worship whatever I want. When I was in soul searching & deeply immersed myself in spirituality, My friends would know how I was attracted to Lord Shiva. I had meditated on Lord Shiva on entire day during last Maha Shiva Rathiri. I was crazy on him. Still I can’t give up my love for him, he is my MahaDev, I love this man & I usually don’t like to give the form to the God, but however if have to, the form is Shiva, because he is ascetic, family man, yogi, dancer, lover, child, warrior, the King, the Cosmos & The MahaDev. My friends & my family accepted me and they didn’t see it as odd because its there in our culture that we unconsciously know that God is common for every people in this world. Few narrow minded people who want to divide & rule the people do the politics on God.

My grandfather used to serve his farm’s first yields to the Iyyanar temple near his farm field. he would tell ‘ella kadavulum onnu than, ella theivangalukkum shakthi undu’ (All Gods are same,All deities have power to manifest) Though I was brought up in christian tradition in small village, most of the traditions we follow have deep roots in Indian culture. As a kid, I was told we were converted-Christians, I’d wonder how we became Christians? My grandmother would tell me the stories that when Moses took the Israelite to Israel, they had crossed this way & God gave the ‘Manna’ to these people at this place & so they named my village ‘Mannarpuram’(Nobody in my village had never heard this version of story). As a kid I’d check this story in Bible & refute my grandmother’s claim. But I do not know that it has some connection to the question that I’m looking for. how we became Christians.

If you had read Exodus, you know the story that the Israelite escaped from Egypt & Moses helped the people & took the people to the God’s promised land. In 1820s, the social order was infernal in our country, especially in Kerala. British agitated the situation to worse. only upper caste people were allowed to wear cloths on their upper body, low caste people were not allowed to wear the cloths on their upper body, including women. Some claims that even they had breast tax, tax for the size of ones breast, we can feel the persecution from the story of Nangeli,a brave woman who cut her breastswhen they imposed high tax for her breasts, who was contemporary. People revolted. And those people’s caste is same as my villagers caste. So few families from Travancore must have migrated & settled where my village is located. But why they were converted to Christianity?. I got this from Wikipedia “ In 1813, Colonel John Munro, British dewan in the Travancore court, issued an order granting permission to women converted to Christianity to wear upper cloth”. It is very clear that somebody must have promised & taken these families to this land as Moses did, so the name.

Now, This is the question we all need to contemplate that what makes one to loose their identity? If I’m proud of my identities then what it takes to give up my identities? Either they are ashamed of their identities or the social injustice must have coerced them to loose their identities. Is it only the social injustice a reason for people conversion to Christianity? No, I contempt British also, because patently it is clear how British used the social conundrum to gain its political power. only the imperialistic mindset can do such a blatant act. But this historical event showed me another perspective for Abrahamic religions in India. if you ask the people of Abrahamic religions in India now, they’d tell ‘ we accept this God, because we truly believe in this God’, Only history knows what truly happened to their ancestors.

In my school days, 9 years back, I and my friend Khalid argued for who is last prophet, is it Christ or Mohammed? Another friend Vedha Moorthy who overhead this conversation would tell us we don’t have this problems, you can worship anyone in Hinduism. It took me 4 years to understand the deep meaning of this polytheism. I’m also influenced by Swami Vivekananda’s idea of Nationalism. He was proud for belonging to the nation which taught the world the universal tolerance & the universal acceptance. But I saw this status of one of my best friends, “Not allowing Hindus to fire cracker on Diwali is same as not allowing Christians to plant Christmas tree on Christmas & not allowing Muslims to cut goats for Eid”. I can understand his feelings, the reasons that made him to keep this status are, 1)Most of the Abrahamic religious people don’t accept other Gods as God, they are still in their mental trap. They believe in their book & can’t have courage to question it & reflect the truth. 2) The false narration created by the super power in India that Christians & Muslims are threat to Hindus. (Or) Christians & Muslims don’t have any say on Indian politics. At this moment, I want my Indian people to remember the history I shared before.

After reading his status, I’m worried and pondered what is happening in my country? How did I let this happen? India is not geographical boundary, but it’s the people with common values. The Indian values. We have this say in Tamil, “yathum orae, yaverum kelir"(everyplace in this world is ours & everyone in this world is our kin) if you ask any common man in India, he unconsciously knows it, he tells, “everyone should be happy”. This is not the Nationalism, This is the humanity. Our Indian values are human values, it’s deeply rooted in our life. Now I want you to think, I want to ask, Do you know what makes India a unique than rest of other countries? It’s her motherly nature to accept everyone & embrace anyone. Do you know what is common in every Indian souls regardless of its diversity? It’s the soul of acceptance & tolerance. But now, We are losing our soul, our Indian soul, our Indian identity. It’s time to wake up and to speak up that we will be united not by religion, not by language, not by race but by our Indian soul, by our Indian identity, the identity of universal acceptance & universal tolerance, Yes we can proudly say this universal acceptance & universal tolerance is not only the identity of Indian or soul of India, but it is the identity of human & the soul of humanity. Jai hind.

I’m Infant Jerin, I’m Indian.

    Infant Jerin

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