Save the trees, not me!

A couple of days ago, when I blogged about my childhood friend's death, some (anonymous again!) dude posted a comment connecting my friend's death to Jesus and the Bible.

The commentator wrote:

The bible says "The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John 10:10)
The life of a young man has been destoyed. Bible also says "God created people to be upright, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path" (Ecclesiates 7:29).

There is only one way to over come this evil in this life. That is to have God in our lives and allow him to protect us from we being led in the downward path. Jesus said "I am the way truth and life". In Jesus everyone can find the fullness and abundant life.

My first reaction when I saw the comment was - "Jesus Christ!" (No pun intended.)

Vikram told him off all right, before I could. Well done, Viks. But the incident brought back some memories, of the time when I was in university and I used to be regularly visited by people who would try to preach Christianity and convince me to convert.

First things first. I am not religious. I have the utmost respect for all religions, but I'm not religious. I am a Hindu because Mom and Dad are. But I do not practise Hinduism. I do not pray to any of the Hindu Gods. And I love MOS burger's spicy MOS cheeseburger to death, which incidentally contains beef. But I would not convert. Merely because it would probably upset my parents. My religion has never been an incovenience to me, mainly because I have never allowed it to become one. For most of the time, it hardly plays a part in who I am. I only encounter it when I am filling up forms. And that doesn't happen often. So I am happy being a Hindu on paper, and a free thinker at heart.

After trying the polite way with many of these 'preachers' who came knocking on my hostel door, I had kinda learnt the tricks of the trade.

I remember this one particular guy who visited me on a sunday afternoon.

Knock knock.

I paused 'Roswell Season II' which was playing on my computer, and opened the door.

"Yes?"

"Hi, I am from XYZ society. I won't take up too much of your time. I am just here to talk to you for a while."

I'd rather have Max the hunky alien from Roswell talk to me from my computer screen, but whatever.

"Okay." I said.

"May I know your name?"

"Sayesha."

"Hi, Sayesha. My name is jobless-on-sunday. May I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever felt as if you are crushed by the troubles of life?"

"Nope."

"No?" He tried to hide his surprise. Did not succeed.

"Don't you ever feel like you're not truly at peace with yourself?

"Nope."

"Hmmm... okay... would you say that are you happy with the way you are living your life?"

"Yupp."

"Hmmm..."

This was certainly not going as per his rehearsals. I stood there while he contemplated whether he should get to the point.

Bingo.

"Sayesha, would you like Jesus to be your saviour?"

"My what?"

"Your saviour."

"Nope."

"No??"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't need a saviour."

"Everyone needs a saviour, Sayesha."

"To save me from what?"

"From the evil that surrounds you. Perhaps you don't know it. But the saviour will take away all your sins. You will find true peace only in Him."

The only evil that was surrounding me at that point in time was the dude himself.

"I think I'm doing okay. I don't need to be saved."

"So you would not consider converting to Christianity?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Oh, the audacity!

"Would you consider converting to Hinduism?" I asked him with a straight face.

"Excuse me??"

"I said, "Would you consider converting to Hinduism? We have a lot of Gods. And they save us too. You have the bible, we have the Gita. Plus many other holy books."

Loooong silence from jobless-on-sunday.

"Well..."

"Jobless-on-sunday, I am not religious. I don't follow the rules of Hinduism. But that does not mean I will convert to another religion just because you ask me to. There's not a single reason good enough for me to convert."

Jobless-on-sunday looked confused. He handed me a pamphlet.

"Okay, why don't we do this? Perhaps you could come down to this service next sunday? Maybe that will make you change your mind. And oh, free refreshments are provided."

"I won't be there, but thank you anyway, jobless-on-sunday."

I closed the door fuming.

But of course, I wasn't done. I had some more words which I had to say in my head.

Refreshments? You wanna entice me with free refreshments? Dude, if I wanted free food, I would just take a bus and go to the langar at the gurdwara where they will smilingly serve me the yummiest free food, without asking any questions, and without even a hint of any conversion talk.

The reason why I even let you waste my time is because my religion (which is Hinduism in case you forgot or you don't care) teaches me "Atithi devo bhava" which means "Treat your guest like God."

Why were you so surprised when I suggested you convert to Hinduism instead? You looked quite taken aback. Was it because you consider my religion to be inferior to yours? Well, why don't we do this? You stick to your religion for whatever reasons you have. And I stick to mine for whatever reasons I have. You don't ask me to convert to yours and I don't ask you to convert to mine. That way, we live happily ever after. How does that sound?

And oh, if I ever wish to convert to your religion, I will come look for you.
But if you ever wish to convert to my religion, please don't come looking for me.

You wanted to 'save' me, isn't it?

Do me a favour, dude, save me from yourself.