Camouflage

Posting this in the wake of the Tablighi Jamaat incidents might not be the best timing but these are my views nonetheless.

Camouflage. Say the word and olive-beige army outfits blending imperceptibly with the verdant forests are perhaps the first things that spring to our mind. Or perhaps a chameleon balancing precariously on a stem waiting to prey on a fly. Or perhaps us, suppressing our innate desires and personalities to blend in and conform to the socially acceptable and exalted ideals of what is normal and praiseworthy. Ouch, weren’t prepared for that, were you?

On the large imaginary spectrum of things, if camouflage sits on one end, then its polar opposite is being distinct, unique, and plainly evident. To put it proverbially, ‘sticking out like a sore thumb’ might be the closest antonym of camouflage. For instance, a first-year female student bringing a motorcycle to college. Or finding a lacy lingerie section in a burqa store. Or perhaps getting a 10 CGPA in tenth grade and not opting for science. None of these things are wrong in any sense of way. It’s just that our arrogant, normalcy loving brains find it immensely hard to digest anything that attempts to break the status quo.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

While the principles of conformity and the hardships of adopting a rebel state of mind are universal phenomena applicable to all things in life, recently I had the rare chance of experiencing camouflage and ‘sticking out like a sore thumb’ in a not-so-obvious scenario: one that showed me the true state of religious tolerance in the nation. No, it did not involve bloody violence or acts of straight-up belligerence towards any community. Disappointed? Yeah I know; instigating videos of men tearing down religious symbols perched atop mosques and the cacophony of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants on the streets make for much more exciting things to share on social media.

Anyway, coming back to my experience. Every couple of months, college students engage in the much-awaited and planned for pilgrimage fondly referred to as ‘Ghar Wapsi.’ In my case, this pilgrimage involves a relatively brief six-hour train journey from Varanasi to Lucknow. Yes, Mumbaikars and Southern boys, I can see you scoffing and rolling your eyes from here. Never mind, remember the stories our parents told us about walking 50 miles through rivers to reach school? At least you’ll have something similar to tell your little ones.

This journey, a few days before Holi, was like any other I had undertaken previously. An AC 3-Tier confirmed reservation to keep my expenditure in check, a Side Upper berth to keep intrusive uncle-aunty conversations in check. With these two things sorted, I went ahead with my usual train routine of cycling through hastily downloaded movies and TV shows on my iPad, listening to offline playlists on Spotify and managing to squeeze in a few hours of sleep while being jolted in my berth like aunties using slim sauna belts in the 2000s.

No matter where you are traveling to, towards the end of a journey, the train is bound to stop for no good reason at an imaginary position in space and time, commonly called the ‘Outer’. This place doesn’t exist on maps, and time slows down once you’re here. This is the place where Dementors entered the Hogwarts express and sucked the daylights out of Harry. Like all normal trains, my on-time train thought it wise to waste an hour or so to loiter around the outer. Anyone who has traveled in a train would perhaps agree that during this last half hour of the journey, you can do anything you want as long as it involves being restless to get off the damned locomotive. So I too unplugged my earphones and sat up in my Side Upper for the first time in six hours. My on-the-cusp-of-proper-adulthood neck and back responded with audible creaks and cracks, and my pupils contracted, blushing lazily at the sudden influx of light. I looked around at my co-travelers with whom I had traversed more than 300 kilometers.

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Two bodies, draped in white bed sheets, akin to those being blazed back at Manikarnika Ghat, were sleeping peacefully on the upper berths. Sitting below them were four people. The first was a typical middle-aged man, the kind who peers at WhatsApp on his phone through glasses resting at the tip of his nose and would gladly debate politics and praise Modi Ji all day over cups of chai and pakoras given a chance. The other three, as it turned out, belonged to a family: a Muslim woman, along with two young sons, no more than ten years old each. No, she didn’t look an ounce like the image you conjured in your mind, she wasn’t wearing a burqa or saying inshallah every couple of minutes as movies typically portray. She was a normal human being with two adorable little kids who kept referring to her as ‘Ammi’ : the only giveaway of their religious identity. So these were the sources of the sounds that kept interrupting Akshay Kumar while I was watching Special 26. Ah children, such delightful menaces.

Like any other family, here too, the kids were talking more than enough to suffice for the taciturnity of the parent, and the mother basked in the innocence of her little ones. The kids wanted a new flavor of biscuits every time the hawker passed by, they too were annoyed by the train stopping at the outer and exclaimed: “Ammi, Lucknow aa gaya kya?” “Banaras wapis chalte hai” while messing around with each other and racing each other up and down the berth ladders. The mother too let them be on their own. Suddenly the younger of the two who had been engrossed on the phone for a while burst out: “Arre Ammi dekho seven fifty-six ho gaya. Aaj hum namaz padhna bhul gaye”.

The lady was suddenly shaken out of her indolence and became conscious. “Abdul chupchap idhar aake baith jaao.” Abdul ignored her and continued fiddling with the phone. WhatsApp uncle looked up, giggled weirdly at the lady, and then resumed forwarding messages.

Finally, the train managed to escape from the Outer’s pull and began crawling towards Charbagh station.

Somewhere along the way, Abdul lost interest in his phone and began looking for Lucknow, peering outside the window.

“Amir Bhai dekho, Masjid!”

Shrieked Abdul, pointing towards a mosque in the distance. Amir, the elder of the two, joined him, both pressing their noses against the glass.

“Allah hu Akbar!”

Abdul’s high pitched squeal resonated throughout the carriage as he raised his arms in prayer. I might be wrong, but I felt as if one of the dead bodies on the upper berths twitched in its sleep.

Much to his surprise, Amir Bhai didn’t join him in prayer. He sat there, frozen shooting nervous glances at his Ammi. Apparently, he was old enough to understand the crime his brother had committed.

“Abdul shant baitho idhar. Bahut shaitaan ho gaye ho!”

The mother rebuked her child as she lifted him from the window and sat him down beside her. Abdul, however, wasn’t old enough to understand why praising the lord likened him to the shaitan, or demon in Urdu.

Once Abdul’s mind had drifted away to things an adult mind was incapable of comprehending, his mother looked around to see the damage her child had done. This time WhatsApp uncle pretended he didn’t notice what had happened, but our bodies often speak more than our mouths do. She looked at me as well. I, unsure of what to do, smiled back at her, shifting my gaze in turn to Abdul and Amir. The kids smiled back.

I shook hands with young Abdul and Amir on my way out of the train (these were pre-corona fear days). Abdul asked me why did I have an Indian flag sticker on my suitcase? Did I live in India? To this Amir explained to him we all live in India, and Banaras is just one of the many cities within it.

On my Ola ride back home, I realized for the first time in my twenty years of existence what not being a Hindu felt like in India. Hindus go about their lives shouting “Haaye Ram,” “Ram-Ram,” “Bhagwaan Daya Karo” countless times each day, and no-one bats an eyelid. For the first time I understood the privilege of being in the majority.

Quite fortuitously, I got to become a part of a minority soon enough, although briefly. My parents, devoutly religious people, take polytheism to the next level. Their religious inclinations pan religions and plans were made to visit the Dewa Sharif Dargah, 25 kilometres from Lucknow on the day of Holi. Despite Corona fears, Holi drenched Lucknow was full of coloured people on the streets. Not a speck of clean clothing to be seen anywhere.

Dewa was a different place altogether, though. Families were parading on the streets in their finest clothes. Droves of people in sparkling kurtas, porcelain-white skullcaps, jet-black burqas, neatly ironed suits marched towards the shrine. So what if they didn’t celebrate the festival, it was a festival nonetheless.

It seemed as if I was in the middle of a Haj procession. Our car waded through a sea of devotees who were in no mood to give way to anyone unwilling to work his feet to reach the shrine. After parking the car in a makeshift car park, we stepped out into the sea of devotees.

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Biology and psychology teach us that our brains make great attempts to link together places, memories, and experiences with certain stimuli such as color, fragrances, touch, sounds, and tastes. Well, my brain is no different. Though it knew it had arrived at a religious place of worship, it struggled to connect the dots without orange pixels in sight. Everything of significance appeared green for miles around. The overload of green was further assisted by the azaan sound that had replaced the Hanuman Chalisa in the sonic waves. Couple that with novel fragrances and I was in for a sensory overload. Not that these were annoying or bothersome in any way. It’s just that our brains crave to be camouflaged in familiar environments and associate things, sounds, and colors with ideologies. Seeing and feeling anything out of the blue (or orange in this case) pokes the brain in places it doesn’t like to be poked.

Soon though, I started seeing certain parallels as well. The red ‘Mata ki Chunni’ was replaced with a green ‘Baba ki Chaadar’. The incense sticks stayed more or less the same. Sweets were purchased here as well. Having decked ourselves with offerings that supposedly make the almighty happy, we ventured inwards towards the shrine. Making my way through the crowd, I felt my Red checkered shirt and deep blue jeans strangely out of place amongst the purity of the white and black outfits others had donned. My incongruity was accentuated by my naked head, which my parents quickly covered with a handkerchief.

Once inside the shrine, my hands instinctively reached out for each other and settled in the familiar ‘namaste’ pose. Seeing others, however, my brain automatically sent signals, and in one swift motion, my Namaskar had turned into an open cupped hands pose. Anyone who must have been observing me must have seen more of an anxious fielder waiting to catch a ball than a devotee offering his prayers to Allah, as I spent the next few seconds adjusting the curvature and diameter of the imaginary bowl my hands had made to blend in with the others. I handed over the Chaadar and other offerings to the Imam, and he motioned for me to bend over. Unsure of what to do, I saw what others were doing and then clumsily placed my head on the elevated platform.

Soon I was outside, marvelling at the splendid architecture and observing how these supposedly different humans engaged in their version of religious worship. Here too, holy threads of mannat were being tied on windows. Here too, community meals were being prepared to be distributed amongst the pilgrims. Here too, countless beggars lined the streets outside the shrine complex. Here too, families were bringing their youngest to pray, hardwiring into their brains their protocols and algorithms of pleasing the Lord. Here too, there was no evidence that the divine force all were praying to ever existed. Yet here too, thousands of broken souls were lining up, sharing their sadness with someone they have never seen in anticipation of forgiveness and catharsis.

This wasn’t my first visit to a non-Hindu religious site. Yet, the train incident, coupled with this visit, made me realize that while we preach secularity and diversity, our actions might not often reflect the same. It’s one thing to call ourselves tolerant while sitting at our homes and sharing posts on social media. Ensuring that others are comfortable in our presence, irrespective of their social identities is another. History has brought us to a point in time where it is pointless to attempt to erase the lines that separate us into different religions. Instead, accepting that we all are chasing the same things in life, just on different paths and routes, seems to me a wiser way of living life. Call it acceptance over assertion. Celebrating a constitution that guarantees equal rights to Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians alike is just half the battle won. The other half is way more difficult. It involves creating an environment where cities aren’t segregated into Hindu areas and Muslim areas. It involves creating an environment where public mentions of Allah are met with the same indifference as mentions of Ram are. It involves creating an environment where minorities are just lesser in number, not in their participation and freedom. It involves creating a nation where Abdul and his mother can feel camouflaged with Satyam and WhatsApp Uncle in a train, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb.

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