I am scared of flying. You would know this if you ever sat next to me on an airplane. So what do I do when I am flying, scared and almost always in a state of nearly passing out? I pray to god.

Yes, I do pray. I ask god to keep me safe and help me land safely. Every time the plane shakes or jolts, I remember god. But I am selfish, I only think of God when I am scared, when things are beyond my control, when things don’t go as planned. I am human. I don’t know better.

If things go wrong or if I want something that has a slim chance of happening, I think of god. I am sure that is the norm for many of us. I was taught since childhood that there is a supernatural power above us called god who controls everything and is in charge of making things right. So when I am on auto-pilot—I think of god for everything beyond my control.

Wrong number

I recently watched the Aamir Khan-starrer movie PK. The film has stirred India as it raises many questions about dharma and god. I loved the movie. I laughed throughout (despite my five-year-old sitting next to me totally indifferent to what was happening in the theatre and only concerned with her coke), because the movie made sense. I realised how foolish we are. We are actually dialing the wrong number. Had we been dialing the right number, just as the movie shows, all our wishes and prayers would have been answered, literally. It indeed would, I say to myself. Because I do not know any better.

Our foolishness is beyond our understanding. We follow religious procedures blindly and the astrologers laugh away with big bucks. I know we have been fooled but I continue visiting many temples and hanging on to every word the astrologer utters. I also know what they are about to say. Each one starts with, “You are generous. You hurt easily. You are always ready to help but you don’t get anything in return. You have a kind heart.” Excuse me, who does not have a kind heart? All of us strive to be better humans, we meet the wrong person at the wrong time and we judge that person to be ‘bad’. But we are humans and we try. So deep down each individual knows who they are and when the astrologer strikes these characteristics and compares them to ours, we accept it whole-heartedly. We are satisfied with the words we hear, we believe, and we pay up—big time.

Fear of the unknown

Recently, one of the astrologers told us to perform a puja because our stars were not aligned and the puja would make it better. Much to my dismay, I ended up going through the process, afraid of the ‘unknown’. Several thousand rupees and an anguishing ritual later, I am here not much better than yesterday. What made me pay for the puja when I knew that it was bogus deep down? It was the fear of ‘unknown’. The unknown baffles us humans and leads us to god. Everyone uses the fear of the unknown—astrologers, insurance companies, and even the government. I think we want to hold someone responsible for our actions, and who better than god?

The movie PK’s message is nothing new. It just questions our blind faith on the bogus religious practices we follow. I did not change after the movie, nothing can shake my belief, but that is also because I do not practice Hinduism, I only follow it foolishly. I will continue calling on god to help me, protect me, and answer my prayers because this is what I know and also because I am a frequent flyer.

Giri Bohara is Communications Coordinator at Save the Children