Take Two

An Atheist’s Prayer

Madhavankutty Pillai | 30 Sep, 2012

Dear God, on this day and week, bless yourself with civic sense

Of all the festivals which insist on making you a participant even if you are an atheist, Ganesha Chaturthi is the most annoying if you are in Mumbai. (Though even in far off places like Kerala, which has little connect with this god, Malayalees are now joining the queue to drown him.) The festival goes on and on, for 10 days and sometimes more in some places. Streets disappear into pandals erected by the local mafia. The noise is impossibly scratchy and earth-shatteringly loud. And like all revelries, it is only cute for those who are part of it.

To anyone who says that we should be sensitive about religious sensitivities, the answer is, ‘When did we ever have a choice?’ Religious faith can be explained but this is still absurd. What sense does it make to stand in a queue for six hours to look at a Plaster of Paris sculpture that came out of a mould? Religion is superstition amplified and organised. The predicament of the human condition is that there is no route out of it. It is an evolutionary thing, a leftover from the time the brain wanted an illusion of control in a chaotic world. There are still bits of proteins inside your head forcing you to believe in gods and holy books. Even so, man has a choice to not be blind. In a sensible world, faith would be use-according-to-convenience. Like pain killers, when you sprain an ankle. Instead, if you keep popping pain killers daily, expecting that your ankle will never sprain, it’s textbook delusion.

Gods, even if they don’t exist, belong in a deep corner of the home and not on the street blocking traffic. But they will continue to be there because faith must co-opt. It is dependent on that fuel. All alone, you are a madman if you worship a tree. A thousand people, and you have a cult. A million, and you have a religion. If your numbers don’t keep increasing, divinity will wither away. Augustus, the great Roman emperor, was so great that after his death Rome made him a god. When the Roman Empire died, God Augustus also died. Millions of gods have likewise died. For a god to be immortal, he must be regularly on the streets canvassing.