Shobhaa’s Take: ‘Are you inviting any Muslims...?’

There’s going to be a wedding in the family next year and everybody is busy with the tedious business of organising, micro-managing, assigning, delegating and so on. At one such harrowing meeting (more a war room than a family conference), a young voice spoke up... and all of us froze. Mind you, it was a genuine and very innocent question minus any political sub-text. But what a question! Asked the beautiful young girl, “Are you inviting any Muslims to the wedding...?” I thought I hadn’t heard right. Since the question came out of nowhere, I was naturally taken off-guard. My first reaction was to burst out laughing. Yup. It was that absurd! On the other hand, the fact that it had been asked at all and with such disarming candour, made me do a double take. So is that what it has come to? Will we soon be sifting our friends and creating different categories — Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Christians... others?

Earlier in the week, I had attended another family wedding. This one had an interesting mix — Jewish-Catholic-Hindu. Invitees greeted the glowing young couple at a charming poolside reception, and nobody noticed it was an inter-faith union. The intimate registered court marriage had taken care of any awkward “compromises”, while the rest of the festivities remained joyful and religion-neutral. Guests blessed the couple, ate the cake, raised toasts, had a relaxed time, while the bride crooned a love song to her brand new husband and danced cheek-to-cheek with him. This is how it has always been in the Mumbai I grew up in. Now it looks like there’s a time bomb ticking.

The impact of the young girl’s question hit me later. She had spontaneously voiced what was uppermost in her mind. There was no agenda at all. Paradoxically, this made it far worse! Such a loaded question had never been asked before. It was simply unthinkable! But now that it is out there and has been tabled, how are we going to deal with it? I made a few weak jokes at that unexpected moment. But the question had jolted me. The more I listen to young people chatting these days, the higher my concern. Instead of religious barriers disappearing, they are getting progressively strengthened. When Vikram Seth mentioned how his Muslim and Christian friends were feeling vulnerable and “threatened” these days (during the course of our conversation at the just concluded Times Lit Fest), his impassioned remarks were heard loud and clear... but not reported.

I got home and found a young woman waiting to be interviewed for a job. I asked her the standard questions — name, address, work experience. She said, “My name is Meera.” She looked embarrassed. I could tell she was lying. Poor girl. She didn’t stand much of a chance getting a job by revealing her real name, “Meherunissa”. We can keep trying to sweep the subliminal changes taking place right under our noses, under the carpet and pretend nothing’s going on. Or we can face up to this newly-scripted narrative and decide how we want to negotiate it. I have obviously been living in some la la land and had not bothered to take off my rose tinted glasses. Or else, the young girl’s question would not have disturbed me as much.

The young have the guts to say it like it is. My generation pretends. The young can articulate today’s realities with a level of brutal honesty that’s missing in us oldies who are not such goldies. I came home and looked at the tentative list. I saw it with different eyes. Suddenly, I was looking at surnames... not at human beings who are friends. It was the first time I was forcing myself to use a filter. Till that moment, I hadn’t invested even a micro-second of my time figuring out religious categories. But since catering is involved, the only category I had focused on was the broad, standard vegetarian/non-vegetarian.

I will be attending another inter-faith wedding soon. This one is Muslim-Christian. The modalities have been worked out well in advance. The bride and groom are all set to party with their hip, cool, cosmopolitan friends — some local, some foreign. This is how it happens globally. And yet, the young girl’s question is haunting me. Should I have asked, “Are you inviting Hindus to the wedding...?” Too late for that! The invitation came months ago. I accepted instantly. These are not just my old friends, I consider them family. Not for a moment have either of us stopped to question one another’s beliefs. That’s what love and acceptance are all about. That’s what the world should be all about. It clearly isn’t! A couple of months from now, our moment of truth will arrive. Perhaps, by then, this troubling question will no longer haunt me. It will be a time to rejoice and renew faith of a different kind. A faith that goes well beyond religion and in the process becomes the most beautiful belief system in the world. It’s called love.

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