Bringing Inter-Faith Marriages On An Even Keel

Bringing Int er-Fait h M arriages On An Even Keel By BS M urthy This short story “ Love Jihad” , based on M adhuri Banerjee’s prom pt [* ] for Tim es of India’s Writ e India Init iat ive (2016), is excerpt ed from the author’s “ St ories Varied – A Book of Short Stories” , a free ebook. Syed and Gayat ri didn’t mean to fall in love. But love happens when you least expect it. It creeps up suddenly. When someone needs at t ention, care, conversat ion, laught er and m aybe intim acy. Love doesn’t look at logic or at backgrounds and least of all religion. Gayat ri w as from a very conservat ive South Indian fam ily that w ent to a t em ple every Sat urday. Syed brought goat s to his family every Eid. That said it all. Their paths w ould never have crossed if it hadn’t been for that fat eful day. That day w hen he w alked into the coffee shop. Gayat ri wondered if dest iny chose our loved ones for us. Did we have any role to play at all? She looked at her w at ch. Syed w as lat e. They met every Thursday at five pm t o cat ch up. Their conversat ion last ed for hours. Som et imes in the café, somet im es in his car, som et imes in places t hat she could never t ell her friends about . They would never underst and. And yet Syed m ade her happy. Suddenly her phone beeped. He had sent a m essage. “ On my w ay. Have som et hing import ant t o t ell you.” Gayat ri st ared at it and realized she had knot s in her stom ach. Thought s flooded her m ind. What did he w ant t o t ell her? [* ] Will he propose? Or back out ? Didn’t he say his people are highly religious? Wouldn’t t hey’ve put their foot down? She racked her brains at that , and bogged dow n by anxiet y, her mind became numb. She sank int o her seat and closed her eyes as though to cryst al gaze. Soon, unable t o cool her nerves in any w hich w ay she came of t he café and w ait ed for Syed at t he gat es. It ’s as if she w as t rying t o cut short her anxiet y. When she spot t ed his car, in tim e, she w aved at him furiously, and jum ped into it as he opened t he door for her. “ Tell me,” she said set t ling by his side. “ Let ’s first get into the café,” he said. “ Tell me here and now ,“ she insist ed. “ It ’s at half-way,” he said t ent at ively. “ Why t alk in circles!” she said exasperat ed. “ Do you mind being Ayesha t o be m y bride?” he said hesit antly. “ Why, what’s w rong w it h Gayat ri?” she said t ent at ively. “ You know how I love your nam e but ,” he began apologet ically. “ What ifs and but s of love?” she said cut t ing him short. “ Don’t think its love jihad on the sly.” “ Don’t I know you’re Syed Sikandar M irza?” “ I’m for civil m arriage but m y fat her insist s upon nikah.” “ What does t hat m ean?” “ You’ve t o convert into Islam.” “ What if I assum e that pseudonym for nikah?” she said aft er reflect ing for a while. “ I thought about it m yself but they say nikah is for the believing couple,” he said helplessly. “ So, I must becom e a M uslim t o be your w ife, right .” “ That ’s w hat t hey say.” “ What do you say?” she said looking int o his eyes. “ I’m in a dilem m a.” “ I know about you but I don’t know about Islam.” “ You know I’m not a pract icing t ype.” “ But st ill, a bit s and pieces M uslim , as I’m a bit s and pieces Hindu.” “ I can’t ’ put it any bet t er and I’m sure w e’ll rem ain t hat w ay.” “ So I believed, as Syed and Gayat ri but not as Syed and Ayesha.” “ Believe m e; it w on’t make any difference,” he said t aking her hand. “ Let m e t hink about it,” she said withdrawing her hand. As she sat beside him with eyes closed, he kept rivet ed his eyes on her in anxiet y. “ Take m e t o t he Higginbotham s,” she said at last . “ I w ant to know what Islam is all about.” “ That ’s m y Gayat ri,” he said admiringly. “ Not Ayesha, as yet ,” she said smilingly. When they reached t he bookshop, she asked him to guide her but as he expressed his ignorance about things religious, she rum maged t hrough the book shelves and picked up M armaduke Pickthall’s Holy Koran, M art in Ling’s biography of M uham mad, Roland E M iller’s M uslim Friends - Their faith and feeling, An int roduct ion to Islam and Puppet s of Faith: Theory of Communal St rife by BS M urthy. As t hough on cue, Syed follow ed suit and zeroed in on The Upanisads by Valerie J. Roebuck and Bhagvad-Git a: Treat ise of Self-help by BS M urt hy. Aft er a minor scuffle over footing t he bill, and having agreed t o make present s out of them to each other, they drove back to ‘their’ favourit e café. While they sipped t heir coffee, seeing her leaf t hrough the Quran, he saw t he irony of the scripture he him self hadn’t read held the key t o his love-life, and that amused him. When the w ait er brought the bill, showing an unusual eagerness t o move out, she said sm ilingly t hat she w ould allow him t o set t le it ‘out of turn’. Sensing her int ent to pore over t he books before all else, Syed said, in half-jest , t hat he w as jealous of her ‘bookish love’. “ Blame faith for poking it s nose into love,” she said in repart ee. “ Wish w e w ere born int o the sam e faith, what ever it is.” “ Then, inst ead of m y lover’s religious t ext s, I would be reading his love lett ers,” she said smilingly. “ You know I’m not much into reading but love seems t o have other ideas,” he said picking up his pack of books as the w ait er brought the balance am ount . “ Don’t they say love is god, let ’s see if it ’s t rue,” she said get t ing up. Having agreed upon a hiatus t ill she had a grasp of Islam, he dropped her near her Ladies’ Host el. Over t he next t wo months, reading those books she m ade not es, and having made up her mind in t he end, she called up Syed for a meet . When she set out t o the coffee shop, even as she w as conscious that she may not be as excit ed at seeing him as before, nevert heless, she w as eager to see how he w ould react upon seeing her. As t hey m et , both found each ot her in a reflect ive mood, and as they set t led down at a corner t able, she thought it fit not to beat around t he bush. “ Being a M uslim , you t end to t ake Islam for granted but it ’s natural for m e t o w eigh it on merit s,” she said pulling out her not es from her valet . “ You may know Hinduism w as in exist ence m uch before Allah revealed the st raight path t o M uham mad but now here in t he Quran is there a reference t o Hindus. That is, even as He exhort s M uslims t o be w ary of the Jew s, t he Christ ians (peoples of t he Book fallen afoul of Him) and the idolat ers; don’t t ell m e the idolaters Allah m eant in t he Quran w ere Hindus for in the cont ext of M uham mad’s life and times, they w ere M eccans w ho w orshiped idols at Kaba. It’s evident that what Allah had revealed t o your prophet w as m eant for the idolat rous Arabs of t hat t ime, m ore or less on t he sam e lines of the Torah and the Gospel that He earlier gave t o the Jew s and t he Christians. And t hat too w as in the nearby land. If you gaze at Islam through the Hindu prism, it would not seem a universal religion but somet hing like a Shaivism or a Vaishnavism , both cult s of Hinduism . Surely, Quran’s sect arianism precludes Islam to be labeled a world religion (she read from her not es) “ O ye w ho believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He am ong you who t aket h them for friends is (one) of them . Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.” “ They long that ye should disbelieve even as t hey disbelieve, t hat ye m ay be upon a level (w ith them). So choose not friends from t hem till they forsake t heir homes in the w ay of Allah; if they t urn back (to enmit y) t hen take t hem and kill t hem wherever ye find t hem, and choose no friend nor helper from am ong t hem .” “ I suppose, there can’t be any int ellect ual disagreem ent over it ,” he said overw helm ed. “ I’m glad you’ve agreed; had you differed, I couldn’t have fault ed,” she said and continued. “ You m ay know that Hindus proclaim Lord Rama as m aryada purushot t ama, an ideal m an, and leave it at that but I underst and that M uslim m en not only consider M uhamm ad an exem plary man but also st rive to em ulat e him. And from w oman’s point of view that bothers m e. Rama w as not only monogamous but also vouched by t he sanctit y of marriage but M uhamm ad, besides being polygam ous w as not w edded t o t he idea of m arriage. His dalliance w ith M ariyah in spit e of a dozen living wives, including Ayesha the young t hing, is illust rat ive of that .” “ No denying it from a w oman’s POV,” he said admiringly. “ That ’s not all,” she continued spirit edly, “ m y dharm a and cult ure, never m ind the aberrat ions, grant women social freedom s t hat I’ve com e t o enjoy. What’s m ore, the Hindu winds of social change are going t o pickup by the year. But with burka and all, same is not t he case with Islam , and what’s worse, Salafism is at pushing the um ma int o medieval Islamic t imes. Who knows, once I convert , if I’m compelled t o move in t he t ent of a burka, where I w ould go then? Besides, my M uslim daught er w ould be a poor cousin of her otherw ise Hindu sibling. Don’t I ow e modernit y to my post erit y?” “ Of course, w e do,” he said. “ So, you’re agreeing t o disagree.” “ No, I’ve disagreed t o agree w it h my religion,” he said smilingly, and continued in a serious t one. “ I w as st ruck by what I’ve read in Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad and by heart ed som e of t he same, ‘since m an creat ed gods w ho are bet ter t han he: and also because, being mort al, he creat ed im mort als, it is his higher creat ion. Whoever know s t his, com es t o be in this, his higher creation’. Aft er complet ing The Upanisads and Bhagvad-Git a, as I began reading the books you w ere reading, I could see m y prophet in a new light and the Koran in it s t rue cont ext . Now I see Islam as an Arabic sect arian cult but not an egalit arian religion of t he world, and that m ade m e help m y family t o shed much of their M uslim overburden.” “ So,” she said. “ Gayat ri w eds Syed,” he said ext ending his hand. “ If Islam is another ‘ism ’ of Hinduism in our sw eet hom e,” she said holding back her hand. “ Imbibing the ideals of maryada purushot tama ,” he said t aking her hand. “ And t hat w ill be our love jihad,” she said pressing his hand.