Life, or something close to it.

"Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't be all poor. Pray some day a kid can eat." - John Steinbeck (The Grapes Of Wrath)
It was unusually cool for a June evening in Dhaka. An indication perhaps of the approaching monsoon but most definitely a welcome respite from the cruelty of the sun and the heartlessness of the humidity, that Dhaka is cursed with. A breeze, cool and calm, gently blew and whispered a reminder of how wonderful Dhaka can be. But Suman wasn’t listening. His biggest problems with his city wasn’t the heat or the humidity (though it wouldn’t be bad if Dhaka was this way always), and a breeze, no matter how wonderful or amazing it was, wouldn’t even come close to making Suman forgive this merciless land he was unfortunately born in. Though, there were times when his anger wasn’t just because he was born in a unforgiving land but because he was born at all.
She is cruel. She is unforgiving. She is a city of segregation. A city of chasms. A city where the rich are ridiculously prosperous and the poor staggeringly abject. She is unjust. And for all her cruelty, her deceptions, her betrayals, and her discriminations she offers a breeze as an apology? No, that will not do. Suman, would never forgive her. He was the forgotten son. He hated her. And as he walked, in this cool calming breeze, he looked at the lights the lit up the night. Not stars but wedding decorations, fluorescent declarations of the rich peoples’ opulence. Thousands after thousands spent on useless light bulbs while people like him struggled to survive on hundreds and tens. A lot more than what they need for some, a lot less than what they need for many. She is diabolical, this little speck of a city. Heartless and spiteful. She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. But perhaps she doesn’t even care.
Suman needed his walk. This was his respite from the arguments that inevitably happened every night. The same story every night, the same reason every night. Money. Money for food, for clothes, for electricity. Money for survival. Everything depended on money now. Happiness, love, life… everything. And he didn’t have enough. That was why it was strange that when he found a thousand taka note lying in the streets he didn’t just pick it up and walk away, but instead looked ahead at the rich bastard who’d dropped it. He didn’t walk up and give to him right away. What good would that have done? He would’ve taken it, uttered a simple thank you and then spent it on something extravagant, something useless. No, Suman waited. He waited to let the whirlwind of thoughts in his head to settle down.
A thousand taka was a lot of money to him. It was disposable income to the rich man. What would he do with it? Spend it on a single meal in some high priced restaurant; buy himself something he didn’t really need, lose it in a game of cards? No he didn’t need it but Suman did. He could do a lot with that single piece of paper. A hungry child waited at home. A sick wife, an old mother. He needed it bad. But it wasn’t his. Would it be right to just take away someone else’s money and keep it as his own? Ah, conscience. When Dhaka was taking away his fortune, his happiness, his everything couldn’t she have taken away this unwanted ‘quality’ that plagued his heart. If only he didn’t have to hear the nagging voice that told him to do the right thing. But what was the right thing? Was it right to let his family starve just so that he could have the satisfaction of being an honest poor man? Was it not right that he would willingly carry the burden of knowledge of his misdeeds, that he would forget the boundaries of his ethics and risk being scarred forever just to see his family happy for a few days? Suman knew what was right. The conventional teachings that have been drilled into our souls from the day we were born are very hard to ignore. All of this was just an attempt to deceive himself.
So, if he were to return the thousand bucks and feel good on having done the right thing, but with full knowledge that his wife and kid in home are miserable didn’t that also make him selfish? Conscience didn’t care. There were no grey areas for conscience, everything was black and white. You either do right or you do wrong. It never was and never would be of any help.
He wondered if the problem lay in the magnitude of the crime. Because every crime in the world is judged in magnitude. Steal ten bucks, nobody cares, steal a million its unforgivable. It all depends on how it affects the victim. Kill a man, you’re a murderer, kill a bad man you’re a hero, kill a monster you’re a God. Nobody cares that fundamentally these are all murders. Every crime has a criteria, an unspoken guideline on which one could judge if it was right or wrong. A crime wasn’t automatically immoral, its immorality awaited analysis. Therefore had it been little, he wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do with it. He would have given or he would’ve kept it, either way it wouldn’t have bothered him much. Had it been a lot more, he would have immediately walked up and handed it over. Yes, that’s what he would have done. That is exactly what he would have done. But a thousand taka note lay right in the middle of the two. It wasn’t small enough that it would do nothing to change his fortune and it wasn’t great enough that it would make the rich man notice twice.
He wondered if his indecisiveness was religious, that whether this was a test from God. If God wanted to see whether his son would follow what he had always been taught through his many messengers on earth. Or, if this was finally God’s way of saying that he hadn’t forgotten him. That even if he was poor and insignificant in everybody else’s eyes, God remembered him and that God loved him. And this thousand taka note was just a small gesture to help ease his sorrows. Even Suman didn’t believe that though he desperately wanted to. It would’ve made everything easier. But God wasn’t merciful and God wasn’t helpful when you needed him. He wouldn’t suddenly send a reminder of his love. He had had plenty of opportunities in the past to do something. He hadn’t. He’d refused every single time. When his daughter was dying of pneumonia, when his child had to go hungry for three days, when his wife had to wear the same dress for seven months, he’d kept quiet and put forward every difficult scenario as a test. God wasn’t kind. If this turn of events was God’s doing, it was definitely a test. And the only way to pass was to walk to the rich man and hand the money over. Suman, wondered if God ever tested the rich men. Why were they so fortuitous, why didn’t God need to see if they were fulfilling his orders? It couldn’t be that all the rich men were impeccable in their religious duties. So why was it they received all the happiness in the world. Why was it that they kept getting richer? Why was it that they dropped thousand taka notes on the streets and not even notice it? Why wasn’t there the just world reflecting the image of our just God? Why God? Why?
The thoughts wouldn’t stop. He needed a cigarette. He started walking. A small shop lay ahead and standing beside the shop was the rich man. He didn’t know what he was about to do. His conscience was screaming out loud for him to do the right thing. He bought a cigarette turned towards the rich man and asked him for a light. With the cigarette tightly held in his right hand and his left hand in his pocket playing with the thousand taka note he walked off into the cool Dhaka night. The poor can’t afford to have a conscience.

"When I was a younger man, I wondered why I chose atheism. My parents were religious, you would've liked them. They wouldn’t be proud of me now, at least not of my religious views. They taught me all things come from God and all we do should be in praise of him, which quite frankly seems unfair. I mean I want to get something for myself out of my life. But under their shadow I experienced many religious practices, that didn’t seem right to me to be honest. Some of it was even ridiculous but I wasn’t allowed to question. No one was, not even my parents. It was a cultural heritage that had been continually passed on from generation to generation and I guess it was my generation’s turn next. So year after year, I followed what I was expected to follow and did what I was expected to do. No stray steps, no sacrilegious queries. Back then, what my father said was final and what my mother said was infinitely wise and I was a little ignorant idiot who understood the foolishness of his inquiries. Hence, I kept quiet like I was expected to.
But slowly the reach of my parents shadow began to weaken and I began to explore the world little by little. And let me tell you the world is a vile and disgusting place. It’s not like your church with a clean garden and a paved road to the gate. No sir. If I knew what the world was and is, I would’ve declined the offer to be born. Things happened that made me question the existence of the Almighty. And when I was a confirmed atheist I came to a conclusion there were two reasons why I left the holy path.
I don’t want to label it the main reason, so I’ll say the first of the two reasons was: my life started becoming a miserable and deplorable affair. I flirted with depression, well not flirted, to be more precise I fell in head over heels with depression. Every day was every day. I didn’t know what day of the week it was because I didn’t need to, they were all the same. What I did the day before would be the same thing I was doing today and the thing I was doing today, I would be doing the same thing tomorrow. I was alone, desolate and seriously wronged. I mean I felt I was wronged. This wasn’t the life I deserved. This wasn’t the life anyone deserved. It felt like I was being punished when I had done no wrong, at least nothing wrong enough to deserve what I got. But then I looked around, there were so many of us, living the same life with the same complaints. And it couldn’t be that this was the big plan God had for all of us. This couldn’t have been my destiny, to rot in a meaningless existence, doing things no one else cared for, decaying more and more as each day passed by. God didn’t answer my prayers. He left me stranded when I had no one but him. No one can be that cruel. And when I asked people who were supposed to know things, they said, God works in mysterious ways. My life made no sense, I was trying to find reasons to continue living, I was looking for some answers, a hope to hold on to, something, anything. Anything at all and they said, God works in mysterious ways. The best that they could come up with to help me save my life was GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS. Well, I guess at that point I had an epiphany of sorts. If God had forgotten about me it shouldn’t bother him much if I forgot about him and so I did.
It wasn’t the unexplainable wrongs that were happening in the world that caused my deviation. I knew about Hitler from the time I was little. It didn’t seem to bother me that God gave life to such a person when my life was good. Floods, fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes everything was happening long before I became an atheist. And though it seem absurd that God would allow such things to happen, I didn’t really look much into it because He was kind enough not to include me in any of those. Everything the religious people said seemed plausible to me. Had someone asked me why God would allow such things to happen, perhaps even I would’ve answered, God works in mysterious ways. I didn’t become a nonbeliever because of the unfair human suffering the world had to go through. No, they were just points that I could throw at people in an argument about religion. I didn’t care too much about the six million Jews Hitler killed. I agree it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, but I only came to know about it after watching a movie. I mean, in the Bible God kills the entire population of the earth except one human family and a few animals. If God is capable of such barbarism, it wasn’t hard to see why Hitler got his life. But once my life took a turn for the worse, everything changed. God became an imposter. It’s strange really, it didn’t bother me much when six million lives were allowed to perish without reason but when my life, a single soon-to-be useless existence, became a tad difficult, everything about God became a lie. I know it’s a selfish approach but…… well I really can’t find something to say to make that sound a bit more acceptable.
My questions didn’t go away though. And since God wasn’t answering I had to look elsewhere. So I began to read, searching for my answers in books. There I found the second reason for my atheism. There were so many things religion couldn’t answer that books could. I read in a book the most amazing questions. It asked, if our children commit the most heinous crimes, unforgivable and inexcusable, will we have the heart to punish them by sending them to a place that uses the most gruesome torture methods imaginable? Is it possible for a father to do such a thing to his child? So, how can God, whom we decree: our kind and generous Almighty Father, send us, his children, to burn in the fires of hell, not for a day or a year, but for eternity. Here on God’s green earth we make a big issue if a father lays a hind in his son, but God has the ruthlessness to condemn his children to hell? Doesn’t seem right.
Books made me see this life is mine and I should do what I wish with it. I have to admit I didn’t do much but I did what I wanted to do, mostly. Though many disapproved, I lived my life, not the way God intended but the way I did and I think it’s acceptable since it is my life. There were so many answers and so many more questions. And slowly, my conviction that I had chosen the right way became more and more strong. I mean we used to believe child birth was a blessing from God not too long ago. We used to burn witches, we used to use shamans to cure diseases. We did so many things because we believed it was what God wanted us to do. Even now, all terrorists believe that what they are doing is God’s work. We can’t even figure out which God is the right God. If Christianity is the correct religion and if the Christian God does exist, then will the Muslims and the Hindus and the people following other religions suffer the same fate as an atheist? Will they burn in hell too? And the people that have never been and will never be exposed Christianity, the people in the small villages of a Muslim nation, are they already condemned without having been given a chance? That doesn’t seem like the workings of a fair God. There are so many things religion can’t answer. The more I read, the more I came to realize there is one rational answer that satisfies all queries and it is the lack of God’s existence. If we were to believe that God doesn’t exist, then everything becomes explainable. The reason behind Hitler would be that bad people exist, they always have they always will. The reason behind terrorism would be people take advantage of blind beliefs to get their dirty work done. Everything would then become simple. Everything would have a rational reason. There would be consequences, I know. Dostoevsky said, ‘If there is no God, everything is permitted.’ I guess the idea of God is necessary to keep certain factions of our society in line. It seems we believe that human nature is inherently inclined to depravity and is in the need of a system that will keep things in check. We have lost faith in ourselves but not in a supernatural being. Religion asked from me something I couldn’t give. A blind and unquestioning faith. If I am to believe in something to save my life and salvage my soul, I will need some proper convincing and religion just didn’t offer that. All my questions remained ignored, they were blasphemies not to be touched. So, religion didn't work to well with me. And unable to fulfill their criteria of unquestioning faith, I became an atheist.
But now lying in my death bed, I have begun to feel apprehensive about the idea of hell. I mean, I don’t want to burn in hell because I was too stubborn to relinquish my atheist beliefs. What if I’m wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong. So, I have a proposal to you mister priest. I have amassed quite a tidy sum over the years. And since I’m about to die, I don’t really have much work for it. I’ve decided to donate it all to your church’s orphanage. But in return I want complete forgiveness for all my sins and I want you to tell me that I will not go to hell. I know you need the money. I’ve been to the orphanage and it is not in a pretty condition. And before you accuse me some devious insinuation let me clear out the air by saying yes, this is me taking advantage of your situation. But you have to look at things from my side. I had to choose between making you feel guilty or burning in hell. The choice was pretty obvious for me. Isn’t it good enough that I’m offering all my money to charity or does it have to be that, it should be a sincere I-hope-for-nothing-in-return kind of offer? You can give the children the best meals of their lives tomorrow if you give me my ticket to heaven. So are you willing to offer me my salvation to feed your poor children? It’s your choice. If you say no, you have a clear conscience and the children stay the way they always were, I get another priest, no hard feelings. If you say yes, the children are happy, you get to be the good priest and get a peaceful death. I still can't let go of my atheist beliefs but if God does exist, I just want to have an argumentative point to offer when I have to explain why I deserve to be in heaven. Don’t you think God will be willing to overlook this small transaction to give you the means to feed all those hungry children? He surely won’t punish you for such a trifle misdemeanor when it results in such great happiness. Will he? Well you understand God better than me. It’s all up to you. So what’s it going to be?”

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
- An excerpt from The Walrus and The Carpenter by Lewis Caroll


When times are harsh and the days are bad, it doesn't take much time for them to get worse. This seems to be the inevitable protocol of bad luck, bad times lead, without fail, to worse times. There is no reprieve, no concession but a constant order of inescapable misery that keep piling up till even a hazy ray of light seems to be as bright as the sun, and we confuse a sliver of hope to be the answer to our prayers, God has finally remembered us. We offer our thanks, we offer our praise. We never wonder why he always lets us go through all that suffering for so long. Can we dare ask what was he waiting for? No, by then our strength to question has been replaced by a willingness to feel grateful to anyone or anything that’ll throw the dog a bone. An angel of god, he'll be to us and we'll be his debtors, his slaves. And god will feel good about himself on having helped an insignificant little man, and we’ll be thankful to our true savior for rescuing us. But what of all the agony we endured, what of the eternity of unanswered prayers, of unjust punishment. ‘Them? Well they’re all in the past. What you need to do is look ahead.” We’ll agree. We’ll keep quiet. We’ll follow.

The fisherman knew about this. Knew about it through experience. Years and years of unwanted experience. Seven years ago, he didn’t catch a single fish for 23 days. He stopped praying on the 24th day. He didn’t catch a fish for another 12 days. When he finally had a decent outing on the 37th day, he wasn't grateful to anyone, he didn’t thank anyone. He ate. Weeks of living off borrowed money, saving every penny, eating only when absolutely necessary had left him hungry. So he ate. If there was someone he should to thank when things are going right, he had every right to blame this entity when things aren’t going well. Since, he had decided not to blame anyone for all the misery he had to go through, he would not thank anyone for his happiness. If he had to go through all his pain alone, he would enjoy every bit of his pleasure alone. He would definitely not share his fish.

Days had just turned worse again. He still liked to say days were just bad, not because he was an optimist but because he knew there was whole level of worse still encroaching. Years and years of unwanted experience. The glass is never half full. It had been two weeks since he had caught anything significant. Today, all that might change. Though he didn’t pray for good luck or divine blessing, he still hoped.

He was out in the sea before the break of dawn. His small boat gently swaying with the waves. He rowed to a calmer area, with his rope already cast, he waited. The hours passed by. The sun was vengeful, with all its fury concentrated on the small boat out in the sea. He took a gulp of water, careful not to drink too much. Time kept moving on. 'This used to be a good spot', he thought, 'have I grown too old? Can’t I tell where I can catch a fish and where I can’t? Is this what it has come to? How can I call myself a fisherman anymore?' The water was almost over. This was the ultimate joke, he thought. There was water as far as he could see, but it was as if he were stranded in a desert. There were so many things he could’ve done in life, but…. It was about time he headed back. 'Two weeks and a day', he thought. Then he felt a tug, but it wasn’t just a tug, it was a pull and a strong pull at that. And in that moment he felt true happiness, there was no past, no future, no God, no Devil, no Right, no Wrong. For that moment, life was now, there was no other time no other place. The world shrunk to him, his boat and the fish. He pulled, the fished pulled back, he pulled harder. One pull at a time, slowly he won the battle. He was a man, adept at his job, the fish was just a fish.

It was a big fish, would get him a good price at the market. Should he wait? There may be another one to be caught. But it was getting dark, and with no water things might turn ugly. He will have to head back he decided and hope tomorrow is just as good as today, or maybe even better. He smiled, let’s not get carried away.

'Please let me go.' he heard. There was nobody around, except him and the fish. Was that the wind? It sounded very clear to be the wind. Was he going insane? Slowly the fish opened its mouth again, 'Please, let me go' it said. 'I have a family.' the fisherman kept quiet, it wasn’t the wind. The fish pleaded again. 'I won’t' he said, not I can't, but I won’t. Because he could, all he had to do was, catch it and throw it back, but he wouldn’t. 'I will not, throw away what I’ve caught. Regardless of whether you are actually talking or just a hallucination. You have a family you say, so did every other fish I’ve caught, if I let you go and feel good that I sacrificed my stomach for a life I will have to endure the guilt of the hundreds of lives I didn’t save. And I feel no guilt, you are like every one of them, by which I do not condemn you but praise them. And I will do what I want to, not because it’s an obligation but because it’s a choice. Even now, when my life seems desperate, I still have a choice. I have survived two weeks on failed expeditions another day will not make a difference. But I choose not to. I choose to, to put it honestly, kill you so I can survive in my terms. I will not patronize you and tell you how sorry I am, because I am not. I feel no guilt or sorrow in having to do what I do. Because what I do is not wrong. You might think it is, you might I am a monster but that is irrelevant. I know what I am and what I do. If I feel sorry for taking your life, I will in essence condemn my entire existence. What I do is not wrong and I am not sorry. I am a fisherman, this is what I do. You're having a bad day. And when days are going bad, it doesn't long for it to turn worse. I know through experience.'
“But I have done you no wrong. Is your need for a few pennies of more value than my existence? Isn’t my life worth more than you being able to afford a good meal.” the fish pleaded.

“No, you have done me no wrong. But this is not your punishment. I do not intend to kill you because you deserve it for your sins. I am not here to issue judgment, no I am here to fish. Me killing you is not about you, it’s about me. This is what I do. Your life is not more valuable than a good meal, not to me, not to all those who will bargain with all their might to get a piece of you. You may disagree, but we have our own perspectives. What you think is the greatest blasphemy, it is for me a daily routine.”

“Have you no mercy?”

“No. Not when I am asked to think that my life’s work is a business entangled in cruel murder, not when I am asked to show mercy that will make me question the work I do. I am a ruthless murderer to you, I am a mere fisherman to the world.”

“You are a heartless man. I pray to god you die in the worst circumstances.”

“I am an honest man. I spoke the truth. I do not wish to mock you with gentle words. You deserve the truth. I hope your prayers are answered.”

The fisherman ate a hearty meal that night. He died three weeks later. For once god was quick to listen.

I am not against god. I quite like the idea of someone watching over us all. It’s like a fairy tale a lot of grownups believe. It’s a way to shift the blames of our inherent shortcomings, because as all of us know, we would have surely succeeded if god had wanted it. The idea of heaven makes us easier to tell children why their grandparents are dead and why snowflakes wont be coming back. And we should embrace everything that makes life a bit easier. What I am against is how God can look down from his throne and do nothing about everything that's happening down here. The people that are born with defects, the deaf, the blind and the dumb, the mentally retarded and the people with missing appendages. How does god allow that? It’s to show us how lucky we are to have all of this, that's what we've been told. Yes, and I do feel lucky to be born with all my senses intact, and the victim, well he's screwed. He just drew the shortest straw. If only he'd been more holy when he was a zygote, he would have had a better life. And how does anyone explain the thousands of innocent lives lost in natural calamities? I know, we are to blame for all the climate change and everything that happens in the future is the result of our past. But god is god. He can do anything he wants. Is it too much to ask for a small wave of his hands that would save thousands of lives. And they all say, god works in mysterious ways. What mystery can there be behind all of this? So many lives lost, while the people who should die, live, and the people who deserve to live, die young. I don’t have the authority to judge whose life is worth extending and whose should be terminated. But god does. And well, he's not really good at his job. And I understand life and death are part of the existence in earth. And people have to die one way or another. And some people lead good lives and some lead horrible ones. This is not my problem with the existence of God.
The problem I have is how he allows everything people are doing, claiming it's his will they are following. Animal sacrifices, religious segregations and terrorism, they do it all in his name. Terrorism has existed long enough in this world for even god to take notice from the proud height of his heavenly abode. How does God allow all these people, to use his name to do the things they do. But can you really blame them? They are doing what they have to do to recruit people and if they can take advantage of a name that everyone thinks is right, then why shouldn’t they? Apparently he has no problems with it. And a promise of heaven for an eternity is a pretty sweet deal. And what makes it even better, is that they think they're doing God's work, that’s what they’ve been told, which leads to a clear conscience. Who are we to question god? If he wants hundreds of innocent people dead, from a device he made someone invent for this very purpose, I am but a medium of his wish, and enforcer his whimsical orders. Either the people who use this pitch are genius or the people who believe in it are idiots. You don’t have to be Einstein to make a fool of fools and even Hitler would be a saint among the demons of hell. And god just allows this to happen. Day after day, he looks down and watches and waits. For what? And I figure there can only be two reasons behind it all.
1. He’s given up hope on us human beings and can’t wait for the apocalypse so he can start it all over again and get it right this time.
2. He agrees with the terrorist and what they are doing is actually god’s work
If I were to believe in god, I’d have to believe that either he's asleep or he's a part of everything that's going on. I’d have to believe that he has empathy for those who take lives in his name. And any god who stays quiet while all of this happens. Who looks down and does nothing except sit in his comfortable cushion of fluffy clouds listening to angels play harp, while lives burn from the flames of hatred raging among the creatures he created in his image, cannot be my god. If this is the image of god that I’ll have been given, that he's a lazy deserter whose mysterious ways are too difficult for me to understand while millions become victim for the satisfaction of his vanity, I’d rather look away. I’d rather not believe he exists than to face the reality of things if he did. So, no, I don’t have a problem with god, but that's probably because I don’t believe he exists. Have a very merry Christmas.