I have always been proud of the fact that my family embraced different cultures and religions with equal love and joy. My father is a Hindu Rajput from Gharwal, Uttrakhand and my mother a Muslim from Srinagar, Kashmir. They fell in love in the 80’s and got married after a little resistance from some of the relatives from my mother’s side. My maternal grandparents, however, never had any objection. They were well educated and well travelled and that had given them a liberal outlook. My father’s family has always been secular, considering they are devotees of Sai Baba, who advocated Sarva Dharma (all religions are equal).
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In 1990s when Kashmir was experiencing political upheavals, my grandparents’ house was attacked. My father was posted at Srinagar at that time. We were in our maternal grandfather’s house. My grandfather was on the hit list as he had married his daughter to a Hindu. I was around three years old andI still remember weeping inside the bucket my mother had hidden me in, while I heard sounds from outside. We managed to escape and abandoned the house. When we returned a month later, some things had been destroyed, some stolen but it was our life they were after, which luckily they couldn’t extinguish.
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I grew up learning about both the religions, and about others as well. For school admissions, when I would be asked about my religion I was taught to say, “I am a human, I believe in humanity.” At that age I didn’t realise how powerful that sentence was. I only spoke it because I was told I would be given a toy if I performed well. Now after all these years I know how blessed I was to have learnt it then, and to have lived by it for over 27 years.
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We would celebrate both Diwali and Eid, with equal excitement. It was not my mother, but my father who took me to the Dargah (mosque), it was him, who would dress up in a Pathan suit and love spending time in Kashmir. He would even introduce himself happily as “Khalid” in front of some of the conservative relatives from my mother’s side. It was my mother, who despite being born in a Muslim family, prayed to Durga from the age of seven, fasted during navratras, has always been a pure vegetarian, has taken us to all the possible temples in the world, made me sing the Aarti ever since I learnt to read ( all the bhajan books were in Hindi, which she didn’t know how to read, Urdu being her language).My maternal grandmother had a tiny temple inside a wooden cabinet in her house in Kashmir, until she passed away recently.
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Yes, one part of my family loves to watch Pakistan perform well in cricket. I too, as a child had a huge crush on Shahid Afridi, with posters of him on my wall. I have a tattoo on my hand in Urdu, that says Shah- my Grandfather’s name. I even changed my pen name to Natascha Shah, the day I got my first job. There are sentiments attached to that name. Yes, I have cousins who live in Srinagar and learn all sorts of things in schools, colleges and on the streets. I have cousins who read the namaaz five times a day, who have a different political outlook but trust me none of them are hiding a gun in their bag, none of them are a human time bomb.
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My mother has a huge temple in her house in Delhi, where Vedic chants flow from dawn to dusk. We still go to Ajmer Shareef Dargah every year, we still have the Quran at our house as well, along with the Bhagwan Gita. We celebrate Christmas and Guru Purab too, with equal enthusiasm.
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All these years I have been proud of my culture, of both my families, of all the experiences, of all the teachings and will continue to do so. And I think, I needed to share this sentiment now more than ever.
Natascha Shah is the Editor of http://tlfmagazine.com/ .Having graduated from the University of New South Wales, Sydney with a degree in Literature and Journalism, she worked as a journalist for four years and then felt the need for unrestricted creativity beyond formulaic writing. Thus TLF was conceived. And yes, she believes, every moment in life is worth tripping on.