What could be a cosier, safer time for atheists to chit-chat about atheism than this fallow period between Durga Pujo-Dussehra and Kali Pujo-Diwali? As a non-practising, casual atheist, I have no beef - sorry, issues - with folks believing in a divine power, the kind that actually can make oxymorons like 'sustainable development,' 'affordable luxury,' and 'friendly fire' tenable.
Personally, it would have been great if I could believe in an all-encompassing, all-knowing entity who controls the universe that is not the home minister. But I can't. This is not something I could have learnt in Harvard Business School even if I had attended it. So, at the risk of helplines now calling me, my atheism sits lightly on me. And it shouldn't worry or threaten anyone. After all, some of my best friends are believers.
For a while now, we have realised that we live in a polarised world. Politically, socially, religiously-which is really three ways of saying the same thing. But what it boils down to really is differences in aesthetics, taste. My fondness for the Hera Pheri movie franchise (can't wait for the upcoming third instalment), or admiration for El Greco paintings, may be for the exact same reasons you detest them: full-blown buffoonery and elongated anatomy-inappropriate figures, respectively. The latest chef's special is custard pie-fights over veg vs non-veg, or, essentially, Hindu vs anti-Hindu - not my diet/god vs no food/no god, but my god vs your god.
Thankfully, atheists like me are having a blissful, quiet time these days. I can safely say, 'Nastik khatre mein nahin hai.' Much like Bhutan during an India-Pakistan war. Unlike Bible-thumping Americans and Talibani Afghans, who not-so-secretly admire each other's capacity to believe in their respective Big Guys, Indians - Hindus, Muslims, and even IPL Gujarat Titan supporters - aren't too bothered about atheists.
I suspect it's because they don't believe that there can actually be people who don't believe. The same way Victorian Britons, despite being notoriously anti-homosexual, never believed in the existence of lesbians ('Oh, don't be daft now, Victoria on Florence?!').
Also, there are so few of us, and even less of us who make a song and dance of it. Unlike, say, the Hindu right's newest appropriation, Bhagat Singh. I would never, for instance, venture to write: 'Man created god in his imagination when he realised his weaknesses... Society must fight against this belief in god just as it fought against idol worship. Only then will man stand on his own feet.' Or, '...belief, I should say blind belief is disastrous. It deprives a man of his understanding power and makes him reactionary. Any person who claims to be a realist has to challenge the truth of old beliefs. If faith cannot withstand the onslaught of reason, it collapses.'
And just in case anyone sought to find an alternative interpretation to his claim to be an atheist, Singh titled his 1930 pamphlet (in English, lest there be any perceived loss in translation): 'Why I Am an Atheist.' Not much wriggle room there, I'm afraid, non-atheist Bhagat Singh bhakts.
Ironically, that's the kind of talk that gets non-Bhagat Singhs in trouble and lumped with 'dimagi communists'. In any case, I'm not that kind of atheist, even if that type were tolerated the way my grandmother tolerated drinkers in my family (disapprovingly, but without malice).
I love many religious rituals - Durga Pujo aroti, Ganga aarti at Varanasi's Dashashwamedh Ghat, midnight mass, some azaans, bhajans, kirtans (which, like all classics, depend on the rendition of the performer/muezzin/singer) - without having to take in the whole package. It's cultural.
The same way I find in Modesty Blaise, Feluda, or Batman (no, not in Santa Claus) great inspiration and figures of admiration despite knowing that they are not real, I find the same excitement to meet up with some of these divine, delectable man-made creations.
Which, as you may have figured out by now, makes me a lazy atheist who's neither upset by the fact that god is made out to be such a big deal, nor that they don't exist. Despite having no reason to believe in ghosts, I adore horror movies. Now, who'd give me grief for that hypocrisy?
indrajit.hazra @timesofindia.com