Discoveries at 32000 feet above sea level

And for some reason i believe all this - the near atheism, boring prayers, unbelief in heaven and hell alike,not-so-strong-god-following that i'm attributed with (most of it at family reunions) has got something to do with a man i don't know. I met him some eleven years back. I was nine then. On board an Indian Airlines flight from Mumbai (Bombay it was back then) to Mangalore, me and my cousin were more than delighted when this man, gentleman, offered to swap his window seat for our adjoining seats. It was view to watch. We loved it. It must have been like the third time we were flying, but at nine, we loved every bit of that, every single time!

Getting back to the man, i guess we should name him for convenience sakes. Lets call him,Annoying Bob. Annoying Bob was this middle-ages man, spectacled,moustached,short and maybe a little overweight. Thats as far as i can recall Annoying Bob. He was one of the interfering types, i recall him, pooping in every short while, asking us if we needed anything! Man, at times i wished he just disappeared. Being nice is good, being extra nice, is perennially "enough". I wish now, for some strange reason, that i had yelled that at him. Atleast, he would not have asked what he did! But he was indeed a nice man. Guess he saw us as two less than tens, 32000 feet above the sea level all by themselves and must have thought he ought to take care. At 32000 feet its really annoying if your "single-serving friends" get stuck up in your face. I mean its bad enough that you must stay glued to a seat for hours together ( i believe if aint gonna take hours, then theres no point flying) and then, just when you cant move, you come to learn you cant escape as well !!

Back to the screenplay. We were seated in the first row, only the cockpit to stare at after getting bored of continuously watching the clouds come and go, one after the other, higher than the previous ones. Milky white they were, oh what a sight! And for a second i started searching for the Gods, i was told that high above the skies they lived. Where the apsaras danced and there was all happiness. This was to be heaven. I thought. I was told, and so i believed. It must have crossed my mind(its hard to recall what i must have thought 11 years ago, but i try to; vaguely). And then, the air-hostess came serving. I picked up as many chocolates as i could in my right palm. Then, the other. I was out of my thoughts, and could see the airtight doors in between our seats and the cockpits. Munching on them, Annoying Bob seemingly in his sleep, got up and looked at the two of us literally feasting on the chocolates. He was silent,for the best part of first 25-30 mins of the flight, he was not. Then, once again, the silence was broken and Annoying Bob spoke.He spoke like a wise sage teaching his most loved disciple. He said something that etched forever in my mind, cant be sure to how large an impact immediately, but an impact it did and a striking one that too!


Annoying Bob : Whats your name?

Me : Rutesh


Annoying Bob : How old are you?

Me : Nine.


Annoying Bob : Have you heard 'bout God?Heaven?Angels?

Me(with a "who hasn't" look on my face) : Yes!

answering to the point has been one of my most annoying characteristics, which i sometimes(even more annoyingly)tend to over-compensate!!

Annoying Bob : Well, has anyone ever told you that heaven is above the blue sky we see from beneath? That the Gods live there. That the Gods have beautiful apsaras dancing for them and that heaven is beautiful.

Me : Yes, ive heard of it.

Annoying Bob : We are so high above the seas and i cant see any of those things. We've been this high for quite sometime now and yet i don't recollect seeing any today. Ive traveled so often, yet have'nt seen any even once. Well, where are they? I dont think they exist. Heaven does not exist. And if heaven doesnt, then how can hell?!!

At nine, you are usually left dumbfounded by questions like these. I had no idea what to say, and so i went back munching on my chocolates, but not before atleast once looking outside the windows and searching for Them. Every once i a while i would peep out the window yearning to sight them and show Annoying Bob and point to him and yell at him, in his ears and tell him, "Look, there you go! There they are, you...you..." (for innocence, my vocabulary was much restricted then). I could'nt find any. I felt like i had lost, Annoying Bob had won! Thats what i remember vaguely from my conversation 'bout 11 years back. I recall it - well not like yesterday, but most certainly - like the day before.

This took away from me things in a flash. I had not understood it then, but i do now. Now, looking back and trying to correlate one event to another, i see the seeds that Annoying Bob had sown. With that went everything. Soon Christmases were boring, other religious festivals were a mere get together, and myself coming from a not-so-religious dad meant that that was the last thing i wanted to know. At nine i was successfully told how all that, the heaven and hell, God and Evil, were all lies. Lies manifested to make us believe and (now i feel) eventually surrender to a power higher and much stronger than us where none existed. Santa Claus i came to know was a lie. Carols were just another songs sang in a Christian school. Every Dec 25 when the peon would wear a Santa outfit and come and throw the chocolates, i knew it was'nt him. It was'nt Santa. i dint know who it was, but i knew who it was not. I believed that i had been to the place where everyone said Gods lived. I searched and i found none. Now, i dont believe that i managed to understand and totally grasp what it meant when he said, "no heaven-hell", the way i do now, but what i knew was i was being lied. It hurt. There were no Gods. Soon, the cries were all by themselves. The traditional prayers alongwith the childish pains went away. I figured, if God was'nt there to hear it, then why pray? Religious ceremonies were a compelled ritual. Now i attend them to meet cousins and others. Soon the temples became uninteresting and i stopped being afraid of being doomed as i grew up. Who's there to forsake me after all?

I'm not an out and out atheist, i dont think so, but i just have no clue as to why i just dont care 'bout it all anymore. I'm really indifferent to this, heaven and hell, God and the Satan. It feels numb, but well, as it would, who cares?