Faith on wheels

An auto in UP is an unruly beast. It?s is like the horse Alexander moved away from the direct sun, writes Trinankur Banerjee.

An auto in UP is an unruly beast. It’s is like the horse Alexander moved away from the direct sun. But while we moved towards Delhi from Indirapuram in the sweltering afternoon, the sun beat directly upon the autowallah’s face, making it impossible for the young soul to stay calm. And I am no Alexander, I am older than him and do not own a vestige of land, let alone an empire or a horse.

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Stereo speakers blared deafening music from about six inches behind my ears and the autowallah, with his two young friends, danced to its tunes while another poor passenger and I sat in the back seat, stifled by the intimations of an imminent accident.

I have been an atheist ever since Class 5 in school. Before an exam one morning, standing before the idol of my school’s namesake saint, I realised that since I have not studied, nobody had the ability to save me. Then what could prayer entail? That existential question ended my faith then and there. If the power of a deity could not ensure you even such a small favour, what power would that be?

However, the absence of belief in the soul does not make life easier, you become a doubter. You question the mysteries of life, income tax and why some people are paid more than you are even though they deserve it. But the ‘correct’ answer is never available, since the retribution-in-afterlife scheme does not apply any more to the atheist’s issues. Life becomes a messy affair and you become a circle without a centre with a philosophy without an objective.

An auto ride in UP, however, can redirect life. Swaying along, I knew who holds the sway over the person who held the sway over me. Not god, no, but the hip-hop makers of Bluffmaster. Lucid, clear realisation dawned, almost in tandem to the jive in the driver’s seat in the miniaturised disco-on-wheels moving through the arid landscape of UP.

So, there I tightly sat in silent communion with the deity of the moment, completely immersed in the insistence of the question, posed as a song by The Voice, ‘Say na, say na…’