Are you there?

Since childhood, I have been a bit curious about the sky. I remember watching all the religious shows on TV. They would always show Gods sitting on the clouds, deciding the fate of us humans. Whenever I faced a little inconvenience in life—say getting fewer marks, being ignored by cousins, not being able to watch a particular show on TV, or getting scolded by my parents—I would go to my house's terrace, look up at the sky, and ask God, "Why me?" I am such a good person; then why do I have to face these adversities? This went on for years, and obviously, God didn’t reply even once. I always expected a light coming out from the clouds, giving me answers to all my questions through something we call Akashvani.

Then it hit me—maybe God is not really sitting on the clouds. There was a Shivalaya just near my old house, and I started going there. I saw people offering water on the Shivling, and it became my routine. Before going to school, I used to visit the Shivalaya, offer water on all idols while chanting "Om Namah Shivay." At the end of my holy errand, I used to tell the Shivling all the things happening in my life and ask for blessings so that my troubles could go away. Well, that didn’t happen, but my holy errand used to distract me from life a bit—it was a kind of escape from all the troubles. So I didn’t stop going there. At least there was a place where I could speak my mind.

I remember when I was in 5th grade, while celebrating my birthday, my parents got a call from my uncle that my grandmother had been admitted to the hospital. I had to let go of all my friends. I was worried about my grandmother, but I had an equal amount of faith in God that she would be okay. After 4 days, she passed away in the evening, and the next morning was her funeral. I still remember that night—I was expecting a miracle, a phone call from someone saying, “By God’s grace, Bai has come back to life!” Well, as expected, that didn’t happen. I don’t have many memories of my grandmother, but the one that will stay with me forever is that I cried a lot at her funeral.

That same year, it was the turn of my maternal uncle—the only one who truly cared about me and could see through my bored and sad face. He was fighting leukemia, and his fight came to an end in March. Again, I was expecting God to do something. Again, he didn’t listen. I was closer to my maternal uncle than my grandmother, but I don’t know why I couldn’t cry that day. I was just shocked—seeing his young, lifeless body lying there, waiting to be burned.

A frustrated me told himself that there must be something wrong with this concept of God. Why doesn’t he show any humanity? Is he merciless? Is he even there?

At the same time, I started watching Discovery Channel. There was a show I began watching—its name I can’t recall—but one episode had a huge impact on me. It showed a full zoom-out view, from a country to the Milky Way. The Milky Way was something I wasn’t aware of back then. They explained that it contains millions of suns like ours, and there are millions of such galaxies in the universe. After watching that episode, I just sat there in awe. My mind couldn’t comprehend the scale of the universe. “God has so much on his plate, that’s why he’s unable to hear my prayers,” I told myself. A little late, but I understood that the universe didn’t revolve around me, and things would happen anyway if they were bound to. Shows like Through the Wormhole by Morgan Freeman, How the Universe Works, and The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking made me more interested in science. I used to tell myself that one day I would become a theoretical physicist so I could find God and unravel all the secrets of the universe.

Again, that didn’t happen. In 11th grade, out of nowhere, I threw a fit, and the doctors declared that I had epilepsy. I took the prescribed medicines for a month or two. During that time, I stopped going to school. I didn’t attend any of the exams. I was just sitting there at home, shocked by science. I went through my reports, and the results were consistent with the diagnosis of epilepsy. My trust in science made me more depressed. But I couldn’t stay inside the house forever, right? I started going to school again, but I used to stay alert, noticing every twitch and vision change. I didn’t want to throw a fit in front of my friends. “If I do, they’ll leave me,” I used to think.

I turned to yoga and did some breathing exercises before school. Due to my lack of attentiveness, my grades fell off a cliff, and I could never make a comeback. During this time, I started going to the temple again to calm my mind, just like I did in childhood. Ten years have passed, and since 27th October 2015, I have not thrown a fit. I regret the time and opportunities I wasted thinking about getting another seizure.

Today, I have a normal job in another city with a pretty normal routine. I wake up at 5 AM, go for a morning walk, talk to my sister, take a bath, pray to God, get ready for the office, catch a bus, do the work, return home, scroll through reels, and sleep. This isn’t the life I had imagined for myself. In fact, this was the life I was trying to avoid before 11th. But after my downfall in 11th, this was the bare minimum I asked from God—because, at that time, even this seemed impossible.

Did he really listen to me this time?
Or was it just bound to happen?

GOD KNOWS!!!