Lessons in Secularism for India

Lesson No. 1

Firoze Mohomed Shakir (left)

Firoze Mohomed Shakir lives in Mumbai.  I have been haunting him like a ghost in some vague quest for quite a time in the virtual places I was permitted access.  His photographs, for example.  What drew me to him initially was his poetry which I used to read via indiblogger.in.  The poems were entirely different from the ones I had ever come across.  They looked initially like prose broken into arbitrary lines.  As I focused more I realized that secularism has as much hope in India as Sufism. Below is his latest poem that I have copy-pasted from his status update in Facebook.  The postscript also belongs to him.

[Dear Firoze, I hope you don’t mind my using you as a lesson. Personally, I’d rather be a Hindu (to use your words) than be religious!]

I Would Rather Be a Hindu Than Be a Wahhabi

yes 
i would rather be called a kafir 
than be a wahabbi 
i would rather be a hindu 
than be a wahhabi 
both options 
close to humanity 
one with 
my cultural inheritance 
of peace and brotherhood 
mutual tolerance sanity 
no i distance myself 
from your hate filled 
religiosity 
a shia pandit 
i am 
hussain 
is enough for me 
these are my thoughts 
you dont have to agree 
at least here in india 
my lord is not 
held in captivity

I say this with pride I am a good Muslim simply because my parentage , my country my friends made me so.. I distance myself from those adherents that allow one Muslim to kill another Muslim.. yes I am a Hindu Shia.. A kafir and proud of what I am.....