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Beefy chat over the coffee-table

Have our living room conversations been given an overdose of religion and politics of late? And is beef to blame for that?

Until recently, my concerns and conversations in life were the same as any other working woman in Delhi: doing well in life, reaching career goals, trying to prevent chronic hair fall, making the most of Zara sales and dealing with my mother’s "get married!" conversations.

Who would’ve thought all this would change with the subject of beef consumption seeping into debates of national interest? Most of my conversations now unwittingly veer toward religiously driven political conflicts that hurt India; conversations that get lost in the abstractness of religion, any religion… and end up in that dead-end of a rhetoric: what is happening to our country?

I grew up in a family where my late father, who retired as a customs officer, hosted Eid parties for his Hindu friends and neighbours. Since father was aware about their preferences, we’d split the spread between vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies. He would talk about his retirement plans, football, school days. Politics, I don’t remember, ever being discussed, leave religion.

Even during my school days, my schoolmates and I were (still are) all the same. As were our aspirations, problems and needs. I was in the school’s volleyball team (vice-captain). We had the same dreams — to move ahead and earn a place in the national team.

Religion never dictated what kind of people I should befriend, what kind of clothes I wear. I was always free to make my own choices. I chose my subjects, college and career. My family showed concerns but never took decisions on my behalf.

With the sudden change in political atmosphere — particularly in the last two years — words like ‘communal’, ‘polarise’, ‘rioting’, refuse to not show up on my Facebook feed. I don’t know how these words seeped into my vocabulary and cast an overriding influence in my social life.

For me, there are friends and good friends. But now I find myself, often, saying "I have always had more Hindu friends than Muslims." I cringe to even write this but this is how I categorize them without realising.

At first, I thought maybe it was because I am a journalist that I end up discussing incidents of religiously motivated violence. But the last time I hung out with school friends — people who’d never think of becoming journalists or even read newspapers — I found myself surrounded by conversations on communal politics. How did I manage to cover the Muzaffarnagar riots, asked one friend before adding the bit about associated risks that a Muslim would face straying into Jat territory.

We never ended up discussing memories from school. Not once. That was weird.

There’s this another thing I find troubling: stories of Muslims and Hindus helping each other doing the rounds on social media. Here was a Muslim woman delivering a baby in a temple and there, a Muslim man performing the last rites of his Hindu friend (one comment read ’this is how we can defeat politics of hate’). A colleague told me this could be a good story to write since it “involves a Hindu and a Muslim helping each other.” No offence to my colleague… but I didn’t find the idea appealing enough. Hindus helping Muslims and vice-versa, I thought, is now the stuff of unusualness?

The last time I could sense the fear and being reminded of my religion was in September 2010. The Babri Masjid verdict was to come. I remember I was in the gym on the morning of September 30 and my mother was a bit tense — she feared riots were round the corner. She contemplated the idea of shifting to the Jama Masjid area for a few days at my grandmother’s house. But we didn’t.

Now, sometimes, I see that same fear. The other day, she said, “Our house is on the main road and there are few Muslims nearby, we aren’t safe.”

Religion has crept into our lives, into our drawing rooms. From communal hatred to harmony, conversations usually end on same note: Respect each other’s religion, tradition and sentiment. To love your religion doesn’t mean you hate another.

And then the next day, papers greet you with the headline you keep wishing away: religious intolerance has claimed yet another life. And you can’t help but question yourself: What is happening to our country?