An Antithesis

On prayers and brawls.

In my re-imagination of childhood, I did not grow up an angry child. 

I remember laughing a lot (I still do), crying even more (I still can), and humming songs everywhere I went (not anymore). But the tears were more commonplace at home. I cried every time I came back from church and would see Acha standing ready with his cane to hit the disrespect to God out of me. I cried when he belittled me for a month after I’d failed to come first in Sunday School. I cried when he scolded me as a gotcha moment so that he would be able to scold every other kid at church. 

It would typically end with an exhortation. Go pray to God for forgiveness. 

I would go to the bedroom, which would always be empty, secret enough to grovel in front of God. I would stand in front of the window, which had a photo of  Jesus on top.

I would look up to this photo of Jesus to feel like I was actually talking to him (because other than the occasional stray priest preaching that he talks to God regularly, you never see anyone actually admitting that they have been in conversation with him). And then, my gaze fixed on this very brown rendition of Jesus Christ, I would take a deep breath and lose it. 

My prayer for forgiveness was a brawl with God. I would grit and gnash my teeth, grunt as loudly as it was possible, and clench my fists which had been folded in prayer. My feet would stomp on the floor as hard as possible, and I’d ask, still amid tears, what I had done wrong, not because I did not know, but because I knew it wasn’t my fault. My eyes would always be slitted, eyebrows furrowed, raised in accusation against a just and fair God who never turned out to be just and fair enough to me. Anyone who saw me would have called me ruthless, a child who had no love or gratitude towards their Father. Blasphemy at its highest degree. I deserved the things that came my way. 

I prayed that my parents would feel the guilt that I felt daily. I prayed that my friends at church would stay away from Acha, who somehow earned his affection before I did. I called both Acha and Amma the choicest curse words in Malayalam, with as much malice as I could inject into it before my rage would die down. Sometimes the curse words would be for God himself. Sometimes, none of it would be enough, so I would just resort to silent screaming.

In my eighteen years of mistaking myself as a devout Christian, I think these were the only sincere prayers that I had ever made in my entire life. Today, a long way away from faith in God, I still do not know how to pray normally. When I am home, I am obliged to utter an edited version of the prayer that had been taught to me when I was three. The words are a part of my soul now. I know of no other way to feign subservience. 

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About to pull a “felt cute, might delete later” on you. This is something that I had written up, in response to a friend's blog post, who suggested an antithesis—an idea that I decided to take seriously. My vision was something big, but my manifestation has devolved into this. This is by no means an antithesis, but this is what it was born as, so an antithesis it shall stay.

I do feel that the work is both complete and incomplete when looked at from different angles. I might come back on a rainy day to give this a proper finish. Until then, read my prematurely born brainchild.

And read the original post written by this loser (affectionate): On Prayers