L and R

I saw a program in BBC World about 2 weeks ago which had an impact on me. "Impact" is a big word to describe it, but it touched something deep inside me. The program was about World Communities (or something of that sort) and it featured a couple in Kolkata.

The guy is a Muslim and the girl is a Hindu. They have been seeing each other for some 9 years and their parents are strictly against the marriage. Somewhere along those 9 years, the girl gets married to another guy (found by her father) and that marriage ends in divorce. The camera follows them as they decide to talk to their parents about the marriage and it is all filmed as it happens.

The guy's father agrees for the marriage if the girl converts to Islam and when the girl does decide to convert, all her relatives abandon her family. And finally, her parents also decide not to attend the wedding.

In the end, it all looks one-sided. The girl had to change religion. The girl had to incur the wrath of her relatives. The girl had to leave her parents. The guy had it easy. No conversions for him. And his parents were happy that he married a "Muslim" girl. But then, he was faithful to her even when she was married for someone else and was ready to take her back when she came back. That was the greatest thing he had done, which is as good as any of the things the girl had done.

These two people had to undergo a lot of suffering and finally had to do a lot of sacrifices just because they wanted to live together. Why? Because they belong to two separate religions. According to me, religion is there because absence of it will lead to complete anarchy in our lives. The belief in God makes us lead a useful life. But using the same religion for totally unrelated things like marriage is utter nonsense. It can be that if 2 people of same faith are married to each other, their life will be smooth. But there are a lot of other things in life which can make life smooth. And there is one important thing which is above all - Love. If the 2 people love each other, religion just shouldn't matter.

At one stage of the program, the girl's friend argues that it is not right to convert to another religion. The girl replies, "How does it matter? I don't understand. I really don't understand". Neither do I.