So Yesterday I was picking up a few fags (the ones that burn) from my favorite shop and I saw a familiar face smiling at me.

“Deepak” I beamed, recognizing the guy. Deepak was an auto-rickshaw driver who used to drop my kids to school around 6 years back.

“How are you, Deepak?”, I asked him.
He smiled at being recognized. “I am fine, sir. Though a lot has happened in the last six years.”

Obviously he wanted to talk, “Wow, must have been interesting, tell me all about it”, I said.

“Well Sir”, he began, “Six years ago I was driving my rickshaw and earning a meager amount of money for my family, was really down in dumps when I met this Islamic cleric.

The cleric convinced me that if I join Islam, I will get 72 virgins when I go to Jannat. Now that sounded really interesting so I quickly converted to being a Muslim and that’s how I became Deepak Usman”

“But in a couple of years I figured out that I was just 30 yrs old and its going to quite some time before I could lay my hands on those 72 virgins, aur yaha ek biwi nahi sambhali jaati, who is going to manage 72 of them? And just then I met a Preacher from our local Parish”

“Now the Preacher told me that if I become a Christian, I will be well taken care of, given good education, will get a good job and my family will never go hungry. That sounded like a sensible choice to me. And that’s how I became Deepak Usman Matthew”.

I frowned at him, “Very interesting, so…”

“But….”, he interrupted, “after a few years I saw that nothing was really happening and in came in these Priests recently who told me that if I become a Hindu, my kids will get good education and that the police will not harass me and basically I will be one of the majority in the country with all the privileges of a King. So that’s how I became Balram”

“So now I am Deepak Usman Matthew Balram”

“Hmmm, well thats nice Deepak, so what do you do now?”, I asked.

Beaming at me he replied, “The Auto-Rickshaw …… I drive the same auto-rickshaw …. Okay, sir, I have to leave now, I have got to go to the bank and tell them why I am not able to pay this month’s EMI on my Rickshaw …. again”

I looked at him with and said “May Allah, God and Bhagwan give you the strength to convince the bank”

Then I thought about his name again, and realized that (D)eepak (U)sman (M)atthew (B)alram was actually DUMB !!!

Disclaimer: Religion is in your shirt and in your pant. Religion is just a state of mind. You need the escape velocity of Jupiter to understand it.