No, I am not an atheist...

'Oh, so you are an atheist?'
'Tum nastik ho?'
'You don't believe in god?'
'Nirishwaravadi?'
These are some common responses I get when I generally express my opinion on religion, god, pujas, prayer etc. to which I usually smile off preferring not to initiate a debate. Yet sometimes, when I encounter an ultraconservative-feudalistic-arrogant-fanatic whose mere presence causes utmost irritation, I go a step further saying 'I believe in human capabilities, not divine intervention.' There are only a few instances when I actually got into a debate on atheism. Most of it were during my college days. One memorable one was with an intelligent classmate of mine. We debated for hours in a long, empty corridor of my college. To most of my fundamental 'why?' questions, her only reply was, 'because it is written in the Bible'. Now what shall I say to that if she isn't ready to reconsider light as in 'let there be light' as an electromagnetic radiation? Another debate which I remember was with a classmate who had a bit more reason than 'it is written'. He tried to provide a scientific touch to the age old Indian customs and traditions citing concepts like the chronology of the avatars of Vishnu are similar to those of the evolution of species, beginning with the sea life (matsyam) going through amphibians (kurmam), half humans (narasimham) and pygmies (vaman) and evolving to human beings (Krishna). But then again, when asked, he failed to provide one scientific equation to prove how planetary positions at the time of birth affect the fate of a human being as told in jyothisham. Or, mathematically how does the body alignment while sleeping gets affected by magnetic field of earth? (Traditionally, in India, there are directions in which one should lie down to sleep). He believes the answer to that is somewhere hidden in the Vedas and Upanishads, products of the intellectual triumphs of our nomadic iron age forefathers, which are still incomprehensible to the information age civilised humans. To him it wasn't written, it was 'hidden'. So, I have found such debates lead nowhere and thus chose not to indulge in one, particularly if the opponent lacks some basic reason. I had thus, tried to concentrate my debates more on the evils of organised religion than on the fundamental question of belief as such.

In the past few days, I was talking with a few friends of mine, whose unpretentious company I miss very much, to check what they are up to. Apart from watching a wide spectrum of quixotic world movies, Rajan said he was becoming 'increasingly atheistic' after his fresh studies on the theory of evolution and natural selection. Whereas, Nirmal, probably due to interactions with Rajan and his desperation in the mountains of Guwahati, did talk a bit of atheism but finally said that it is not whether theism or atheism, but it is that 'I don't care'. He also mistook my horns in my edited chat picture, to be satanic. I had to correct it to those of a Gnu (of the GNU/Linux fame). When I mentioned the the topic to Geo, he said, 'What is so much to discuss about it? Its a worthless debate.'
I didn't want to be so equivocal towards both theism and atheism, so I decided to do a study myself as I had nothing particular to engage myself after the hairstyle experiment.

After a round of Googling and Wikipediaing, I got some ideas on how generally theism and atheism is perceived and treated. I knew that atheism is a very confused field in India. Religion and culture are so interlinked that a very thin line separated both. Celebrating Diwali shouldn't make you a Hindu or celebrating Christmas shouldn't make you a Christian. A few months back, at home, I visited the Guruvayoor temple. My parents and relatives were surprised to learn that I visited a temple without compulsion. They thought that I have started to embrace the spiritual path. But, apart from the undisclosed party at comrade Madhavan's place nearby, there was something about the visit. It was not spiritual. I have so many childhood memories of the temple. The bananas and sugar prasadam, the manchadi seeds, the Jnanappana and so on. It needn't be always faith, it could be anything else. Madhavan too, who haven't went inside the famous temple even after living next door for almost an year, mistook my visit and asked, 'Since when did you become so religious?'
Another concept I'd like to discuss is Indian classical music. I used to reject Carnatic music labelling it as feudal. But lately, I have found it to be very interesting. After all its just a form of art. Still, I believe Carnatic music and other classical Indian art forms should get out of the mythology. Carnatic compositions have to get out of simple god-praise. Why don't they sing of socially relevant topics?
My research revealed that the so-called spiritual and conservative India too has a history of atheism. Refer this page on Wikipedia for details. Buddhism doesn't acknowledge any kind of deity. Buddhism is a struggle not against sins or adharma, it is a struggle against atrocities and sufferings. Jawaharlal Nehru, Vinayak Savarkar, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Bhagat Singh, Amartya Sen, Javed Akhtar are famous Indian atheists in the modern times.
Anyhow now I know, religion in India, stripped off the belief part, is pure fun. With the food, feast, dance, crackers, colours, flowers, songs, dresses and liquor.

Also, I found that atheism had more dimensions than I thought. Nevertheless, the main aspect I was uncomfortable was the word atheism itself. Though a wide variety of atheisms exist, it failed to convey the real concept it should represent. Atheism, historically is the denial of the existence of any deity and hence a derogatory term. This was obviously because majority of the people in all parts of the world believed in some sort of a deity and the minority who went against were considered rebellious. However, one can be an atheist and yet not rebellious. Atheism isn't even a choice, for that matter. Atheism is the very natural trait one is born with. The concepts of god and religion are introduced only later during the growth. Belief is a choice, whereas atheism, the natural state. This congenital quality fails to be captured in the negative connotation known as atheism. So, I started searching for an alternative term. Even after one week of searching, I did not find a suitable word.

So one fine day, I called up Pramod, who said was unhappily working on some recent revelations he got on male chauvinism. I know, while working on such a topic, he might facing the same moral dilemma which Albert Einstein had while recommending the research on the development of atomic bomb. Chauvinism apart, I asked his opinion on atheism. He replied with his famous sense of humour, 'It is like asking what your opinion on gravity is. Isn't it as real?' I was dumb stuck. He left me at a point where I couldn't ask anything further. Then I had to explain the background of such a question. After a round of discussion, we stopped temporarily. Then, in the evening he gave me an alternative idea. He suggested to use the term 'materialism' instead. His reasoning was that every sort of belief in a deity will spring from the belief of the existence of a spirit i.e. spiritualism. Materialism is everything on the contrary to that, founded on the existence and interactions of matter with no room for a spirit. This seemed to be a profound idea. Yet it is a very challenging topic to deal with, because in spiritualism, every unknown can be left to the spirit, but materialists have to find an answer or at least a reasoning. Yet without getting into the technicalities and details of materialism, I can just borrow the concept to represent my natural stand.

So, now I have my answer ready to all those who ask a question, 'Oh, so you are an atheist?'. My answer would be 'No, I am not an atheist..., I am a materialist.' But sometimes, if materialism is too complicated a concept to be comprehensible to someone, or I meet some aforesaid feudal-fundamentalist-arrogant-fanatic, I might deliberately use the term atheist, just to make things simple or to amuse myself with the trembling face of the fanatic as the bull sees the red cape.