Seven Times Six

Meet Mr. Ist. Or as his awed colleagues call him The Ist. Now, Ist is a very religious guy. So religious, he is full of spirit. Which comes in handy, since lately he has to take much shit from his godless-heathen colleagues.

For some reasons, his colleagues have much disdain towards his blind faith. Their rationale being that blind faith has caused considerable havoc in this world. And that only the path of logic and rationality is safe.

Our Ist is resourceful. He promptly points out the flimsiness of deductive logic. His colleagues are pushed back for a while, but even he can discern that these are not potent enough arguments. He knows his colleagues shall come back like Christ after His Resurrection. Which is a bad analogy of course, for his heathen colleagues are sadly, unlike Christ, going to Hell.

And come back his colleagues do, with potent counter-arguments.
Ist's cheek twitches with righteous indignation. But our Ist is, at heart, a compassionate guy. He looks upto the sky. When they burn in hot oil in Hell, Father, let it not be mustard oil, for it smells; he prays.

As he's looking upto the sky, he's suddenly filled with divine inspiration flowing up his spine. A second later he realizes it's actually a cramp from sinfully craning his neck with such gay abandon.

As he massages his neck, he gets another inspiration - this time thankfully its just an epiphany. About what shall be his next salvo to his heathen colleagues. Ist is so happy, he almost cranes his neck to the sky again.

The next day, he points out to his heathen colleagues a study that religious people are more happy.
He looks at them smugly - let's see them tackle that, he seems to be thinking. But then the heathens promptly quote a certain George Bernard Shaw, no doubt another poor going-to-hell chap, that slobbering drunks are happier too.

It is when he is shaking his head - both at the quote and due to his neck cramps actually - that he realizes one major plus factor for blind faith that can never be out-salvoed.

Not its Happiness Inducing. Not its Gates of Heaven Opening.
But simply yet powerfully - its great capability for inspiring.

Motivation, he argues, is a fairly important component of what drives a human. And one of the biggest motivators is spiritual inspiration after all.
One has to just listen to singers like the late great MS Subbalakshmi; her songs, her bhajans. Can one deny the palpable inspiration, the strength that she draws from her religion? Look, he tells his colleagues, look at how the much-reviled "blind faith" towards religion can push people to the creative heights of MS Subbalakshmi and A.R. Rahman and countless other painters and writers and singers.
How can you have disdain towards that which drives mankind's greatest achievements, he asks.
Is it not something to be nurtured, rather than reviled?

Actually, The Ist feels a pang of sympathy for his colleagues. He shakes his head. All this beautiful sky above them, its twinkling stars, but nary an inspiration to draw from it - who'd want to live a life like that, he wonders.