His ideology fascinates me, and my faith in him helps mine take root. Temple Going, Church Going a favorite past time of his wife/ my mother, to him and me it means another moment, another topic to read the world through each other . The few times we accompany her to places of worship, we slow down at the entrance and she glares 'a two people' glare at me (since she can never him) as we begin to practise our quaint faith.
She chants what sounds Greek and Latin to me and I am more drawn to his interest in the stone carvings and the way a stone carving takes one to years past.
Listening to his narration of history I imagine a King with love for architecture walk the stone engravings decades ago. I place a foot on a stony step and ask him shyly, "Did another queen place her foot this way?"
He and I know I can never be woman enough to place a foot the feminine way, so he smiles and nods away at my marvelling history.
Priests become a rung in history of categories, I laugh with him at the absurdity of a man not allowed inside by virtue of a category.
Yet to match his wisdom,I try to see the light in what he says, that rituals before a man made object are insignificant beside the good done to a passer by.
I still ask him,"But why are all the women chanting if this is just an idol?"
He replies," Human mind is a monkey. Chants can discipline restless minds"
I notice women chant more than men.
Years pass by. I stand alone on stony steps. Amidst her sharp philosophy of how a woman should be at a place of worship, I narrate history to myself, I watch feet in varied shapes and sizes, I learn to see a man's grief in studied slow footsteps, I watch married women pray for their husbands and children more through themselves . And then I settle a restlessness in a mechanical rhythm of raindrops falling on footwear.
