Me and my Muslim friends...

We were 8 friends in total, we use to play volley ball together everyday morning. We were doing our +1 at that time, when we never forget to ignore our classes and give priority to play as it was a honeymoon period of +1 after the deadly intense study for SSLC.

Among us were two of my Muslim friends, Mohideen and Sajjad. We use to play everyday, without barring a single day.

After few days of play, it was the month of Ramadan. Mohideen and Sajjad, were on fast.

For initial few days, when they took part in the play, all other friends asked them to play light. And, if the ball goes outside the court, we never allow them to run behind it, instead we ran and took the ball in. Despite that, when we saw them both struggling during the evening time, we stopped our play routine.

I am talking about the days, which was around 13 years back, when we were teenagers getting to know the world. All we know is Mohideen and Sajjad were our friends and we share everything with them, including food. We know their constraints during the month of Ramadan and we respected that.

We allowed them to abide by their religion without interfering in it and without commenting on it.

After 13 years, even now, my friends are still my friends. I demand biriyani for Bakrid with them.

Ours is a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic nation. In this, if some Hindu beats a Muslim, another Hindu should condemn that act first, and vise versa when it happens for Hindu as well.

But, whats happening now is exactly the opposite.

If there is any crime committed by a Hindu extremist group, instead of the Hindu moderates condemning it, they stay silent. And with the advent of social media, non-Hindu moderates takes very less time not only to condemn but also to de-fame the complete section of people, irrespective of how moderate or extremist they are. This is a dangerous behavior which questions the countries Unity in Diversity.

We Indians have shared our course for more than 700 years. Its not a small time. Its over 15-20 generations. We should understand this.

Religious and Cultural harmony will happen, only when we start respecting each others sentiments and customs. Not by defaming it.

Also Read: My previous blog: Almighty should save