The leaves had started to fall and the beautiful varied leaves shot their colorful glances at me. I wondered if the red leaves considered the yellow leaves evil or if the pink flowers got angry at their white counterparts for not absorbing the right spectrum from the Sun!

But I had to interrupt those thoughts because I had to meet my prof; Prof. Sujeev. I had been summoned for the nth time to his office for being out of line.

“Desi, you are causing so much pain to me” he said as I opened his door and asked if I could come in.

“Shir, what did I do now”…with the distinct sh bleep from my mouth feigning fright.

“You see Desi, I heard you go about saying Insha Allah”, in your greetings. How can an Iyengar boy be so adamant to go against his religion.

“Sir, but two months back you got upset because I was greeting everyone with Praise be the Lord”, “ I went to this lecture from the Iranian prof…Anyway Sir, I think there are some great teachings in Islam Sir and all I was saying is God is Great. Atleast, I was talking about God,…Sir”

I could see the redness swell on Prof. Sujeev’s face, the slow contortion of swelling anger with a sense of frustration at his disobeying student.

“How many times have I explained the atrocities of the Christian British and Catholic Portuguese, and now the ISIS.. Desi”, “Why don’t you get it”?

Sir, But before the British, Jehangir and Aurangzeb killed a lot of people Sir and so its not just the Christians and then Sir there was Ashoka…and even the Vaishnavites in the 10th century….and may be even…”

“Shut up Desi”, now the Prof. was mad.

“I should have suspended you 6 months back and called your parents when I saw your friends calling you Desi Khan, you and your stupid stories..”

“But Sir, last year you suspended me for being close to my friend Sanjay an atheist…and you berated me for not being religious and believing in God…”

“There there – see you have not learnt your lesson, I also punished you and asked you to read Dharampal”, “You did not do that and I had to call your parents…I don’t know what to do with you…you follow everything except your own Hindu religion”

Sir, but I am born Hindu Sir and I respect it very much sir, but I want to explore other…

“Desi, Desi….look you have been brainwashed by this Richard Dawkins, Sanjay, Abdul and that Christian girl you were hanging out with…See we are Hindoos…”

Sir, but I want to know what others think sir, they also breathe the same air, have 2 arms and legs…seriously sir I would rather be with humans than people who have 4 arms or elephant face…

“On my God Desi, you dare talk about God like that? See how this country has corrupted you”..I need to call VG and ask him to put some sense into you…

Sir, but VG sir is secular sir…and no disrespect to Lord Ganapathy Sir..I do pray to him as well…

“Desi..VG is not an atheist like you or whatever you are…, one day you go about with Khan, another day you are talking about Catholics and then this atheism…its all humbug, you probably need some medical help”…

Sir, but we have to explore Sir.. we can’t sit still and accept what we are born into Sir. I like Humans, whatever they believe in Sir. I am not an atheist sir, I just don’t have enough data or smartness to say something is right or not right when it comes to God. So lets believe in everything.

Sir, the Arabs were one of the best in Science, Einstein was a Jew, Ramanujan was a Hindu and Galileo a Catholic and so on sir and of course Prof. Neil De Grass Tyson is an atheist but Science is the common language Sir even if they had different faiths.

Prof. Sujeev by now had is head in his hands, exasperated. He looked up and asked “Desi, are you done”…

Sir you called me here to talk to you Sir….

He got up and put in his hands around me and said “You have to stick to your roots…You see we have a rich history and we can’t forget it”.

I agree Sir, you have made some great points Sir but Truth can’t be just what we “hear” and “see” around a small circle Sir.

“Desi, look at what the ISIS is doing…”

But Sir, even Ravana killed people Sir and he prayed to Shiva, that does not make my friend Manix bad…

“Desi, Manix is a good boy, now don’t bring him into this…”…

Sir but he says Om Nama Shivaya, same as Ravana Sir. Its the same analogy Sir, ISIS is muslim, ISIS is bad ..muslim is bad, Ravana is Shaivite, Ravana is bad, Shaivite is bad….

By now the Prof. was looking for something to hit me with…I could see the blood pumping and thumping…

Sir, we should go camping and watch the stars sir. You see sir, Dr. Tyson said if we are 1% different from Chimps and we can conquer space, imagine another species 1% different from us and how good they would be…and we be just pets to them…Here we are, so insignificant a species even among earthlings, and yet fighting for trivial things…

I could see water in the Prof. eyes…splash….

Dai Desi, wake up, you can’t come to Toronto and stay with me and sleep all the time…Abdul and I are going out – get ready….the water was not in his eyes, it was on my face!

Dreaming on…We are all in this together…just human….hug and be happy….