Are you a sinner ?

“Are you a sinner ?”. Nobody might ask me this question, but one never knows. Somebody might. I would never know the answer to that question.

A person might be practicing something from his childhood. His father does it. All his ancestors used to do it. Eating beef.  For him it is like others eating banana, rice, fish et al. For him, it is never a sin to eat beef. But somebody next door does not perceive it that way. For him eating beef is a sin. For him, eliminating somebody who consumes beef is not a sin. So he lynches the beef-eater. But there is something called law of the land. By that law, killing somebody is a sin, it is a murder. So the eliminator is brought under the judiciary, tried and punished to death by hanging. Human rights people take it up from there. For them hanging anybody, taking life out of anybody is a sin. So committing sin is never ending, it is a continuous process, it endures by different perceptions by different people.

Certain people believe that if they do not commit a sin in this life, in next life they will not become a donkey or any other low-IQ  animal. Good belief. With all that even if they go through hard times in this life, they will console themselves by believing that it is all because of the sins they had committed in their previous life(s).  Still a better belief. At least the crime rate in this world will come down if more people start believing in that.

My colleague Gangadar was like that. In fact he was one step ahead. He did not want to commit any sin even unknowingly. His only sin was writing faulty software programs which could not have been understood or fixed by others/ even by himself. He committed that sin neither knowingly nor unknowingly, he was just going through the motions! We were in Singapore working together at a customer site. One day, after a day’s full of sins on the computer terminal, he joined us for dinner. We headed to McDonalds, the place we all liked most. Gangadar ordered a veg burger and ate happily. After reaching home, he got a doubt. Was he served a non-veg burger? Did he end up in eating non-veg stuff? For a strict vegetarian like him, it was unimaginable. For him it was a sin. None of us knew an easy way to find out the truth, either in an invasive or non-invasive way.  Gangadar did not sleep that night. He did not sleep the next night too. In between he did not see the computer terminal to commit any more of his usual sins. He took the first flight on the third day back to India and went straight to Tirumala temple, begged pardon for his sin.

When a sinner goes to fast, God makes the day longer – they say. I am sure all of you would have eaten jack fruit at some point of time in your life. It is a crime. You are depriving jack fruit tree of its reproduction by throwing the seeds carelessly in places where they cannot grow into another plant/tree, to keep its traditions intact. But there are chances that one of those seeds find the right place and grow. That’s why you would get a minor uneasiness in the stomach for a short duration. But, there are people who would cook and eat even those seeds. That is a serious sin, totally eliminating the possibility of growing another tree. For such cruel seed-eaters, the punishment will be severe, they would get major stomach pain which can last for days.

So, it looks like even simple, humble eating revolves around a lot of sins. With all these sinful thoughts in my mind, the other day I had gone to a nearby restaurant. I found something interesting there –“Sinful Punjabi  Paneer combo”. If you haven’t tried that yet, I strongly suggest you do. If you had committed many sins, you will instantly be forgiven for all those sins the moment you eat that stuff. If you are a puritan and have not committed any sin so far, you will know what committing a heinous sin really means – by ordering that combo ! In either case you will be fully convinced!!