I have yet to come to terms with the idea of God and religion. I am constantly struggling with giving a name to my system of beliefs. I seem to move in circular fashion from believer to atheist and back.

In my youngest days, I remember being fascinated by the romantic notion of God, and being obsessed with superficial details. Caught up in a world of mythology, I fancied myself gifted with some divine aura that would one day come to light. When my parents took me to temples, I would look eagerly at the priest, hoping he would sense something special in me. In Amar Chitra Kathas, I read about saints and practiced a little meditation secretly, hoping for something to happen. It was a while before I noticed the chinks in the armour. I stopped liking the visits to the temple because I saw it suddenly as a crowded and dirty place. The priests had nothing about them that spoke of divinity. And God, well he did not always reward the good and the obedient.

In between somewhere, I was drawn to the glamour of Christianity. It offered me escape from the boring and old-fashioned Hinduism, or so I thought. In my ten-year old mind, the idea of being able to read hymns in a language I could understand was also an enticing one. They were also everywhere, the pamphlets and cassettes about Christianity that made it seem simple and full of enjoyment. It seemed so far removed from my Hindu ideas of individual piety with no room for merriment. I used to think that I would convert to Christianity when I grew up.

From being a child interested in God and spirituality, I suddenly turned to atheism in my teens. It seemed that an atheist was the simplest thing to be, to be removed from all the complexity and conservatism. I was not a very rebellious teenager, but there was enough provocation for me to rebel against God. I was suddenly aware of various constraints that were appearing all around me. The only thing common to most of the constraints was religion. I was full of questions and found that there was nobody to give me answers. Even the simple act of questioning was seen as a sin. I slowly learnt to cloak my atheism and be discreet about my views.

And now, at the age of 25, I still look for answers. I have shed my atheist skin, after realizing that atheism itself can become a kind of religion, with its own fanatics. I need a God, I will concede that. I have still not found a need for religion. Agnostic, freethinker, rationalist, skeptic - the words bewilder me. Perhaps I don't need them either.