How does this stronger force manifest in your life?
I do not think about it too much. But it is there. In fact it both is a source of strength and can lead to escapism: doing things up to a certain amount and then sitting back, floating because something else will be taking care of it.

Did you always have that certainty of a strong force?
I think so. I grew up in a very contrasting, old Muslim family. My father, who was a very sophisticated Oxford-educated ICS man, was quite religious in a practicing way. I think that somehow it was a mode of self-discipline for him. On the other hand, my mother, who came from a much more traditional home, was the one who rejected conventional religion. So as children we were never taught religion. The idea was that if we wanted it, we would come to it in our own way.
Yet culturally --- with the food, the music, the festivals etc. --- ours was a very Muslim home. We also observed the other Indian festivals like Diwali, Holi and so on. It was genuine secularism. Back then Indian society was much more inclusive, while today people are much more conscious about overtly doing things as a way of asserting their identity.
For many years, I was greeting people in a Muslim way, while if I were to do it today it would have a completely different meaning. Practicing certain rituals, wearing particular clothes is now a statement. So I often feel like not doing it, so as not to be part of that whole thing. At the same time it is sad that something which was so part of the composite culture of India, that made India so interesting, has now boiled down to being apologetic and so on. Basically, all religions seem to have gotten highjacked by their most narrow interpretations. Instead of a private decision, it has become about a deliberate statement --- “I am X and I am different from you”. It is more about the way I cut my beard, or wear my pyjamas, or pray five times a day. And I definitely do not want to get involved in that.

Besides, I feel very irritated that since I do things differently, I am looked at so strangely --- because I have short hair, because I do not wear a burqa, because I am not married etc., many do not consider me as a real Muslim. It really irritates me because I still feel quite Muslim. I do not think that those are the defining things about it. I feel I am a Muslim because this is the way I was brought up. I do not feel anything against Islam in its basic principles. But I have many problems with the way it is being interpreted today. Having read the Quran, and studied Islam, I know it is not the essence of it.
Islam for instance was one of the first religions giving women rights such as property rights, the right to refuse marriage and so on. But now those very things, which were so progressive when the religion started, are interpreted in a way to say “no, women should ONLY get so much”. Originally it was to protect a woman that a widow should marry her husband’s brother, at a time when men were constantly being killed and there was a shortage of them. Now they are saying it MUST happen that way. And no one looks at it realizing that if the Prophet cared enough about women so many hundred years ago, can you imagine what he would do today? All those kinds of things that were beautiful and compassionate are now interpreted in a narrow and violent way.

... contd.