I have always considered myself an atheist, not the kind who put up ‘Hindu Atheist’ on their Twitter bio alongside ‘Proud to be followed by the PM’ but someone who genuinely lacks belief in Gods of any kind and religion. There are a plethora of reasons why one might have a belief like this, I am not going deep into that. But over the past few years, few things have really made me wonder whether I am an atheist at all!

Spontaneous reactions in our life are very pure, at least that what I believe. You see a little kid on the way, you smile automatically. You are watching your favorite football team scoring a goal, you shout instantaneously, without thinking what others might be thinking. For the past couple of years, I have had these spontaneous prayers on 3-4 occasions and that really makes me think about my belief system.

On all of those occasions, someone I know had some serious complications in life. The first one I remember was when my mom was undergoing a surgery back in early 2020. It took almost 5 hours. One of the worst and most worried 5 hours of my life. That too far apart from my city. The next one was for someone I have known for quite sometime through a football group. We had huge political differences and fought in the past. But on a Sunday morning, I opened up my twitter and saw him tweeting to seek oxygen cylinder and hospital bed for himself because he had Covid and his O2 level was decreasing rapidly. The next one also came very spontaneously when Christian Eriksen collapsed during the group match of Euro 2020.

All the concerned individuals are doing fine in their respective lives at this moment. But in hindsight, on a different note, I really don’t know what my religious belief system is. Not that I am too worried about it but this is something to think about. I read in the book “Think and Grow Rich” that only prayer doesn’t do any good but prayer backed by faith gives you the desired outcome. Really don’t know how right or wrong it was, but do atheists also have faith and beliefs deep down? Have you also considered yourself an atheist but still prayed for something to happen in a grave situation?