When I mentioned Idol worship, I meant exactly that. I am not labeling all notions of God as idol worship. But there are quite a few such notions and I was referring to those. And there’s absolutely no fight in somebody believing in a certain version of the concept called ‘God’, even Idol worship; all I’m saying is that quite a few of them seem to be very absurd and mindless beliefs and are continuing only because most people never question what has been told to them about religion and god. If someone questions and still ends up believing in Idol worship… good for them but if someone has a set of beliefs that he just inherited, I’d find it irrational.

I might have gone overboard in using the word ‘bullshit’. Might have hurt some sentiments there. Sorry about that.

On Motherland

Again, just because I was born and brought up somewhere doesn’t mean I owe anything to that place. I mean, you’ll have to grow up somewhere. By that logic, if I were born in a different country and then brought up in 5 different countries, where would my loyalties be? And this can happen if your dad’s career requires you to move around. It would have also happened to people born in Pakistan before and brought up in India. Where should their loyalties be?rnrnI agree that when I go abroad someday, people will look at me as an Indian; my identity to the world at large is that of an Indian. But that’s how the world might look at me; somehow, I’m totally convinced about the way I look at myself – I’m Nakul Mandan, a citizen of the world. It might sound very theatrical, but that’s truly how I’ve always felt. It didn’t change when I went to Switzerland for a week and I don’t think it’ll change much in the future.

On hypocrisy

As I’ve already said, I too feel that hypocrisy is everywhere, not just in India. You’ve cited some good examples about it in the US and I’m sure we’ll find similar examples all over the world.