In search of wisdom...

When I reached Mumbai, I was well recieved by my dear friend, Manthan who was equally excited as me, if not less, on seeing each other. I had taken a couple of days off from my work and flown down to Mumbai to meet friends. We had decided that I would be staying with Manthan in a flat where he was staying as a Paying Guest. But there was one problem. The lady who owns the flat would never in her life entertain a muslim to stay in her flat and manthan was not ready to let me stay in a hotel or elsewhere (For those who don't know me, I am a Muslim by religion). So he came up with an idea of rechristening me as 'Sameer', a hindu boy from Delhi. I was also game for it because I wanted to experience how things differ with our religions.

We reached quite late in the night to the flat so after talking for a while we slept. In the morning when I got up, I asked manthan as to what religion does the land lady follows and what am I expected to greet her as. He told me the whole family follows the SwamiNarayan' sect and I was expected to either greet the lady as 'Jai Shri Krishna' or 'Jai SwamiNarayan'. Finally the moment came when the lady and I were face to face. I was a bit nervous and amused at the same time and what came out of my mouth was a disaster, I said 'Jai Radha Krishna'. It was neither of the options given to me. To my luck, she didn't hear it right, so she smilingly replied, 'Jai Swami Narayan'. She then asked me where do I stay in delhi and whether I have visited the AKSHAR DHAM temple in delhi. I said, 'I visit it religiously every sunday'.