Saturday evening, a little jolly at work, I was having a casual chat my colleagues. We often talk about Americans vs Indians (in IT business). And guess what I keep telling them, Americans are good, they make good products, and they are intelligent and so on. They keep protesting it and we have good debate. I don't mean to prove Indians inferior. But hey! never underestimate anyone even u if know a good deal about them. Don't generalize. Just learn from their strengths. Anyways, the debate couldn't get any far that day - we were hungry - I was dreaming of a pizza. "How about a pizza! - Vivek, you owe us a treat anyway". Vivek didn't have a problem but Ganesh wasn't for it. "Shalin, I have to go to the temple". I laughed. "Ganesh, don't ditch a pizza for the temple". Both of them starred at me. They probably didn't have anything to hit me with. I quickly added "Just Kidding, but tell me, why do you have to go to the temple?". "Shalin, I have go there 29 times, once a week, during this (some) period". I was amused with his reply "So you get a good girl if you go to that temple 29 times in a year, or you get a good hike or something else". Well bad guesses but he didn't have a good reply either. I wanted to pull his leg further. "And in how many temples is this offer running?" I better not mention their reaction but they soon bounced back to me with questions. "Shalin you don't go to temple, you don't believe in god or what" I was expecting these questions from them. Lot of people have asked me this before too. "Listen, I don't remember when I last visited a temple but I think I did visit one this year, I don't have anything against temple nor against any belief. I just don't go to temple, maybe because nobody at home asks (force) me to nor I feel it's necessary". The discussion slowly faded away. I wasn't very keen in discussing that at least at that point of time. But I have always thought over it. Why don't I visit temple like most of them do. Why don't I "believe" in GOD and "Worship" them. And then the next thing on my mind is - why should I. I cannot digest the fact that people who don't pay their income tax visit temple. And by doing that they feel they are religious and social. Why do we have to pretend to be someone and why do we have to go to someplace to prove it. I feel we should be responsible for what we do, probably "GOD" is nowhere but within ourselves. I think our conscience is GOD. If our conscience cannot allow us to do something that should help us draw a line. Honesty is not a Plug and Play device. It should be in our blood. Maybe next time someone asks me if I believed in GOD. I should simply say: "Honesty is my religion, I am god"