Recently, I came under vehement attack from a Hindutvawadi who demanded to know who I was to deny the existence of God. I told him that we rationalists were not denying the existence of a real entity; rather, it was the believers who were propounding the existence of a non-existent thing called God! I added that, much like a Brahmin, I too claim to be “twice-born.” Every human baby is born an atheist and is subsequently indoctrinated into the specific form of theism practiced by its parents. Some of these individuals eventually revert to their original state of mind, and I told him I am one such person.

That encounter brought back memories of my younger days. I was born into a Hindu family belonging to the Gowd Saraswat Brahmin caste. As the saying goes, one is not born a Brahmin but is made one through the required rituals. Going by that logic, I was never truly a Brahmin, as I never underwent the sacred thread ceremony and other rituals prescribed for a Brahmin boy.

At a very young age, I remember folding my hands in prayer before a lithograph of an old man with a beard sitting under a tree with offerings laid before him. Alongside it was a pantheon of typical Hindu deities—Rama, Krishna, Shiva, and others. My name was supposedly given to me by the Swami of the local Ramakrishna Mission who lived nearby. My mother took me as a baby to him, and he named me Narendra after the founder of the Mission, Swami Vivekananda. Over the years, well-meaning people have often reminded me in public that one day, like my famous namesake, I too will “realise the Truth.” I usually counter them by saying that I have already done so, or I simply ignore them! I consider myself fortunate that I was not named after one of the millions of Hindu gods, which would have invited even more comments about an atheist bearing a divine name. One can only imagine the irony of someone named Vishnu or Shiva being an outspoken atheist!

When it was time for me to start school, I was sent to a “convent”—as English-medium schools run by Christian nuns are popularly called in India. Parents often boast that their daughter is “going to a convent.” If you assume that means she is training to become a nun, you would be mistaken; they simply mean an English-medium school! This is why matrimonial advertisements frequently seek a “convent-educated girl,” which is merely shorthand for someone educated in an English-medium institution.

The nuns had a prayer for every conceivable occasion. Before class commenced, we had to thank God for what we were about to learn; after class, we had to thank Him for what we had learned. There were prescribed prayers for home use, too. We had to thank God before going to sleep, upon waking up, and before and after every meal. We even had to submit a daily report on the number of prayers we had recited! As I recall, my early days were spent praying, playing, and learning the “three Rs,” though not necessarily in that order.

Festivals were celebrated at home with customary delicacies, though without elaborate rituals. In fact, I cannot recall a single occasion when a priest was summoned to our house. I did, however, attend such functions at my mother’s ancestral home. We had virtually no contact with my paternal family because my grandfather’s sons were locked in endless feuds with one another and with their father. It was a constant game of shifting alliances: A would gang up with B, C, and D against their father; then they would turn on each other; and eventually, the youngest son would go back and side with the father! In between these feuds, brief attempts at reconciliation were made, only for the fighting to resume shortly after.

Living in this atmosphere of constant family tension, I grew up as a very shy child, unable to communicate easily with others. My father frequently engaged in nonsensical financial ventures, which I could see through even as a young boy. He was a firm believer in astrology and fate. As I have mentioned in another essay, he once consulted an astrologer who assured him that, due to a favorable planetary alignment, a building he had purchased (likely on that same astrologer’s advice) would never leave his possession! Meanwhile, he was heavily in debt to all sorts of lenders, including his own brother-in-law. Understanding the gravity of the situation yet feeling powerless to fix it, I turned to God.

I was convinced that fervent prayer could set everything right. In my desperate appeals to this non-existent entity, I would even set strict deadlines—imploring God to fix all our troubles by the next morning. I genuinely believed it would happen. But that morning never came, and repeated disappointments sowed the first seeds of doubt in my mind about the very existence of God.

I also suffered from chronic ill health. I cannot say whether there was a psychosomatic component to it, but I suffered from severe bouts of asthma that kept me bedridden for days at a time. After treatments from numerous doctors failed, an oracle was consulted. The oracle advised that I be given sea baths on three consecutive new moon days, followed by the feeding of an “untouchable” woman. Due to practical difficulties, only the second half of the prescription was carried out—there was no one available to take me for the sea baths, but my mother managed to perform the ritual feeding.

This ritual involved calling a Dalit woman to the house on the new moon day. She was made to sit on the veranda—or more commonly, outside near the toilet, as bringing her inside was believed to “pollute” the house. She was served a generous portion of cooked rice and plain curry. Then, oil was poured onto her head until it ran down the sides of her face. The woman who came to our house brought a few of her children along; as the oil ran down her face, she would wipe it with her hands and smear it onto her children’s heads. My mother, being kinder than most, poured only a portion of the oil on her head and allowed her to take the rest home in a bottle.

When I asked my mother why this was being done, she explained that it was meant to transfer my bad luck to the woman. I naively asked what would happen to her children if she died from my bad luck. My mother told me to keep quiet and not ask such inconvenient questions. That moment planted the first seed of awareness in my mind regarding the plight of Dalits. This local custom—meant to ward off the evil effects of unfavorable planetary alignments—transferred misfortune to a poor Dalit person by feeding them, pouring oil on them, and sometimes adding hair or nail clippings to the food as a medium for the bad luck. Known locally as Agelu, this superstitious practice has since been banned by the government.

None of these rituals worked, and my health did not improve. In retrospect, my asthma may well have had a psychosomatic element linked to childhood stress. The persistent failure of these remedies—and of the prayers taught by the nuns at school—made me question how a benevolent God could be so cruel to one of His most devoted believers.

Despite my health issues, I was a good student and consistently earned top marks. Before examinations, my mother would always remind me to pray to God before leaving for school. I used to obey dutifully. However, once doubts about God’s existence took hold, I began to merely pretend to pray. To my surprise, skipping the prayers made absolutely no difference to my examination results!

Testing this hypothesis further, I prayed before one exam that God would make me fail disastrously. Nothing of the sort happened; I passed with flying colors. That confirmed my suspicions. The next time my mother asked me to pray before an exam, I told her directly that it was useless to pray to a non-existent God. I still remember her cryptic response: “You have realised the truth at a very young age.” Looking back, I suspect she had reached the same conclusion herself, but lacked the courage to express it openly for fear of societal backlash. From that day on, I stopped praying voluntarily—though I still had to endure the compulsory “secular” prayers enforced at school.

My entire schooling took place in Roman Catholic institutions, where students were strictly categorized into two groups: Catholics and Non-Catholics. The Catholic students attended catechism classes where they were instructed in Biblical doctrines. The rest of us, lumped together under the label “Non-Catholics,” were assigned to “Moral Science” classes. There, we were taught about moral values, sin, virtue, creationism, and the greatness of a universal God.

Examinations were conducted on Moral Science, but the absurdities taught in those classes had a reverse effect on me—they only strengthened my conviction that God was a myth. These classes were usually assigned to the most ineffective teachers, who struggled to answer any probing questions. The curriculum relied on a slim, school-published booklet containing preachy stories and heavy-handed moralizing. Rather than indoctrinating me, these classes reinforced my belief that the supernatural was complete hogwash.

My social circle consisted of boys from similar backgrounds—some Roman Catholics, others belonging to various local Hindu castes. We frequently debated the origin of the world, natural phenomena, and the existence of the supernatural. During my youth, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) exerted a powerful ideological influence in our region. Although I was an atheist, I found myself drawn to their rhetoric of a strong, united nation. I was particularly influenced by their anti-minority narrative, which fed us tales of atrocities committed against a weak and divided Hindu society. It was a Savarkarite form of political Hindutva: I remained a thorough atheist, yet I supported the idea of a consolidated Hindu society standing strong against minority groups that threatened the secular nation-state.

Through these endless debates with my peers, I gained a deep insight into the popular mindset. Whenever we non-believers challenged superstitious claims, we were inevitably confronted with questions about local “miracles”: How does so-and-so produce holy ash from thin air? How do firewalkers walk on burning coals without getting burned? How do godmen cure incurable diseases?

We would explain that these phenomena were rooted in natural physical principles and trickery, not supernatural powers. But then came the ultimate challenge: “If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it and show us?”

That was a difficult challenge to answer at the time. Lacking practical knowledge of how these tricks were performed, we hit a wall in our arguments. My frustration at being unable to demonstrate the truth drove me on a quest to find someone who could teach me the mechanics behind these “miracles.”

Looking back, I often reflect on how much faster I might have progressed had I met a mentor in my youth who could have demonstrated these sleight-of-hand techniques to me. That is precisely why, today, I never pass up an opportunity to interact with young people. Among them, there may well be a young boy or girl standing right where I stood five decades ago. Years later, I frequently meet adults who tell me that attending one of my demonstrations during their youth changed their outlook on life forever.

More about those experiences later.