I Found God in SoHo
one of many, actually
In 2020, I wrote a small essay called "The Art of Praying" for Reclamation Magazine. In the essay, I recount eras of my life where I oscillated between acting out of faith for reasons unknown and falling out of faith for reasons entirely known.
“Perhaps I relinquished my sense of faith when I watched good people from my life vanish from this world far too early. Perhaps it was the moment I realized prayers alone to the countless avatars of powerful deities and saints could not bring back the people that I had lost.”
Throughout my life, I saw the visceral reactions of those who turned away from God because of grief and those who turned to God because of grief. There were many times I made space for both reactions separately. Now I understand they are simply two sides of the same coin and are both deeply human responses to unimaginable pain.
I believe I was resentful then, still, writing about why I stopped praying. Though I cannot say for sure grief and I are friends now, we do have mutual respect for one another. Fortunately or unfortunately, this bond was forged by the simple yet devastating act of letting go. Of control. Of a plan. Of expectations. Of it all.
I grew up in a joint family household in India that was neither sacred nor secular. It was a house of faith some days and a house of play on other days. This flexibility meant there was less pressure to strictly conform to the tenets of Hinduism, even as we maintained the cultural and traditional aspects of it.
In this space, I chose to wake up early to join my aunt in the pooja room. I chose to accompany my grandmother to the gudi on Saturdays. I observed matrimonial rituals occasion after occasion. I stayed up for nearly 24 hours during our family’s Gruhapravesam Pooja. Interwoven with religion and societal customs, these are familiar traditions I curiously participated in but later lazily dismissed when I assimilated in the States.
As much as I enjoyed watching my aunt adorn silk sarees on mini idols of goddesses, pick fresh flowers in the garden for offerings, and make prasad every morning, I was a child then. I didn’t necessarily find meaning in what she did or why she did this every single day, most of the time alone despite the size of our extended family living under one Hyderabadi roof. My favorite aunt is the most devout to the Gods, even when they test her strength time and time again. I saw her shape my mother’s journey to faith from an early age. Throughout my mother’s years living with her mother-in-law, sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws, etc., I can imagine she carved her own path to faith under their influence as well as the influence of the city.
She told me not too long ago that she was not born into a religious household. “My parents didn’t raise me with bhakti,” she said with an embarrassed laugh when I asked her to share some stories of Hindu mythology. I laughed with her and asked cheekily, "Then who will teach my future children these stories next?”
There was a pause between us, and I remember a fleeting moment of loss tiptoeing at the bottom of my stomach. We both looked at each other, knowing well that they might not know the stories we were told by our mothers and our grandmothers. It was a kind of loss – an overwhelming shadow of defeat I had to face and then dismiss yet again since the future felt so far away. However, as vast as that shadow was, there was a glimmer of light I saw through my mother’s eyes since she created some traditions despite not being born into them. And through her eyes, I saw myself as an extension of them.
After this conversation, I became hyper-aware of traditions declining in my life. At a certain age, when we move away from those who kept its fabric alive, we realize we have the power to create new patterns from the existing cloth.
This revelation brought me to Lower Manhattan on the first Sunday in March.
I took the 6 to Spring St and walked through what felt like an eight-second TikTok vlog of SoHo. After a quick Google search the night before, I found a small Ganesha Temple on the corner of Broome St. The description online felt compelling enough: “We envision it in the style of a family temple, or a small city temple on a busy street corner, where one can step out of the chaos of life for a few minutes and find refuge, peace, blessings, and commune with divinity within and without.”
I walked inside and up the narrow stairs. As I entered through the door, I was welcomed by pristine white and blue marble floors, white walls covered with frames of deities, and the smile of an American white-clad pandit. I had never seen or been inside a Hindu temple where the pandit was not brown-skinned. On what felt like the first hot spring day in winter, I was not surprised to find myself the only one inside the building. Outside, I had passed several restaurants packed to the brim with outdoor-seated patrons.
I removed my shoes, said ‘namaste,’ and roamed the space. The blue walls were lined with several deities next to each other. The room was neatly kept, with rugs facing the center of the floor which held a larger statue of Lord Venkateswara. I sat cross-legged and worshiped a moment of pure stillness more than the Gods themselves.
I thought my own judgment would visit me first before any prayers did once inside, but an epiphany came to me as quickly as the pigeons flocked to the nearest pizza crust on the corner of Broome and Crosby. “Ah, I’ve entered this new stage in my life. A life where I am handed the power and tools to choose traditions for myself, and carry them on in my own way.” What a weight that is to hold.
I understood then how challenging it was to stop and realize that there will come a time when there will be no one behind me to drive the meaning and purpose of my traditions. How, if I want to pass down my own, I must come to accept that I will be the first to pass them down.
So here I am, diasporic and unorthodox, praying to the Gods in SoHo under the noise of Bad Bunny reverberating through the pre-war building walls from a hot ride outside the window. I heard the casual conversations of Sunday girls doing brunch, the car horns and sirens, and smelled the mango-raspberry vapes out of the temple’s window. And yet, in this contradictory space, I felt at peace.
When I got home that night, I thought about recreating every recipe my mother spoke to me about. I became excited at the prospect of hosting holiday parties, celebrating Telugu festivities. I thought about asking more about her past, so I could write it all down one day. I briefly thought about taking my future children to the temple and the movie theater once every two weeks. I thought about enrolling them in Telugu classes to learn proper forms of writing, diction, and reading. I entertained the thought of my future partner joining, learning along with them in an effort to one day communicate with them as I would, and maybe dream alongside them as I would.
The essence of traditions may have started with its birth. But its survival relies on its ability to adapt. Finding meaning in rituals and practices we choose to embrace, and archiving personal symbols are vehicles to not only cultural preservation but also connection to ourselves, our families, and our communities.
Though I may not believe in my religion the way it was made to be believed in, I do believe in stories. In preserving them, passing them down - through script or through word of mouth. I believe in protecting memories - the shells of our past. Most of all, I believe in the future they can create.
Ufff such a good read ❤️