These days, like most Europeans, I too think very often about the Muslims. This despite the fact that, in contrast to the adherents of Mohammed, neither my ancestors nor the numerous gods of my country ever had anything to do with the Occident. On the other hand, however, thousands of mosques are situated on the banks of the Ganges together with millions of Hindu temples. From Benares to Calcutta.And it is not uncommon in that thickly populated Indo-Gangetic Plain that a brother starts to hate the other only because he wears different clothes. Or one worships another God or eats a different kind of meat. It often happens that siblings fight one another. Even unto death.

After the deaths on September 11 I thought less – if at all, then only marginally – about the Muslims. Much more about the unscrupulous terrorists who can recruit at will from various groups of people, minorities, nations.

And as a human being I felt blind hatred against the organizations, groups of people, countries . whose pictures were repeatedly flashed in the aftermath. And gradually the common denominator became more and more evident to me, i.e. that all of them were Muslims.

I became more confused and uncertain and tried to find solace in the writings of my western ideals (poets and thinkers). I read with great care an interview with the philosopher Gadamer, who himself had had to live through the most devastating wars of mankind, titled “I am very scared.” His answer to the question of the ‘Acceptable Future of all Religions’ was a help to me, viz. that it is possible to come to terms with everything, except with the religion of the Arabs. I read the paragraph again.

As far as I can remember I had had a similar discussion with my elder brother in Delhi (during my studies in New Delhi) and at that time we had reacted to a report in India Today, India’s “Der Spiegel”, which read: Throughout the world the nations and cultures have had conflicts with the Muslims, irrespective of whether they were in a minority, as in India, or amajority, as in Indonesia. At that time, the report appeared to us, two students of the Indian middle class, like a scientific observation and simultaneously as a logical explanation of certain evil situations. And we believed it.

In my small hometown, Motihari in Eastern India, where George Orwell saw the light of day, and where, in 1917, Gandhi started his Satyagraha movement, the Muslims are in a minority. And in my childhood and youth I, a Hindu, had an interesting relationship with them. We went to school together and they were my playmates.

Every now and then, however, conflicts did take place between the two major religions of India, between the Muslims and the Hindus. Special security measures were adopted during the tense days and weeks. Parents forbade their children to go into areas where mosques were situated.

There was a small Muslim ghetto about as large as the northern part of Kassel called agarwa. In this area lived a large Muslim joint family. My father, a Hindu, was related to this family. Yes, ‘related’ is the correct expression, as my father, a strict disciplinarian in his own family, was looked upon in that Muslim family as the most beloved and generous of uncles. The children of that family told me that only as young men did they get to know that my father was neither a Muslim nor a blood relative. He spoke excellent Urdu and in his wardrobe one could find several well-cut sherwanis.

But we children belonged, on the one hand, to a West-oriented era, and simultaneously to modern, progressive India, in which Pakistan and its Muslims were considered arch enemies.

My brother and I were particularly fond of Muslim festivals, especially on account of the delicious sweets prepared on these occasions. My mother comes from a strictly vegetarian Hindu family, and at home even today no meat is cooked. But we brothers had early on discovered the joys of eating meat. At such functions the Muslims prepared for their Hindu guests and neighbours dishes made from goat’s meat. Just thinking about them even now my mouth starts watering. I can well remember the day when we visited the family late in the evening on Eid-ul-Azha and the meat had all been consumed. I was upset and both my brother and I wore downcast expressions. My aunt realised why and immediately asked her daughters, or her daughter-in-law, to prepare a meat dish afresh just for us. I was overjoyed!

Even as a child I was a revolutionary and as a result quite early on I moved away from my family. I spent the last years of school in cities thousands of miles away. The visits to my family were few and far between in those days, partly due to strained relations within the family, and partly due to the extreme competition at school, which entailed much work. It was the same with my elder brother. We did our best to get the best grades and results in order to be able to rise in the hierarchy of the Indian bourgeoisie.

In New Delhi my brother met his school friend, a Muslim by the name of Aquil Ahmad, once again. Both became bosom pals after this meeting. One of the important reasons for this was that Aquil was a student of Urdu literature, and Urdu poetry my brother’s favourite reading in his leisure hours, although he was a student of Mathematics. He now lives and workssuccessfully in the USA. I experienced the intensity of this relationship only incidentally, as I was a diligent student in the Foreign Languages Department at a different university. In due course of time I learnt that Aquil had lost his father as a child. He thus referred to my father as Uncle or sometimes even Baba like us children. Especially during the last few years, after we had emigrated to two different countries for higher studies, he took to calling him Baba.

In 1993 I was working as a trainee in the Volkswagen factory in Kassel when I unexpectedly received news of my father being on his deathbed. I took the next plane out and when I landed in Delhi in a state of shock, Aquil, the Muslim friend, arranged for my speedy travel to Patna in Eastern India. I did not arrive in time to see my father alive, but as a Hindu son I carried out his last rites according to Hindu tradition on the banks of the Ganges. At all the long complicated funeral ceremonies Aquil was the one who coordinated everything, working tirelessly like a well-oiled machine.

My colleague Dirk Schuemer wrote in the FAZ on September 20 as follows: ‘What is Islam actually? I must admit that till now this question has only marginally interested me and I cannot for the life of me remember when the Mohammedan era began. 620? 628?’. During the very first reading, I found the lines of colleague Schümer’s partly ironical and partly complaining. Then I imagined how it would look like, if in a public discussion, for example in a talk show in TV, I were to propound to him my understanding of his lines. Then I saw my colleague irritated. He started refuting my interpretation: No! No! … You have completely misunderstood me. I neither want to complain, nor to ignore Islam . But it is my right (and also possible) not to understand everything in this world.

The same questions go through my head. But my case is more justified as I come from a country in which religion is seldom taught in schools. Furthermore, although a deeply religious and educated man, I have read only a fraction of the numerous Hindu sacred texts – the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Epics.

I saw on CNN a Muslim woman academic bemoaning the fact that the Muslims, a third of the world’s population, remain misunderstood; that the rest of the world has to understand the Muslims, or else peaceful coexistence between nations would remain a utopian idea.

The Hindus do not constitute even a third of the world’s population, and the Buddhists are even fewer in number. I try in vain to imagine an international constellation in which temple bells would peal in Europe for millions of cow-worshippers and their billions of gods.

For me, as a writer educated in Europe, it is even more difficult to end this article with the opinion of the European philosopher Gadamer. ‘I don’t know, but I believe in our world as we know it, and I do not need any written explanation for that. It is really very difficult for a European to understand that it is not always so for others.’ Yes very difficult, even if the colleagues like Mr. Schümer would find Buddha, Krishna, Rama, and the cows very interesting and fascinating.

To comfort myself I let my thoughts drift to the mosques on the banks of the Ganges, especially since I – living in the country of my choice, like some of my western colleagues – am not concerned either with mosques or with Islam.

Translated from German by Prof. Rajendra Prasad Jain (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Anant Kumar, a writer in German language, was born in the North Eastern Indian State Bihar. Besides regular contribution in literary magazines and periodicals, he wrote five books of Poetry and Prose: “Fremde Frau – Fremder Mann, Schweinfurt 1997/ 2000”, “Kasseler Texte, Schweinfurt 1998/ 2000”, “Die Inderin, Schweinfurt 1999/ 2000”, “.und ein Stück für Dich, Ahlhorn 2000”, “Die galoppierende Kuhherde, Schweinfurt 2001/2002”.