Secularism is practiced within families. It is common for a Hindu family to have a Christian domestic helper who is given leave for Sunday mass, or for Muslim and Sikh colleagues to be invited for Karva Chauth fasting celebrations. A typical middle-class home has a small temple, a crucifix (if Christian), or the Guru Granth Sahib (if Sikh) in a dedicated corner.
Daily Life Story (Urban Nuclear Family): The mother, a software engineer, meal-preps on Sunday. She uses a pressure cooker and an instant pot simultaneously. Her teenage daughter insists on pasta, while the son wants traditional rajma-chawal. The compromise? A "fusion night" where Italian sauce meets Indian kidney beans. Secularism is practiced within families
After dinner (usually a fight about who washed the dishes last), we gather in the living room. My MIL watches her soap opera where the villainess is trying to steal the family property. We all pretend to hate it, but we are fully invested. Daily Life Story (Urban Nuclear Family): The mother,
My husband rubs my feet while scrolling on his phone. The kids fight over the last piece of chocolate. The gecko on the wall catches a mosquito. The compromise
And I think to myself: This is it. The noise. The chaos. The lack of boundaries. This is the wealth.