No Complicated Philosophy - Sajjad Chunawala

As we grow, we learn and observe and realize how things change, people change. Sajjad Chunawala, Station head, Fever 104 fm, tells Nidhi Jain what he thinks about the Almighty.

By birth
I am a Sunni Muslim.I do not believe God as a universal creator, I do not believe him as a supreme being but I believe that God is Conscience. It's a fundamental for me - if we do something wrong, and something inside tells that we indeed did something incorrect or unethical, then that means you believe in God, and if we do something wrong without having a guilt pang then there is no belief that exists.

My wife is British and Jewish. I got married in three different ways - British wedding, court wedding and a nikaah. Many people told me to change my wife's name. I just do not believe in that at all. She was happy to have nikkah but we both feel that religion and God is a very personal thing, one should not impose it on others.

I believe God is conscience. If you hurt people personally or professionally and you think you can get away with it internally then the belief in a Supreme being does not exist. I can detect people who lie.

Religion
I pray once a week mostly on Fridays. Its an auspicious day for our religion. Sometimes I skip because of time constraints but I do it for internal peace. There are people who use their religion to support violence; I guess this is the norm for every religion. Islam does not justify violence. Muslims are a very peace-loving people.

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the job of life. -- John Updike

Values
Values are simple, as life in itself is very simple. We complicate it ourselves. I like to approach my personal life and my professionally life rationally. I have this "no bullshitting" poster in my office. I first try to understand the core problem. If you do not back what you stand for then it's not a worthwhile value system. When I joined my company, at the inaugural session what I said was that I cannot tolerate politics or back biting. I want to have a non-political environment around me.

Belief
I only believe in people, their ideas, giving them enough responsibility, trust, authority to delegate well. I have risen up the ladder the hard way and I realize that we cannot do anything on our own. It is not possible. We have to be peoples' person.

No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard.--William Ernest Hocking

Rituals
Nothing in particular but I go to the mosque, love the food during Ramzaan, play Holi, cerebrate Diwali and also celebrate the Jewish festivals. They all are not rituals but celebrations.

Spiritual guidance
Very internal and very personal, I strongly believe in conscience.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.--Seneca the Younger

Positive thinking
Always. There will always be problems, there will be things that will go wrong, there will be bad days, good days...We should learn to fix problems by not overreacting or losing our heads.

Relaxing spiritually
For me it is basically calming the mind. I have done vipassana. We have to give a perspective to life.

Are you Destiny's child?
I believe life is what we make it.
If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides.--Yiddish