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start stuffing him with answers. Just look at the process. If the question has not been asked, the answer is irrelevant.

This is what I was going to tell you. In my childhood they started giving me answers... because there was a special class for Jainism in the Jaina temple and every child had to attend it, one hour every evening. I refused.

I told my father, "In the first place I don't have those questions for which they are supplying answers. This is stupid. When I have questions I will go and learn their answers and try to find out whether they are correct or not. Right now I am not even interested in the question. Who created the world? My foot! -- I am not interested. I know one thing for certain: I have not created it.

My father said, "You are a strange child. All the children from the family are going, from the neighborhood, everybody is going."

Jainas tend to live in a neighborhood, a close-knit neighborhood. Minorities are afraid of the majority so they remain close to each other; it is more protective. So all the children of the neighborhood go and their temple is in the middle of the neighborhood. That too is for protection, otherwise it will be burned any day if it is in a Hindu neighborhood or in a Mohammedan neighborhood.

And it will become difficult: if there is a riot you cannot go to your own temple. And there are people who will not eat without going to the temple. First they have to go to the temple and worship, then only can they eat. So Jainas live in small sections of the town, city, village, with their temple in the middle, and surrounding it is their whole community.

"Everybody is going," my father said.

I said, "They may have questions, or they are idiots. I am not an idiot, and I don't have those questions, so I simply refuse to go. And I know what the teacher goes on teaching the children is absolute rubbish."

My father said, "How can you prove that? You always ask me to prove things; now I ask you, how can you prove what he says is rubbish?"

I said, "Come with me."

He had to go many times to many places; it was just that the arguments had to be concluded. And when we

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