Like children all over the world, Babu inherited his beliefs from his mother first, then from the society of men and women at large. He believed in the idea of an all powerful god and the presence of ghosts. He experienced the fear of both as a direct consequence of these beliefs.
He read comic strips of the Hindu mythology - the wonderful and colourful stories of power, of magic, of demons and gods, of dark and evil gnomes and ogres and resplendent gods, scantily-clad goddesses of divine grace and luscious sizzling personas. The stories of the infinitely strong Bheem eating cartloads of food meant for the terrifying rakshas, the bravery and the eventual melancholic ending of Abhimanyu, of the many delightful myths surrounding lord Krishna, both in the battlefield and outside it, the lore of the gopikas...and many more that captured Babu's imagination. He read the stories several times until he could repeat the dialogues verbatim. He was so enamoured by the myths and legends surrounding the Krishna figure that one night he dreamed of the stately magnificence of that lord in all his resplendent glory - four arms, bejewelled limbs and attire, the many weapons he held in his arms, the dazzling crown on his head and of course the face, infinitely calm yet capable of delivering a mighty blow to the evil incarnate. When he related his dream to his mother, she doted on him and said that it was indeed a good sign and boded well for him. He was pleased with this news, pleased with himself that the god had chosen him to reveal His magnificent avatar. It was only later, much later, that he was to have a radically different perspective on the whole matter of gods, demons and dreams.
Another favorite of his at this time was a book on the story of the Buddha, nay, the story of Gautama before he became the Buddha. Its cover photo appealed to him and drew him to the book time and time again. The story of Gautama's brother shooting down a bird in flight and the rescue attempted by Gautama with his infinite concern for the life of the bird, for the compassion with which he went about it - all this endeared to Babu in a way that no other celluloid hero ever held his interest.
Babu disbelieved nothing, no one; he believed in everything he was told. He was gullible; he neither had the gall of a brat nor the guile of a smart Alec. He was simpleton. He feared easily, hurt easily, angered easily and even cried easily. Emotions came to him easily. He thought more about the characters that he read about than about the people with whom he interacted daily.
Babu's beliefs hardened as he grew up, blithely unaware that belief is questionable, arguable, different for people of different societies, even within the society that he belonged to. Belief for him meant standing in front of the deity at home or in a temple with palms folded and mumbling a prayer, eating the prasad, placing palm on a flaming wick and touching the eyes and so on and so on. It meant paying obeisance to all the gods, of different colours and weapons, riding different animals as vehicles and of different anthropomorphic forms. Ritual was an expression of belief, even if it is performed by a paid intermediary, the priest. Babu's world consisted of the gods, the myths, the ghosts and the myriad stories surrounding them. He felt drawn to these images inexorably, like a magnet pulling iron filings.