Not making this about religion but just sharing my experience. My entire school life, all 14 years, has been in a Christian school. And before you ask why I chose this school if it was *that bad* - it was because no other school in my neighborhood was as good as this.

We were forced to read the Bible and listen to the 'Word of God' in the morning assembly every single day. Our music was basically carols. On Tuesdays, the director of that school would head the assembly.

He'd insult Hindu gods NONSTOP, from making fun of our gods and rituals to proclaiming how anyone who follows any other god than Christ is going to burn in eternal hellfire.

As a child, we'd get scared of the idea of burning in hellfire. The graphical explanation was beyond scary.

Not only this, we'd also be distributed Bibles almost every month. Every week there was a value education class which had less to do with values and more to do with the Bible and god.

We were forced to pray 4 times in that 6 hours of school. After every festival, a lot of us would have mehendi or tilak and our school PENALISED the students for it, they'd extort money for it in the name of 'breaking of school conduct', yet a child wearing cross was fine.

Growing up in this environment for 14 years, I was lowkey ashamed of being a Hindu and was made to believe that anybody who wasn't actively Christian was a traitor. This forced me move away from my religion, from Hinduism.

I wasn't confident enough to defend why I was proud of being a Hindu. I just wanted to fit it and not be looked down upon. Thus, for the longest of time, I called myself an 'Agnostic'. The transition to a practicing Hindu happened only this year!

*fit in