Some Indians are Hindus as well as Muslims!

Here’s something very interesting from across the border (and I’m not referring to their semi-naked, near-nude actresses): there’s a community in India which are Muslims as well as Hindus. They’re known as the Cheeta-Meharats, and are mostly settled in Ajmer, Pali, Raj Samand, Bhilwara and Udaipur (I believe this area was known as C.P. once). Their population is a million and a half, and about 70 percent live below the poverty line (an improvement over the rest of India, where about eighty percent are perpetually hungry). So what’s so interesting about them? Well, it seems they follow both the Islamic and Hindu ways of praying. They pray in mosques (like Muslims do) and they also pray in Hindu temples. They celebrate Eid and Diwaali, and they probably drink cow piss as well. There are just three rituals of Islam that the Cheeta-Meharats have to compulsorily follow - sunnat (circumcision), dafan (burial) and eating halal meat. Some of them even have traditional Hindu weddings (making seven rounds around the sacred fire), and some go through the Islamic “nikah”. Both Muslims and Hindus have tried to convert the community to their religions, but without success. No one knows why, how or when they started following both religions, but their population indicates that they’ve been like this for at least two hundred years or so.