But heroes? That is a different breed. And while I do not expect them to be perfect, I expect them to be curious, questioning, and interested in finding out what they don’t know. I like my heroes with doubts and “I don’t know”s. I like them to be open to changing their minds, but only with reason. I want them to be better than me in most respects, but at least equal to me in rational thought. That is because I consider it to be the absolute minimum requirement. So low on intellectual rigour as to not require qualifying further. It is such a basic need for my hero not to believe in flying monkeys or winged horses or magic wafers that I would not even list these if I were to ever make a list of the qualities my hero would have.
I am sorry, Shehla. Perhaps, you are a good human. Perhaps, you will be a great leader of your people. Perhaps, you are misunderstood. Perhaps, you never asked to be a hero. But you were mine. As was Shashi Tharoor, and for similar reasons. You were both better than me in many ways, and (I believed) equal to me in rational thought when it came to religious superstition. But you have both failed in the most basic criteria that I believe a leader of 1.3 billion people in the 21st century must have. And for that, I am truly sorry. I wish you weren’t my heroes. But you were. And now you aren’t.
As they say, it isn’t you, darling. It’s me.
Same here. And the same goes for people who bring in religion couched as "spiritual"