India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all

Host:
The dusk hung over the banks of the Ganges like a veil of amber smoke. The river flowed in a silent hymn, its surface trembling beneath the whisper of a dying sun. Incense rose from clay lamps that floated gently, carrying the prayers of thousands across the golden water. The air was thick with chanting, bells, and the faint perfume of jasmine and ash.

On the stone steps, Jack sat — tall, lean, shadowed by his own thoughts, his grey eyes reflecting the firelight. Beside him, Jeeny knelt, her long black hair stirred by the evening wind, her hands folded as if in reverence, her gaze soft but fierce.

A silence held between them, ancient as the river itself, before Jack broke it.

Jack: “Two million gods,” he murmured, his voice low, almost mocking. “Mark Twain was right — India must be the only millionaire in faith, while the rest of us are paupers. But I wonder — what’s the value of such wealth if none of them can prove they’re real?”

Host:
The light from a nearby temple flickered across his face, cutting shadows along his jawline. Jeeny turned toward him, her eyes glowing like embers against the dark.

Jeeny: “Real?” she echoed softly. “You think faith is about proof? India’s wealth isn’t in its idols but in its imagination. Every god is a mirror, Jack — each one a reflection of some human longing, some virtue we’ve forgotten how to hold.”

Jack: “Or maybe,” he cut in, “it’s a mirror of our fear — the terror of being alone in an indifferent universe. So we build faces for the void, give it names, stories, offerings — anything to keep from seeing the nothingness staring back.”

Host:
A bell rang across the river, its sound rippling like a circle of light through the twilight. Smoke from the lamps coiled upward, blurring the boundary between the sky and the souls that prayed beneath it.

Jeeny: “Maybe the void isn’t nothing, Jack. Maybe it’s the source of everything — the canvas where we paint our dreams of the divine. You call it illusion, I call it expression. A million gods — a million ways of saying the same thing: that the human spirit is infinite.”

Jack: “Infinite?” His laugh was dry, his tone sharp. “Or just lost? You don’t see the contradiction? A god for death, a god for desire, a god for wealth, another for poverty — if everyone’s divine, then no one is. It’s a marketplace of beliefs, not a temple.”

Host:
The wind grew stronger, scattering petals from the offerings into the water. A dog barked in the distance, children laughed, and a sacred hymn echoed from a far bank. The world felt both infinite and small, as if every sound were an answer to a question unasked.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the beauty, Jack. Every god is a story, and every story is a path. What you call chaos, India calls abundance. We don’t seek one truth — we celebrate many. Why must the divine be singular to be real?”

Jack: “Because truth — by its nature — excludes,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “If everything is true, then nothing is. Two million gods — two million conflicts. You worship contradictions and call it wisdom.”

Jeeny: “And you worship certainty,” she replied, her voice trembling slightly, “and call it truth. But certainty is just fear wearing a mask. You hide behind it because you’re afraid of what faith demands — surrender.”

Host:
Her words hung in the air, soft yet piercing. Jack’s jaw tightened; he stared into the river, where the reflections of a thousand lamps wavered like souls searching for their bodies. The silence between them deepened, like the pause between heartbeats.

Jack: “Surrender,” he whispered, his voice suddenly heavy. “I did once. I prayed for something I loved — and lost it anyway. The gods didn’t listen then. So why should I believe they listen now?”

Host:
A flame from one of the lamps flickered and died. For a moment, the darkness seemed to draw closer, the sound of the river swallowing their breaths.

Jeeny: “Maybe they did listen,” she said gently. “But they didn’t answer in the way you wanted. Faith isn’t a bargain, Jack. It’s a conversation — one that never truly ends. You speak, you wait, and sometimes... you just listen.”

Jack: “Listen to what? The silence?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she smiled faintly. “Because even silence is a voice — you just have to stop demanding it to agree with you.”

Host:
A tear rolled down her cheek, glimmering in the temple light. Jack looked at her — the cynicism in his eyes softening into something close to sorrow. The wind calmed, and the river seemed to slow, as if the world itself leaned closer to listen.

Jack: “So you think India’s a millionaire not because of its gods, but because of its faith?”

Jeeny: “Because of its imagination,” she corrected. “Because it dares to make room for every form of the sacred — the terrible, the beautiful, the contradictory. Every belief here has a place to breathe.”

Jack: “But doesn’t that make truth... diluted?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “It makes it alive.”

Host:
The night thickened. Above them, the sky was a vast field of silver dust, and the moonlight shimmered on the surface of the river like spilled mercury. Around them, pilgrims continued their chants, voices blending into one unbroken hum of devotion.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic,” he said, a faint smile curving his lips. “But if everything is sacred, doesn’t the word lose its meaning?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly. “It means we stop separating the sacred from the ordinary. Every stone, every breath, every tear — they’re all temples if you learn to look.”

Host:
He turned to her then, studying her face, the light in her eyes, the stillness of her breathing. For the first time that evening, he didn’t argue. Instead, he looked back toward the river, where the last lamp floated away into the darkness, its flame still alive against the current.

Jack: “Maybe Twain was right,” he murmured. “The rest of us are paupers — not because we have too few gods, but because we’ve forgotten how to believe in anything at all.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe,” she whispered, “you should start small — believe in one moment, one act, one person. That’s enough. Even one god begins with a spark.”

Host:
The wind shifted again, carrying the sound of distant bells. Jack nodded slowly, his eyes glistening as if some unseen burden had lightened. Jeeny smiled, her expression serene, her hands resting gently on her knees.

The camera would have pulled back then — the two silhouettes framed against the shimmering river, the sky vast and unending above them. The flames of a thousand lamps danced across the water, like souls that refused to die.

And in that soft, infinite silence, the millionaire and the pauper — faith and doubt — sat side by side, watching the light drift into the dark.