Dehradun, Oct. 24 -- Today, while cooking a traditional Kashmiri Mutton Rogan Josh, thoughts wandered to my grandfather. A rather unusual connection between a pot of mutton and a man who has been gone for years, but there was a reason!

It was about the freedom to cook and eat what one pleases, on whichever day one wishes, without consulting the religious calendar.

My grandfather was an atheist. A rather determined one at that!

He had little patience for religious rituals, customs or traditions followed merely because generations before him had done so. Yet, his deeds were perhaps more spiritual than those of many who professed great religious devotion.

An agriculturalist by birth and an engineer by profession, he was a man of uncompro...