Songlines

The Subtle Gift

2010-09-25T20:37:00.000+05:30

“I LOVE Donald Miller” she gushed one morning at work. She was reading his book “One Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” I wondered to myself what the big deal was but I wanted to find out so I asked her if I could borrow it when she was done.

“Is he married yet, he said he thought himself quite handsome?” I quipped teasingly. I had read his earlier book “Blue like Jazz” and I enjoyed that a lot.

“Nah, he’s not that good looking but he’s still single and I wouldn’t mind marrying him”. She sighed looking heavenwards like Don was going to fly into the room.

“It’s just as well” I thought as I flipped through the pages the next day, being a Saturday. I was a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love Don Miller but this book was nothing like “Blue like Jazz”.

Miller has a gift for writing simple truths in simple ways but it carries an element of twisted blitheness. See he would never use this word. But I am trying to write this piece like him. He says the most obvious things in a non-obvious way - like there is certain rightness to his wrongness and when you come to the end of his thought, the wrongness feels right. Take his sentence for instance “When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse.” (Blue Like Jazz Pg. 151)

After reading this, I would think “Wow!” but wait a minute! I couldn’t love someone enough if I did not love them more than I love myself. I mean loving someone, for most of the time involves “Giving”. Giving of my thoughts, my deeds, my trust, joy, integrity, kindness, even my vulnerability (secret side)… my very Self! And yet, given that there is much pain and suffering, even in loving just one person, I would still do it again if the decision was mine to make. So I don’t disagree with Don except where he uses the “curse” word. I think God loves us a lot like we love others, except more unselfishly, more perfectly. I mean He loves us and continues to whether we love Him back or not.

I am at work on a Saturday as I have some stuff to finish up. Butters, another colleague of mine, walks in holding a pan cake wrapped in foil. I look at her, rub my stomach and tell her I’m hungry. She gives the pan cake to me. She says she and her sorority sisters had pan cakes for breakfast. I feel envious in a nice kind of way and say, “Why didn’t you save some for me?”

Keeping in character, she retorts, “You should have come for the study and you would have got some, Lexi made them.”

“But you could have kept some!”

She replies in affectionate exasperation “I don’t have maternal instincts!”

I stood there speechless. When you like someone like that, it’s nice. Like when you feel left out of a joyful moment and thinking of it makes you feel alone, but then someone tells you, its fine and that they will keep some pancakes for you the next time around.

Shamefully, I threw a similar tantrum on Friday afternoon with the Brownie Angel. I have an Angel on my team and she makes the best brownies and chocolate chip cookies in the world! Every time a morsel is in my mouth, I swear I am in brownie heaven. She painstakingly makes them for each training event with the team and being the only guy, I help myself to a little extra. This Friday, I was rooting for three pieces that she had saved for later in a plastic wrap. I didn’t care that she held out the tray offering me a piece. I wanted the ones in the plastic wrap. So she says to me “Okay, take three pieces from the tray and you can give me the wrap back.”

I work with a team of nine women and another half man. The other half is a young lad who’s finding his way in the world and it’s great to see him flex his wings. But it’s the girls who really fly and although I am the only one who does not have wings, I am often floating in the wake of their slipstream.

On Saturday night, we were all invited out to dinner by Kimberly’s parents who had flown in from the US to see her. At the dinner, I felt like there were some of us drunk on joy! I was talking to Ms. I-Love-Don-Miller and then I tell her again that I wasn’t too impressed with Don. And that I think I am better looking. She says with a lot of emphasis –“Women don’t like Don for his looks, Sean, we love his soul!” I was tempted to ask that if I wrote like Don, would there be women out there who would love my soul too, but I let it go.

I learned a lesson today about Listening. You can never get too good at listening. I think listening is the nobler of the other half of communication. You can get only so far by talking until you run out of ideas or emotions, but you could never run out of time when you listen. Listening builds strength in other people. I learned over the years and I have become better at it. But sometimes I am preoccupied while the other person is talking and that gets me into trouble. Sometimes I want to make a point which I think is good but the other person has not finished, and then I cut in, and then the noble intent has flown out of the window. But I am working on it.

Don Miller’s beat poet Tony says the words alone, lonely and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language. I agree but I would say that it’s true in any language. Miller says that they are words like hunger and thirst and that they are words about the soul. I agree but then if one is a sensitive person, one will almost always feel lonely. I too struggle with it and while Don speaks to his pillow in the mornings and imagines it to be a beautiful woman, I think of words like community, sharing of joy, human brokenness and helping people lighten their loads as a great and lonely thing.

Sometimes loneliness has luminous quality to it. I run each evening on a track at a Police Academy. There is a moment during my labored breathing when the darkness has covered everything and the whole place resembles the venue of a rock concert. I see hundreds of young cadets lying all over the place in stillness with luminous LCD screens of their cell phones alight, humming their shared hearts over the air waves. I wonder to myself, if their listeners will ever see the way they are being spoken to, and if they did, would they feel special. I am certain they would.

Being alone keeps you grateful as you have to be broken to see the miracles stealing into the ordinariness of the everyday life.

New thoughts on 2010!

2010-01-01T22:21:00.003+05:30

"As I reflect on the year ahead, I realize that friendship will be as important a concern as prayer. When I think about the pains and joys of my life, they have little to do with success, career, country or church, but everything to do with friendship.... And through it I have come to discover that friendship is a real discipline. Nothing can be taken for granted, nothing happens automatically, nothing comes with effort. Friendship requires trust, patience, attentiveness, courage, repentance, forgiveness, celebration and most of all faithfulness. Like prayer, friendship needs purification as well." - Henri Nouwen

I just thank God so much for my Friends. (They include family as well!)

On running and working out....

2009-11-14T21:07:00.002+05:30

Our physical exertion - running, marathons, and working out is an outward metaphor of hope, regardless of the fact that (for some) we end each day, dreaming with a broken heart and grateful upon waking for uninterrupted sleep. That is why I push myself each evening, so I don't have to think so much at dusk. Plus I never allow my wounds to be visible to the outside world (only to folk who are dear to me). So if you look and feel good on the outside, people think you are doing really well and I let them have that thought. I also don't allow myself to wallow in self-pity - this combined effort leads me to Hope!

O' Captain, My Captain, Thy Ship Has Come Home!

2009-05-20T08:25:00.003+05:30

Would you be willing to wait, your whole life for a love you could own? Or if you had barely survived a hellishly hot half-moon haze of heart-break that made your every day seem like a Tsunami survivor story. With wave after crushing wave of acidic loneliness churning your heart until it resembled the twisted wreckage of a ghost ship? Not to mention your dreams, torn identity and your fragile relationships like ragged flags on a broken mast flapping forlornly in the wind with no rescue ship on the horizon. How long would you wait…three…six… a decade? Perhaps….Twelve years!!! Read these questions into your compass, if you are on a quest otherwise sail on further…

You see that burly man with the stormy hair and a crinkly smile? I could call him Captain Jack Sparrow for the route he sailed to face those questions (unlike the reel inebriated character) but I’ll just call him, Captain. For he had the courage to battle those hungry ghosts whilst on a quest for hope like it was the Black Pearl and found his ‘Elizabeth’ too. She is the one standing next to him in the picture. He is also the guy you go looking for when you seek answers to those questions for yourself.

I met him one hot summer in 1998. He brought a team of fund raisers and marketers to a project for street children in Kanpur. He was the seasoned veteran of many programs; I was the young upstart trying to make their visit worthwhile. For three days, their incessant questions dried my throat up, but we were all inspired by the end of the trip. The Captain took his crew home but we kept in touch. Over the next twelve years, we met at myriad shores… meetings, train stations, hotels, airports, cities and countries, our homes and even a seminary! As our own stories as men intersected, the crisscrossed longitudinal lines of friendship and purpose on our individual navigation charts blurred. Sometimes life seemed for us like a vast ocean – her alluring azure dazzled us with a mirage of unkept promises, fake siren calls and feral eyes watching from the dark, ever glowing but formless. Sometimes our storylines were ship-wrecked on doubtful shores; a barren waiting for the elusive glimmer of change. But we did our best to read our navigation charts and our maritime courses intersected close enough to point us towards the North Star of God’s love and grace through the miles of frozen blue wasteland.

When we anchored at port, we would catch up over a meal and talk about everything that was precious to us including the fearful – the laughter of children; the holy sound of families; the gift of friends; our shared vocation to serve the vulnerable; music and authors; the meanings of books and sometimes our hopes for the future. The conversations between us helped us celebrate the intangibles of life at its vibrant best. We talked until we split open the kernel of every thought that was dear to us. He once told me that he was sure he would end up in communal home where people who have nowhere to go, live out the rest of their lives. The wonderful emulative attribute in all of this was his elastic faith in God, and something I coveted for myself too. Our conversations were curiously peppered with a mix of blessings (his) and expletives (mine) when it came down to discussing the writing of God’s hand into each of our lives. I sometimes used expletives for emphasis as if my heart was speaking in italics. My maverick faith had gifted me that right. He would smile at me in silent indulgent amusement and I never felt judged.

Last year - his twelfth year, the Captain’s ship caught a friendly tide and surprised by joy - took him unwaveringly to his Elizabeth. She had been waiting her whole life for him. On the ninth day of May of the thirteenth year, they were married in a chapel in Toronto, Canada. I congratulate them both and say to him, O’ Captain, my Captain, your ship has come home!” The waters around my ankles are now sweet and friendly and in our solidarity of brotherhood, our shared answer to anyone facing those questions is “Stay the course, as true as you can though the waters may be icy dark and howling deep, and God’s destiny for you will meet your joy!”

I look west where the shelf of cloud kisses the horizon of the sea. I just left a harbour town behind in my last long wake, and while I move on to the next one, I pray that God would send a gull chased ship to carry me onwards out to sea. Only this time, on a sea of liquid jade gently overshadowed by a sky of swans and a thousand splendid suns…

Joy!

2009-03-31T08:55:00.002+05:30

Love is not a feeling.

2009-03-15T19:18:00.004+05:30

I was sitting and watching this movie on Saturday night, as one of those random flicks that hang on my perpetually surfing remote. It was a heart-warming story of a single-parent with kids trying to adjust to a new life. There was a line in the movie that got my attention - "Love is not a feeling. It is an ability." I was blown away by its truth and wanted to own it.

Six years ago, I met a man who was a father, played an instrument and was athletic just like me except for one difference. He was blind. A bout of small pox stole his sight and there was no tissue there in his eye sockets. It just carried the semblance of two hollows where if God wished He could plant afresh a new pair of eyes. But this man laughed from his belly and played in orchestras. And he had a wife who was fully sighted. Ranjan was a man in more ways than just one, like me.

He was no different, except that he saw with his heart, his other four senses and not his eyes. This ability tuned out the din that we normal people encounter when we see with our eyes. Things like shape, colour, skin texture, beautiful things pleasing to the eye. We are so used to this form of seeing that we miss the real and the mysterious like the myriad tone colourations of a single voice; the sound of a held-in breath when a person you love extends a welcome hug; the gap of interminable silence hanging between sentences of a conversation between friends that convey thoughtfulness, love and respect; the sound of your child breathing when her little head hits the pillow that lets you know your day as a parent is done....the list goes on and on... and none of this can be told to us by our sight.

I once playfully asked Ranjan if he could indeed tell the subtle indivudual differences of what made a woman attractive to him since he could not see. He said it was her "voice!" and all its nuances. I had no answer but the truth of it was a blinding light to my soul. On another occasion, I asked his wife, a Nurse, how it was that she chose to marry Ranjan, inspite of the obvious. She said she had prayed while still in her formative years, that God would give her a husband whom she could serve and take care of. Both their prayers were answered. They have a son called Rhythm, so named after their love of music.

"Love is not a feeling. It is an ability....." (like breathing almost!)

My favourite quotes in the movie are when Dan interacts with his daughters, two of whom, Marty and Cara are teenagers and like most teens passionately blinded by love at first sight.

When he is floundering miserably to make sense of it with Cara, the younger teen - " What don't I understand, Cara? Please, help me out. What is it? Is it frustrating that you can't be with this person? That there's something keeping you apart? That there's something about this person that you can connect with? And whenever you're near this person, you don't know what to say, and you say everything that's in your mind and in your heart, and you know that if you could just be together, that this person would help you become the best possible version of yourself?

Cara responds from her broken young heart - You are a murderer of love!

In another scene with the spirited Cara who is bent on proving to her dad that love is real at any age is crying her heart out after her father asks her boyfriend to leave their house. Her father standing next to his brother Marie's girlfriend (the woman that he is in love with!) sighs wistfully...

Marie: That's sweet.

Dan Burns: How is that sweet?

Marie: To be that certain, to feel that much love.

Dan Burns: Love isn't a feeling?

Marie: No?

Dan Burns: It's an ability.

Marie: Well, if that's true, then you have one gifted daughter.

"You know that feeling in your heart? When your heart is just pounding, like it's actually outside your ribs. Exposed, venerable, but wonderful and awful, and heartsick, and alive, all at the same time?" - Dan Burns

Resounding the Bell Purposefully!

2009-03-10T11:06:00.003+05:30

It might seem a little too late, since a movement started to end domestic violence at home and send out a message to the world that the safest place for women actually renders them most vulnerable to harm. And if we as individuals are to retain some semblance of virtue and goodness for future generations, we best be cleaning up our own back-yards and spurring others on as well. In this, Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao Campaign (www.bellbajao.org) singes our collective conscience for those of us who do too little or nothing at all while walking away from a situation that may cause an embarrassment too fleeting, but might mean life or death for a particular woman and her children. I am no superman, but there have been a couple of times, when I more than ‘rang the bell’ – kind of put my self where my heart, mouth felt at home.

Sometime in April 2004 in Noida – Sector 41, dusk was falling and I had just begun my favourite evening ritual to fill up my hours before bed time - a form of active zen meditation - running! I had just broken into a cool sweat, passing some new construction when I heard the screams. They came from a shack assemblage of smog draped plastic, standing on an open plot alongside fresh bricks, mortar and cement. I hesitated for a split second and then leaped over the gutter that separated the plot from the main road. I had barely come to a standstill when a wisp of a woman with a teary child in her arms ran straight towards me screaming “Bhaiya (brother)! Please do something; my husband is beating my son!” Her pale face and eyes wide with terror, disheveled appearance, and parched lips, undoubtedly dry from screaming anguished entreaties bore painful testimony to the scars of her individual womanhood. My own fear and loathing threatened to choke me even as I screamed “Hai!” towards the entrance of the hut. The cries and shuffling sounds from within the hut stopped abruptly! Almost immediately, young boy with a torn shirt ran stumbling and falling out of the hut and into his mother, clutching her torn sari.

As I stood with my posture adopting a tinge of unnatural menace, blood rushed to my brain as I desperately tried to outthink the pace of events that began to unfold beyond our control. A man came out after a suspended interminable silence, his face, a contorted mask of rage and arrogance. I was after all, an intruder! This was his house, his woman, his affair and I had no business here. I scanned the scenery behind him. A cycle rickshaw, kerosene stove, pans and a makeshift bed of old clothes. They were rural folk – poor landless labourers who had fled the poverty of their village hoping to eke out a living in India Shining - the seductive truth that brings most of our rural poor into the informal economy.

“What are you doing?” “Have you lost your mind?” my harsh questions cut the space between us. His posture began to mirror mine but his eyes could not hide his fear. If he called my challenge, he had to have the heart to stand in front of me and take whatever came. My open palms inadvertently clenched into fists – I so badly wished away this hated moment. The woman cut the tense energy with her pleading – “Bhaiya, please tell him something, he thrashes my son often and when I try to interfere, he beats me too. Her husband stared at her, muttered something unintelligible and looked down. Now it was my turn to scream, “You have no right to hit her and why are you hitting your son?” “What has he done for you to hit him?” No reply. The sullen staring and muttering continued and it seemed like he was cursing us all.

By this time some onlookers gathered around and even tried to plead with him to be reasonable. I then barked, the ultimate wound to his pride. “If I see you hit your wife again or hear of it, I will make a formal complaint to the police and have you thrown in jail!” As if on cue, a Police Patrol on noticing the crowd, parked their van and a constable got out. He held in his left hand a stout stick and there was no pretense about what he was willing to do. Before any sanity could prevail, some of the onlookers began speaking in loud voices about the quarrel and how this man habitually abused his wife and children. The constable’s right hand shot out suddenly in an arc that landed solidly on the man’s left ear and felled him to the ground! The dazed man collected himself and started screaming like a mad man and kicking his feet in all directions. The constable then caught hold of him by the scruff of his neck and began to drag him towards the squad car. Only this time, he raised his stick! My only thought as I watched helplessly, was that this man was going to return and take it out on his wife after all of us had left the scene.

What followed next shocked my heart and wrenched my well-schooled logic from its moorings! The woman, his badly bruised wife, used her body as a shield, and began begging for mercy with the constable not to take her husband. The heartbreaking scene was that her pleading actually carried the earnest tone of love! Anyone, anywhere who has ever loved knows the intimate timbre of the voice that speaks of love for their other – an indelible tenderness suffuses their words. The absurdity of love’s generous madness in the face of anger, violence and hate was overwhelming. It was heartbreaking as it dawned on me that this way of loving in such undeserving circumstances was something almost only a woman could do! Honestly, all of us, including me wanted this man to receive the poetic justice that he had coming to him.

In spite of myself, I reached over and touched the constable lightly on the shoulder and requested him to let the man go. The bystanders, who were shocked into silence until then, gathered their courage and began to request him also. The constable let the man go with a stern warning. After the crowd dispersed, I lingered awhile and then strolled home, my evening ritual long forgotten. I kept hoping that his shame and fear would overcome his pride to hurt his wife, knowing now that the world was watching and could also be a participant.

I know this was not the last incident in her life and for that matter for most women, especially those who do not have a voice or a forum of formal justice. But if neighbours and particularly men come forward to own their favourite virtue which confers true manhood – to protect and shelter with strength and purpose, instead of being silent and abusive; women every where can own a favourite of theirs – love and nurture of children and the future of families…and men.

2009-02-12T14:19:00.002+05:30

I really like this song by Ben Fold's which I sort of stumbled onto on the net. It would make an ingenious wedding song, I think. And quite different to the usual songs they play at weddings. I liked the words so much, I had to have it down here, so I don't have to search again to find them. I don't know if and when I will ever get to sing them for myself, but I could always sing it for someone else and especially at their wedding!

"I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day?
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday.
And I know that I am
I am…
I am…the luckiest.

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike,
Would I know?
And in a wide sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know that I am
I am…
I am…the luckiest.

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you
Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away
I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong

And I know that I am
I am…
I am…the luckiest."

2008-12-13T16:04:00.000+05:30

Things all placed in tidy spaces
Long moments of silence…solitude at its listening best
Fills my life with too many hours of meaning
Squeezed out of life’s empty spaces

Contemplation would not find a kinder friend
Although being still is not my gift
Moving, running, strumming constantly
But prayer and thinking follow me everywhere

The burden of waiting takes its ceaseless toll
Tempting me to a restful fold
But self-pity is my shunned enemy
And Hope a sunny joyous ally

I am certain there is something maturing within
An epiphany, an experience, a new way of being
One day I know my questions will rest
And I will come back to the place I knew “best.”

Where love was once my truest friend
When asking questions were meant to point to an end
When being broken meant you had been brave
And when sacrifice meant that someone else had been saved

I am a dreamer still
But I have a fire in my soul
I may be broken
But I am a God-shaped hole

So I will wait for You, you, you, and you…
My gifts all…underserved and free
Of life and love and things becoming
Can it be all for me?

High-wire Acrobatics

2008-02-27T19:55:00.002+05:30

Life is always filled with delicious ironies. I call them delicious as if you are like me, you find one reason in the crazy moment to pause and think – “this is so funny, that I have to laugh, even if the world around me seems spinning into imperfections!” I do this because maybe I secretly hope that this one joyful hilarious moment will steadily grow and overcome those dark moments so much so that they will not have power over me and I can then go back to doing what I need to do to find myself in my work, in relationships and in my life.

I think nowhere are these contradictions of life and love more evident than in relationships of every kind. It is in a word… so tenuous. You renegotiate your friendship with someone you like every day of your life. Looking at life from the view that I had, I used to think I was way passed making new friends and trying to add value in the lives of people around me. My primary identity was defined by my responsibilities – father, brother, provider, social worker, conscientious citizen…loyal friend?!?! Four years ago and counting, I had to relearn all those values needed in developing friendships that I had become numbed to all the years before. I have good days when I feel like I am no less noble than a knight and there are some days when I feel like a complete idiot! But I am slowly realizing that true friendship is most unselfish and that affection is the most humble form of love.

I guess I am slowly recognizing that love is the best when it is free and when it nurtures trust in the other person. This trust that I speak of is more than just fidelity. It is the trust that the other person feels accepted to be her true self in every situation and without having to fear that she will be less appreciated for being true. This obviously calls for acceptance on my part – again sometimes which makes me feel like I am in a dank pot-hole and at other moments on a cushion of air – part fool/wise-man/ court-jester and prophet. As if by trusting the goodness in the other person I could ride out my own fears of being accepted and trusted for who I am when I am with my friend.

This is a maze that has no single pathway. Just as it is complicated to be human, relationships are complicated too! Sometimes you feel that one door opens and then you just move to the next one and even better still, several corridors and hundreds of doors later, you come back to the exact same place where you started! Stumped and feeling quite befuddled! But if life is the soil made fertile by affection and communication; hope are the roots; and trust is the air and space to make it breathe; then friendship is a deeply rooted tree that nurtures our lives and gives you and me life-spaces of light that will help both of us to grow.

Writing about all of this makes me feel I am no less an acrobat in relationships that are important to me. I walk the line like a bird-on-a-wire and if I have to fly; I just know there are days when I will hit the ground but it only means that I have good reason to get up again. But to do that well, my heart does not need a door nor a high wall around it. I will, instead learn to trust myself and my friend and so what if along the way one of us is broken; the rest of the best of me is there to fix what has become unglued.

To Be or Not To Be - that is... the Question!

2008-02-21T14:55:00.003+05:30

These days are interesting times when you get singly past the 30+ milestone…and the “M” word usually crops up in conversations with my erstwhile friends and even with strangers. I guess it’s a natural observation - you see a man with a thinning hair and flecks of grey and you begin to wonder – “Is he married or single?” Or for the more curiously minded “If he is single, why has he been single for so long?” Or “Perhaps, he was married before and it did not work out.” One may couch the inquisitive greeting in rehearsed mellifluousness, disguised concern or bare-faced bluntness, the fluff of propriety essentially points to the same three questions. Thankfully, not all my interactions with strangers go this self-same way; otherwise it would cement my inner secret reputation as a romantic fugitive for good.

Anyway to tip-toe around any notions of the joys of single-hood, I reluctantly registered on one of the many matrimonial websites that tease me every time I log onto a web site or my own personal email account. To begin with, writing my profile was a tentative ordeal in itself. How do you capture the essence of your self and especially parts of you that you are not completely aware of, but which others can see as clear as day while trying not to appear too smug? If I was really as good as I thought I was or others found me to be, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.

I draft the profile with pursed lips and self-doubt looking over my shoulder. Is this really going to work for me? I must be going slightly mad. Sure - I am the hottest bonafide unknown guy on the planet and the world of single women is just waiting for this super-hero to fly in and change their world….hmm… or at least one of them does. Guess what, honey, I am unlike any other man, you’ve ever met but I have to take this route to let you know!

Now there are three lucid messages in my profile for those who wish to read; one, that I am a pursuing man who loves Jesus Christ hoping to find a girl who loves Him deeply too… via this web-based route – (to boldly go into e-space where this man has not gone before!); two, that I love my vocation of serving marginalized people to the best of my ability and am sworn never to change it; and finally, that I will never, times infinity, migrate to any other country other than the one I was born in for reasons of a better way of life. As an aside, I cringe inwardly at the thought of self-promotion in this sphere, as if I had all the time in the world to go spouse-hunting.

But anyway, I have been on this site for close to two months with mixed results and more misses than hits. I get offers of interest from ladies who live in the US. I am tempted to think they expect me to fly there to meet them, replete with cape and body amour to protect me from the sub-zero atmospheric winds 30 miles up in the air. I also discovered that most women on these sites are interested in men who have never before been married, never had children, never had a clue about what they are looking for in a relationship or what a woman is about, and perhaps, never explored the similarities in values about life, love, vocation, faith and family - the more clueless the better! The order of the way of things was either hide-or-seek in e-space or chaotic pandephonium – texting till your fingers hurt. Why can’t we just dial the call and talk to each other instead of hiding behind a two inch liquid screen display with a radio-wave function and pretend it is an extension of ourselves?

And of course, why leave out the exhaustive list of “Great Expectations”. Expectations by common definition are “the act or state of looking forward or anticipating”. My personal favourite definition is “the degree of probability that something will occur.” In real terms this means the “act of looking forward” (in my control) to “something that has a probability of happening” (out of my control) but which by equal measure may not happen at all.

So we throw out the elements of common values and our shared humanity which favours attributes such as alleviation of human suffering, shared faith, caring for others, encouragement, fairness, forgiveness, generosity, good-faith, goodwill, listening to understand, pursuing of peace, purposeful dialogue, reconciliation, selflessness, truth-telling, and self-sacrifice and even negative emotions such are guilt, regret and remorse. Same differences - the silent gift that complimentarity and similarities give!

And settle instead for a mirage of attributes we think we would like to “see” in others - in watching for them, they will appear as if by magic. I was recently pinged by a bright young lady who was a merit scholar (it is highlighted in her profile) and she tabled these questions in her profile to describe the man who would be her ideal soul-mate. Pretty deep!

1) Are you a mature man who has a great sense of humor?
2) Are you someone who is a good person, truly good?
3) Are you someone who respects women and wants to respect his partner?
4) Are you large hearted enough to accommodate occasional childishness/playfulness in your mate?
5) Are you a confident man who is not insecure about his woman doing her own thing?
6) Are you presentable looking, well read, well informed, with excellent communication skills?
7) Do you have it in you to honour your word, come what may?
8) Are you legally divorced and have no liabilities from previous marriage?
9) Do you enjoy sound physical, mental, and spiritual health?
10) Are you someone who wants to take his decisions in consultation with his spouse?
11) Are you doing well in life, looking forward to a comfortable future?
12) Are you emotionally strong?
13) Are you sure you can be a faithful partner?
14) Are you honest in your relationships?
15) Are you the big, strong type who wants to care for his partner?
16) Are you in a position to marry right away, with no liabilities from your past relationship?
17) Are you willing to marry and settle for a life of bliss?

I thought I was going to have a bemused heart-attack as I read through the list! I am sure many men could say “yes” to some of these questions, even me. But for a man, let alone anybody, to be all of these things ALL of the time… would I suspect have to be utterly, the Perfect Spouse… a perfect man or a prefect liar.

The last time I checked into “my space”, I deleted my profile. I am going on an extended vacation and I don’t think the world of Alpha women will miss me much. And If I set my Beta male ego aside, I won’t miss them much either.

Here’s what I am going to do. Surrender…to God, His plans, His moments, His will…I am sure my princess will come someday…sooner than later I hope. But I am enjoying the journey to becoming more ‘me’ and more of the man she’d like me to be. I even have the imperfect M-word question, but that is a secret and for now, I am not telling.

Return to Pooh Corner

2008-02-06T13:11:00.000+05:30

Christopher robin and I walked along
Under branches lit up by the moon
Posing our questions to owl and Eeyore
As our days disappeared all too soon
But I’ve wandered much further today than I should
And I cant seem to find my way back to the wood

So help me if you can I’ve got to get
Back to the house at Pooh corner by one
You’d be surprised
There’s so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh

Winnie the Pooh doesn’t know what to do
Got a honey jar stuck on his nose
He came to me asking help and advice
And from here no one knows where he goes
So I sent him to ask of the owl if he’s there
How to loosen a jar from the nose of a bear

Its hard to explain how a few precious things
Seem to follow throughout all our lives
After all's said and done I was watching my girl
Sleeping there with my bear by her side
So I tucked her in, I kissed her and as I was going
I swear that the “Old Bear” whispered “Boy welcome home!”

Believe me if you can
I’ve finally come
Back to the house at Pooh corner by one
What do you know?
There’s so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin
Back to the ways of Christopher Robin
Back to the days of Pooh

Surreal Musings Of A Romantic Fugitive - Part II

2007-11-20T17:12:00.003+05:30

Wednesday, the following week 2007

I arrived bleary eyed in her city. I watched the blue haze of smoke as the auto pulled out of the city station. I remembered again how two of my closest friends had set this meeting in motion and today was the first step to anywhere! I had not slept the whole night and I looked an untidy mess – overnight greenish stubble and touchy as a grizzly, “at least I don’t smell bad” I consoled myself. I had showered before I boarded the train. She had asked me to call her when I arrived. I dialed her number and tried to catch her voice over the roar of the auto. That voice again…

“Hey...have you come in!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I just did.” (My throat was dry and I swallowed hard. I was nervous as hell. “I am not good at being cool,” I thought. More than anything, I wished I had a Don Juan persona tucked somewhere under the layers of my skin and if I could somehow coax him to come out, that would be a magnum opus in this situation.

“I know we are going to meet on Saturday, but can we meet today for a few minutes?” her Voice asked back!

“Sure” I said, trying not to sound nervous. “Give me thirty minutes.” My auto pulled into the driveway of my friend’s flat and I jumped out with the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder.

“Meet me at Café Coffee Day at 12.30 pm. It’s on my way to the office and I can spare a few minutes.”

“Cool.” I waved at my friend as he opened the door into the living room. Hugs were exchanged over a mug of tea and muffins. I got into the shower and made a mental note to shave my face extra close this time. “What was I going to say?” “What is a good opening line?” “Should I hug her friendly or just shake her hand?” “What if I make a total ass of myself and end up playing chess with the salt and pepper shaker instead?”

A little after 10 minutes of crooning in the shower, a close shave and a douse of cologne, I hiked my way to the Café. I was, as my usual habit, early. I walked nervously up the stairs and grabbed the first chair that was in the patio and sat down. With my back to the tables and my view of the road, I felt it would be good to size my blind-date from afar before she saw me. It would help me get over the initial embarrassment of looking an attractive woman in the eye and not allow my face to show it, or so I thought. I exhaled nervously and began a slow rhythm of tapping on the coffee table.

I did not have to wait long. Watching people and cars go by, my eyes fell on a tallish girl who walked with long purposeful strides towards the café. She was, in one and two half words – very fine-looking! She was just as she had described herself…dusky with a hint of acne, but the sun-kissed angle of her chin was fine and her long oval eyes were a lighter shade of amber. She was, I thought, quite beautiful.

Her identity was confirmed when she put the phone to her ear and my phone rang almost immediately. She glanced up at me as I waved to her.

“Hey!” I tried to appear calm.

She smiled warmly, said nothing but put her hand out for me to grasp in greeting. The handshake was warm.

“Hope you weren’t waiting too long?” Her large brown eyes searched my face as we sat down at the coffee table.

“No, not really.” I mumbled. Don Juan refused to show. Damn table was too small. Thermal Meltdown of Alpha male confidence.

The order was given and two cups of coffee appeared as if by magic.

“Happy Birthday,” she smiled and said as her hand dipped into her bag and came out with a small gift wrapped package.

“Thanks.” I replied. This time I tried to meet her eyes. A quick glance and then back to the coffee as if I could conjure up an invincible aura from its pitted surface.

“So do I look like my picture?” that smile again.

“Better.” This time I really looked and even smiled back. Her face flushed ever so slightly and she acknowledged the compliment with a slight raise of her eyebrow and looked away.

The conversation became easy after that. We spoke about things, friends and places we had in common. As the conversation flowed, I could tell by the way she looked at me, she felt safe. Her eyes bored holes in the back of my head…searching, probing. It seemed as if her mind was asking her hundreds of questions all at once. Okay, so I had Forrest Gump show up instead but at least he was honest!

The seconds flew by fast and her time had come to go to work. I walked with her to the Bus stop. She shook my hand warmly as she hopped on to her bus. We had decided to meet on Saturday and spend the day together. I did not know if I had made a good impression or not, but I was hopeful...

I am driving swiftly back to where I came from and the dawn is just breaking. The road I am on, along side a narrow rolling great beach beyond which I can glimpse the sea, would lead me to the Bay of Bengal if I followed its end.

I look ahead where the shelf of cloud seems to meet the sea and the sky is gentle azure - luminously inviting. I pull over suddenly while the tires skid gently on the sandy gravel. I hear the thwack! of the door shutting behind as I walk forwards – seemingly trying to get a clearer view of this fine picture. I inhale deeply – my chest filling up with moist air as I feel a strange but peaceful calm which I have not felt in years. My mind is clear, as clear as the sky as I walk back to the car - the sandy gravel crunches under my shoes. I kick a few large sized pebbles with my foot and think out aloud…. “What the heck! This is Tsunami country…anything could happen here.”

Surreal Musings Of A Romantic Fugitive - Part I

2007-11-20T17:01:00.000+05:30

One Wednesday in January 2007

“What do you want your woman to wear?” her questioning voice came over the phone. I hesitated for a split second. It wasn’t a question I had expected.

“Oh! Just wear what whatever you are comfortable in… (A quick afterthought…if you prefer wearing jeans and a top then that will do just fine!” I said (I bit my lip as I was about to mention that that was my favorite outfit for a woman anytime, anyplace but thought better of it .)

“Or I could wear a skirt too and a noodle strap top, if you like?” came her quick reply. (I was very soon going to learn that I would be at my wits end as her answers hit back at me like quicksilver and bang on target!)

“Oh! It’s totally cool; just wear your jeans and something comfortable. (I wasn’t about to confess that it would be a good idea not to wear her noodle strap top otherwise it would be difficult for me to communicate with her, what with my prying eyes resting on her luscious shoulders. And a “Peeping Tom” was subtle moniker I did not want at any cost.)

“I must warn you that I do not look like a typical North Indian with pale skin. I have dusky skin and a little acne on my face, so if you are expecting Ms World material, you will be disappointed” she said matter-of-factly. (Help! What was the most appropriate answer to this announcement? I made a mental note to contact the Editor of Men’s Health Magazine to fire his columnist who so generously doled out some dating tips in last month’s issue.)

I decided to go with the truth instead. “Well acne does not bother me and I think a dark skinned woman is more attractive anyway than a fair one.”

“And I don’t wear any make-up, am usually casual in my dressing, even to work. I just tie my hair, wear my jeans and T-shirt and am ready to take on the world of work!” pat came the reply. (Was I supposed to say something back? Now my phone was becoming hot and my ear was on a slow-burn. Heck, I could even feel it blushing!)

I went with the truth again. “I am not too enthused about make-up (as if I wore it myself!), just come as you are, I know I will like what I see.” said I.

“You sound like a guy from another planet. Are you for real?” that mercury-skimming reply again, only this time with a smirk.

I paused briefly. (What was I supposed to say? This girl was reading my moves like a book and the conversation seemed to be turning into a chess repartee of words, with me on the heavily losing side.)

“Well…hmmmm… I don’t know about me being from another planet, but what I have told you is true about the make-up and dusky skin tone. Was I sounding too sincere? I wondered.

“There is one other thing…” her lilting tone dropped suddenly.

“Err…Yes...” my tip-toe reply.

“After we meet and spend some time together, you will have to tell me, if you like me or not. Even if it means you don’t like me… I know I will be hurt but I can take it. But you must tell me. Is that alright with you?” the tone had not changed. Did I detect some fear or pain, I wasn’t sure.

“Don’t worry, just come as you are and be yourself.” I reassured her (not that she needed it.)

“Okay, see you on Saturday, then!” she replied mellifluously. The phone fell silent.

I sat there for a long moment staring at the phone and replaying in my mind’s eye the turn of events that had brought my life to this moment.

Three years ago my life had changed irrevocably and beyond the realm of any decision I had in my control. I had been transferred to a new job in another city and I was struggling to find my feet. My job was fine but my social life was nothing to rant about. Reading I know is a friendly activity of the lonely but I was also a serious runner logging up to 60km a week. Each night my solitary foot-falls ricocheted off the gravel around my neighborhood with an I-Pod, my only running companion. I did not know why I ran long distances, but it made me peaceful, made me feel like I was outrunning the voices in my head and like I was winning. I liked my uncluttered life, it was simple, manageable and without undue surprises, and I tried to be grateful by not being cynical.

Musings on a wet Sunday afternoon

2007-11-05T13:13:00.000+05:30

I had been reading the beautiful book called "Beyond The Mirror" by Henri JM Nouwen who sensitively describes his very close brush with death and how he dealt with the twin burning questions of "Who am I" and "Who is God for me?" After an hour or so of reading, I sat down with my guitar and while plucking a tune, this following line tumbled out, which I guess had something to do with Nouwen's musings dancing around in my head...

"In loss of any kind, we come to the end of ourselves. The striving for answers and meaning within our grasp of reasoning leaves us exhausted and disillusioned, but needless be, for the Answer was there from the beginning. Life's irony at its delicious best."

"I only know of one duty. That is to love." - Albert Camus

2007-11-02T13:22:00.000+05:30

How many of us have survived amputations of the soul and lived through it. Sometimes feeling stronger but the pain of the "phantom limb" remains. I read this quote by Ian McEwan in his book "Atonement" and I liked it so much I just had to put it down here...

… A person is,
among all else,
a material thing,
easily torn,
not easily mended.

Some Of Us

2007-10-31T15:22:00.001+05:30

Some of us are fragile
Some of us have snapped
Some of us are watching
Some of us are trapped
Some of us are wounded
Some of us have strayed
Some of us are striving
Some have not been paid

Some of us count blessings
Some of us want more
Some of us are zealous
Some of us not sure
Some of us are crumpled
Some of us are groomed
Some of us are modest
Some of us consumed

It's a journey, it's a ramble
It's a gamble, it's a phase
A corridor, a segment,
A few hours and several days
It's a legacy of poverty
A mishap and a treat
A walk of benediction...
And stumbling defeat

Some of us a bluffing
Some of us are trained
Some of us are fruitful
Some of us have waned
Some of us are yawning
Some of us are harmed
Some of us are outcasts
Some of us are alarmed

It's a journey, it's a ramble
It's a gamble, it's a phase
A corridor, a segment,
A few hours and several days
It's a legacy of poverty
A mishap and a treat
A walk of benediction...
And stumbling defeat

Some of us know history
Some of us know none
Some of us are present
Some of us have gone
Some of us are restless
We wait in this place
Between the vale of circumstance
Waiting for Grace.

Need a fresh perspective, climb on the roof and talk to an Angel!

2007-10-22T14:15:00.000+05:30

On my visit to the North East three years ago, I met a girl who had three children including a babe in arms from three different husbands, all seven of them were living with HIV and all the adults were injecting drug users. This memory both singes my mind and haunts me each time I come back and I feel deeply privileged to come here and offer some part of me that is heartfelt and work-worthy and especially where the need screams at you.

I have just finished my session on “Advocacy to address stigma and discrimination in the context of HIV/AIDS” with a district network of people living with HIV in Manipur. My throat is dry, my voice, raspy and I am exhausted. This is no ordinary group of people. If you share my vocation, your heart keeps reminding you that every moment is to be received with respect and every word you speak has to point to a “promise of tomorrow”, whose seed has to be sown today. So it is not uncommon, that you find yourself fumbling for words yet striving to rise to the occasion, reaching high enough to draw yourself a silver lining that is bright enough for all to see against the dark cloud of HIV/AIDS that hangs in the room like a ghost. Sometimes when I my enthusiasm is waning, I try to picture myself in a place where I have to count all my “tomorrows”, and be conscious of the fact that they are somehow limited. This is enough to give my enthusiasm a fresh boost and remind me of the real reason I am here. Ironically enough, the truth is we all have to count our tomorrows and engage every moment with a passion that may be best described as kissing life back for joy, as well as for breath…hard.

In this room full of people, two boys get my attention. One with an easy smile who asks probing questions and the other is still-water silent but has both forearms covered with green tattooed ink. The tattoos mingle with faded marks of needle stabs, a sign of former injecting drug use and the most likely way my young friend would have been infected. The skin on his face is unlined and smooth and but his eyes are old. The largest tattoo on his left forearm and one that grabs my attention is a poorly etched cross with the figure of the tortured Saviour. While I am speaking animatedly, I pause for a millisecond and glance at it, and then look up. Our eyes meet and he smiles at me knowingly. They are both sitting right in front so it is hard to miss them. After the discussion, I strike up a conversation with the guy with the tattoos.

“Where did you get so many tattoos?” I ask casually.

“In jail.” He smiles. “I was drug pusher.” He moves along before I can think of something else to say.

I grab a glass of water and sit outside in the verandah trying to rest my aching throat. The water washes down the rawness and I turn my head slightly as I sense movement beside me. It is my young friend with the winsome smile. He plants himself in front of me with his forearms openly resting on either side of the railing. His forearms are bare… no puncture marks. Our conversation flows…

François: Hello. (Pause)

Hey…!

“I wish I had known earlier about ways to maintain a healthy life, instead of taking antiretroviral drugs (ART) so early in the stages of my infection.” …a tinge of regret colours his voice.

“It’s alright now,” I smile weakly. “The main thing is to continue taking it and once you begin, you have to take it for life.” (I am all too aware these drugs are government regulated and their regular supply depends on funds and logistics well beyond the control of the people whose life depends on it.)

“So! How come you are here?” My question is an earnest attempt to dialogue, to listen to his inner emotional rhythms, if I can.

That smile again. Warm, open, easy. “I am an Alcoholic.” he says simply. He looks straight at me, his eyes hold my gaze. What is it I see…. Acceptance? Maybe…

“You know that alcoholism like any addiction that one has to deal with daily. You take it “One Day at a Time” and you can’t tell yourself that you have been sober for a few months, so it’s okay to have a drink. Because that one drink can take you back to where you started.”

“I know, I have been sober for a year now.” Ever smiling.

“That’s…that’s good.”

“So you had unprotected sex.” I want to grab these next words and shove them back into my mouth. A health professional’s practiced observation – (If it is not this, it must be that. Who was I to tell him this?) And I was not judging him. Yet I feel foolish and callous.

“Love...” he says. He emphasizes its syllable slowly.

“I’m sorry?”

“I made love and not sex.” He says. I nod and not because I want to make up for my faux pas. (You can’t make love with someone you don’t love.)

“I used to drink a lot and did a lot of partying. And one day, I got very drunk and made love to my girl-friend without a condom. It was the one and only time that I had made love with her or any other girl for that matter.” He continued. “Later I got myself tested and I was found to be positive. As soon as I got my test results I went to her house to inform her but she refused to believe me. We have not met each other after that and she has recently gotten married.”

“It was good of you to go to her house and let her know about this.” I struggle with something more meaningful to say.

“So how did you make peace with it…about your life and your status?” My eyes are beginning to sting.

“I tried to kill myself…commit suicide. I drank continuously for 14 days, I wanted to drink myself to death… to sleep and never wake up…but I just couldn’t die.”

“What do you think about God’s presence in all of this?” I had to ask this question. The unraveling of a loving God’s hand and purpose in life as we know it, was a struggle I wrestled with in my own life.

“I have made my peace with God and my positive status. I was very angry with Him at first for allowing this to happen to me. I have even called Him bad names. But I have accepted my life as it is now and I still have my faith in God. He is my friend.” François began to smile that smile again.

“Oh yeah… I have had my angry moments when I have called God bad names too. But I am over that now.”

Pause. “You know, I too have experienced a loss followed by deep longing that is similar to your own. Like your life, there was a before and an after with a sudden defining moment that changed everything for me. I was once part of a long term committed relationship and I thrived on being a mutual halve of it, but one day she told me she wanted to end it. She had found someone else and wanted to move on. There comes a time when one must deal with what “is” and move on from the grieving over what cannot be. We find peace when we let go of the hunger to understand and embrace acceptance… only then the paralyzing restlessness disappears, no!?!

We are not that different… you and I.” The last sentence hangs between us as a friendly acknowledgement rather than a situation needing an answer. François smiles and shakes his head in agreement. I am smiling too. “So… what are your plans? Do you have someone in your life now?”

“I have a girl-friend I want to marry. She is positive too but she is not very healthy. She does not eat well.” François is grinning now.

“Does she need to take ART too?”

“No. Not yet. She used to be married but lost her husband and child to HIV, two years before.”

“Just encourage her to eat well and monitor her CD4 count levels. If she can manage without ART for the time being, then that is good too. Take good care of her.”

“What about you, have you met someone?” he asks

“Me…no, I have been on my own for four years now. But it’s a beautiful thing, you two found each other.”

“Yes it is…we plan to marry soon, next year, God-willing.”

These moments like all moments that leave a healing scar on your heart, pass all too soon. I have to leave to get back to Imphal before dark. François and I grasp each other’s hands firmly. “I will pray that you find love again and soon.” he says.

We walk to the car and as just before I get in. I turn to him and say. “Don’t forget…one day at a time… you stay sober and I’ll stay celibate…until its time. That way, we’ll remember to pray for each other. See you soon!” We smile in unison. I hug him this time.

Writer’s Inspiration – like getting punched in your stomach!

2007-10-17T11:17:00.000+05:30

A young budding wannabe writer to an established author, while strolling in the woods, “Tell me, where do your stories come from, are they stories of other people? Are they your stories? Is it all your imagination? I mean where does it ALL come from?”

Author: Experience.

Young writer (incredulously): Just your experience!!!

Author: You get punched in the stomach, describe it.

Young writer: “Well, you double over with pain in the centre of your abdomen and you are gasping for breath.”

The Author suddenly turns his hips to the left and swings his clenched fingers into the stomach of the young writer. His fist connects squarely with the young man’s mid-section, sending him sprawling into the mud with his body curled up in pain.

Author: “Your forgot to mention that your head hurts, your eyes burn and the snot is running down your nose. You are out of breath and you think you are going to die of suffocation. But then your brain sends a message to your lungs which suck in a deep breath of fresh air and then you start to see everything very clearly.” “That… is Experience.”

Broken Fellowship

2007-09-12T15:55:00.000+05:30

I know of a few friends of mine who have children or know people who have autism. I myself had interacted with people with autism and other mental disabilities for what one might call a long "learning moment", although I personally will not call autism a disability. Because what one of us in the common world (I have not used the word "Normal" intentionally!) may perceive as abnormal or uncommon because "they" don't seem to fit in, while "they" are quite well off in their world; if our common world were to provide a protected safe space for them to explore a world that makes perfect sense to them but very little sense to us denizens of the common world! In some sense, they live in a world that is a lot like our interior spiritual life; which makes good sense to us but very little to others but a whole lot to God.

People living with autism are also special people... in every sense of human exceptionality. They possess three dimensional thinking, superlative memories and an acute sense of right and wrong and discipline. Some of these values in normal people have become altogether extinct or are adjusted to external circumstances, without too much bearing on their moral or spiritual fabric. I am not trying to make this phenomenon into a romantic notion for I know the uncountable number of times, a parent has had her/his heart split down its seam due to folks either misreading their child or not giving him enough space to explore and be himself to grow and realise his God-given potential like any child in any place.

What I am trying to say instead is that the more we spend time with them, the more changed we will become as "we" learn from them that each moment is a gift of common grace from God and like them "we" rely on it just as much or more but unlike them, acknowledge it far less to God, to others and least of all, ourselves.

My three favourite metaphors of the ineffable beauty of broken grace remain... The movie - "The Rain Main" where Dustin Hoffman plays the part of the person with Autism who used to sing his younger brother, Tom Cruise, to sleep with one of the Beatles songs - "I Saw Her Standing There" but one day was sent to a home, because their father thought he was trying to drown his younger brother, when he was actually trying to save him. The whole movie is about their respective journeys about them trying to connect with one another.

The second is a book by Mark Haddon called "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time" about a boy with Autism who tries to solve a murder mystery on his own. The book is a superbly written book and is educative about how people with Autism might generally think. And my last but favourite is a book titled "Adam - God's Beloved" by Henri JM Nouwen about a boy with cerebral palsy who was under Henri's care for more than a year. The book is about Henri's spiritual journey and how he was mentored by Adam in silent non-verbal ways and how he learned about God's love and grace from Adam while he took care of him. This book is available in any St. Paul's Bookstore in any city. There is one in Connaught Place, New Delhi.

My last thought, being part of the human condition, we are all broken in some way. Some of us have become undone due to the irreplaceable death of a parent; a loved one; the interruption of a friendship; some are broken-hearted over the loss of a lover's presence; some of us are addicted to an unseeming habit; and some find it hard to forgive themselves and/or others ; or some are like me... a second-class man... a second class parent. But at the end of the day it is our common brokenness and our need for grace, love and forgiveness that unites us, more than any victory, accolade or sense of achievement we will ever receive in this life.

3X5 from bright avenue

2007-08-29T13:01:00.000+05:30

What you are about to read in the following narrative is a story about a real person in real time and who knows she just might point you towards a ray of hope you are searching for….

My school education for most of my formative years was spent in a school which although not highly renowned for its academic results as compared to more privileged public schools, nonetheless taught me life-skills that serve me to this day. One of the best things about Barnes School was that its gates were open to everybody… prosperous or poor, unruly teen-devil or tilted-hallowed saint, bright student or academic dunce, conscientious or lazy, ruffled or neat, disciplined or unruly…you were welcomed all the same, which is why I was there. I had been kicked out of my previous school due to indiscipline and I had found it hard to adjust with kids whose parents were highly solvent with Gulf monies. Struggling to cope with this environment, I started back-answering the teachers and racking up the detention points and the label, “bad-case” stuck. I might as well have had the words tattooed on my forehead to save new boys from their initial embarrassment of meeting me. Needless to say, all of this became too much for my kindly mother to handle, which is why she unashamedly begged Mr. Joe Davis, then Principal of Barnes, to allow me admittance into the school. Mr. Davis more than obliged. He not only took me in, but promised my mother he would rid me of all the bad influences that had infected my precocious personality thus far. The school and He, were very successful in this endeavour which is why the memories of the school though harsh sometimes and my teachers, including Mr. Davis will stay with me for as long as I live. But this narrative has nothing much to do with me…here is where it begins…

She was a year junior to me in school. Although I knew who she was, I could not call her my friend then (she is my friend now and the mystery of this too will be revealed shortly!), and in all my five years there right until I passed out, we exchanged neither a greeting nor a word. She was bright from the beginning and each year or alternate years, she would come to the podium to receive a well deserved accolade – a book as acknowledgement for her budding academic efforts. She also had a brother whom I knew, again only by association due to his interest in cricket and academics. The vein of intelligence ran through the family. They were day-scholars and used to come to school in a black chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz and she used to walk to the classroom in twin pig-tails and a bag that seemed too heavy for her back. She was also quite reserved and had a small circle of friends, and I do not recall ever hearing the sound of her voice during my time at the school. Ironically, we brushed past each other during the Farewell Dance which her class and the school had thrown for us after the exams were over, but the thought of asking her to dance, never crossed my mind. Her parents were present for every function of the school and often as Chief Guests on special occasions. I remember them vividly, her mother with short dark hair and her smile and her father, with early signs of graying hair, and glasses resting on his kindly face. She was always in a sari and he never wore a suit, attired instead in a simple long sleeved shirt and a pleated trouser. She and her brother were also amateur Karate enthusiasts and often stayed on after school for lessons. Talk about adding insult to injury, one of my dorm buddies who was in her martial arts class came back one evening rubbing his abdomen. He complained that his lack of concentration had cost him a well-placed kick from her which found him on the mat with more than a bruise to nurse his tender male ego.

Fast forward three years later; I am in my second year of college studying at Symbiosis, Pune for my Bachelors in Commerce which I have found to be intensely boring except for English and Accounts. I am walking down the corridor near the library, one day, and of all the people that this universe could cough up for the engaging moment, it’s her in a blue denim skirt and short hair this time! I debate whether to ignore her because I was too shy to say Hello, but I waive my inhibitions aside and walk up to her. She is signing off a book which she has to return and glances up. At that moment, I stick my hand out near her face and stutter… “Leela, it’s me, Sean from Barnes!” half expecting her to say “Sean who?” Instead, she smiles warmly and greets me with the regard one gives an old familiar friend. She is studying law at the same college. We chat for a long moment and reminisce about old friends and people that we knew from Barnes and there were so many! As all such moments seem so short, soon it is time for her to leave for lunch. I promise to keep in touch and she waves as her back turns for the road. We were the only two people from Barnes as far as I know at that time at Symbiosis College, Pune.

Since our class timings don’t match, I seldom see Leela. But the few times that I do, she always makes it a point to pause even if it was in-between classes to ask how I am doing and when she is free, she always made time for me. She even invited me home a few times and although I always said “yes”, I never went. Honestly, she was the only girl I spoke to during my three years at College…I was too shy. I cycled 12 km each day from my home, instead of taking the bus. If I had, I would have been better turned out to socialize more, but these things usually don’t strike a 20 year old. Looking back, I think Leela always sensed this for she would leave her friends and come and talk to me for a bit. Although from a privileged family, she never carried any falsely acquired graces that some folk are sometimes prone to do. She was always very confident, her sentences were short, truthful, and she never wasted words. If I asked a question, the answer always came quickly. It was as if she was reading my mind and she was paying more attention to the conversation than I was. Me, I was always trying to duck her eyes, as she always looked you straight in the face like someone you could trust. The year soon flew by, and one day she told me she was engaged to be married soon after graduation. She had stars in her eyes… young love and innocence. She even showed me photographs and said that her fiancé was broad and strong. I stuck my chest out a bit (I used to bench 170 pounds in the gym) but she quickly deflated my ego by telling me her guy was bigger than me! I was genuinely happy for her although I knew I was going to miss her once she left. She was a few days away from her 21st birthday and soon after, she would be married. Like before, I was invited once again for her 21 birthday at her place and just like before, I said yes, but did not go. How could I tell her that I did not want to land up in a compound filled with young cats on bikes and cars on one side and me, on my cycle? I remember calling her home to tell her I would not be coming, her brother Ajay, asked me repeatedly, if he could come and pick me up and I refused. If she was upset that I did not go, I was unaware of it, as I never saw her again…it was 1990 I think.

July 2007 I am in Connaught Place, New Delhi waiting for to meet a friend. I am early as is my usual habit and to mark time, I walk into a bookstore. I am looking for a book – The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus and I am disappointed that it is not there. I almost walk out of the shop but I decide to take a look around before I do. While glancing at book titles randomly, I spy a name that I have not heard or seen anywhere in 17 years… and I have traveled to most parts of the world. The name jumps at me, “Leela Kirloskar” and I pry the book off the shelf. I only know one person by that name and I am sure, most of my batch mates at Barnes School do too. The book is a thin small reddish brown book called “Dealing with Divorce Made Easy – The Essential Handbook” - Leela Kirloskar. As speechless as I am at finding this book, I am not alarmed by the title as I know she had studied law in college. I tell myself that she is probably a practicing lawyer. I quickly glance through the introduction to see if there is a phone number, email, or snail mail address. I am relieved to see her email at the bottom of the sixth page.

The moment is one long silent still reflection as the past comes back to me like a flood. The images of her in college, her presence in the library and her voice come back to me as if it was a few years ago. I also feel a sense of remorse that I did not follow up with her parents to get her address and especially that I did not attend her 21st birthday celebration. That night, I send her an email informing her of my finding her book and if she is the Leela that I know, she would not have trouble remembering me and I leave my number in the mail. I also leave a disclaimer in the mail, that if she is not the Leela I know, then she should ignore the mail. Two days later, I get a call and I am overwhelmed to hear her voice. She sounds the same – quick confident speech and all except her voice sounds deeper than I remembered it…more weathered but just like 17 years before, simmering coal warmth.

“Dealing with Divorce Made Easy – The Essential Handbook” is a very elegantly written book and is written from personal experience. It not only deals with issues surrounding divorce but also the issues that deal with the “Before” and “After.” The language true to the identity of the author is simple and written with empathy for the person faced with such a difficult life-altering decision. Although the subject being dealt with is about the closure of an irreconcilable marriage in one sense, the pages are permeated with hope by the author. Since most folk on the outside world just observe the outcome once the process is over, one needs to be divorced to truly appreciate what an excruciatingly painful process it really is and especially when children are involved. Some of these experiences are beyond words.

In this entire process, Leela and I are kindred folk, she has two sons and I have a daughter. She has found the love of her life and I am not sure if I am there yet, but I think more than anything else she would rather be a mother to her sons and me a father to my daughter, above every other consideration. I have not asked her this, but I am sure I am not too far wrong. She is a strong woman to have written such a book when most women would rather stay silent and I as one among her many friends not only cheer her on but express our common solidarity with her. Another truth be told, I am so glad I met her again, and this time, I will go and see her and who knows, I may meet her inadvertently again…in some coffee shop, book shop, I don’t care but I know I will see her soon. In the mean time, she will wait for her boyish hugs and I for my butterfly-kisses off the lashes of my eight-year old…..”

PS. The Hindu Newspaper ran an editorial about the book dated July 21, 2007. If you or your friends are going through this difficult process out of choice or compulsion, please take the time to read this book. It is inexpensive and is probably worth a hundred times more in what it has to offer…besides the Hope! And while reading it, please also remember to pray for Leela, her journey through the darkness is not over yet!

Finding My Way Back Home…

2007-04-26T17:02:00.000+05:30

The song wafts through my mind like déjà vu smoke…

“I hear sounds above the shuffling of my feet
As I make my way down this strange familiar street…
The Holy sound of families...their dinners on the wind...
Will I ever be able to sit at that table again?”

It is half past Eleven at night and I am on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and my dozing driver is driving fast. I have to be in time to watch my good friend and his band-mates play their fusion gig on an open stage with folks who have come to wine and dine and enjoy the music. I have played with my friend in the past, he on percussion and me on a beat-up acoustic guitar that has worn too many strings. I also know that I will miss something good as I am not going to make it for the show even if my taxi had mechanical wings that could really make us fly. So I let my thoughts drift on the wings of this song and my silent feelings follow in quick pursuit as if my heart will find something I have not felt in a long time. And I do…

“Hope that hides in darkness
Healing under pain
Roses asleep in the winter
But the spring will come again”

My feelings lead me to discover that I am actually on a journey to find my family and that even better…they are waiting for me. A family that has adopted me before I even thought about them as family. They say the best way to cherish a precious gift, a relationship or event is to try and understand how different your life would be if that gift, relationship or event had not happened in the first place. And while I am deeply grateful for the symphonic movement of the whole of my life both light and shadows, I have seen both sides. Because I can say this with meaning, fatherless at 5, orphaned at 24, single and alone at 34, I know that this experience of family is once again “new” to me.

“This time is set in motion
By design and by my due
It's one foot in front of the other
Here on Bright Avenue…”

I reach the venue and the music has long faded. I hug long and deep my two family members who started me on this journey in the first place. One is a deep-thinking soulful musician and the other is an ineffable seriously intelligent joyful social worker. Both of these folk bleed me dry of adjectives I could coin to grasp the meaning and goodness they bring to my life. I am so overwhelmed that I just keep hugging them until they have to shove me to the table to eat with the rest of the band. I am glad that it is dark so they cannot see the tears welling up in my eyes, tears of gratitude and joy!

“If those who sow in tears
Will reap in joy somehow
Then surely I am watering
My fields of future now…”

The days that follow are just what family holidays ought to be; late night chats, dinner and dessert outings in places throbbing with human voices and laughter, long drives on winding solitary roads and conversations laced with equal fact and malarkey but all tinged with love and affection. I am sitting at the table with my adopted dad and we are discussing the blessing of bringing-up daughters and the joy they add to our lives while my musician pal is brewing some tea for us. Another friend is sharing about his father and what life used to be like when he was there. Before we know it, a “talking circle” was formed.

“My feet will walk a golden street
And when all is said and done
I will be found on holy ground
As a good and faithful son.”

It is pre-dinner and I am breaking down the finer points of economic theory for my kid sister who has her exam the next day. She has the generous grace of indulging us and yet making the time to study. It is a good experience to visit the academics of my youth. After dinner we celebrate the success of my musician buddy’s new break in a mainstream band. The black forest cake is rich and creamy and the light of the candle bounces off all our faces leaving an afterglow of joy. This is my heaven for sure and I don’t want to leave.

“Walking towards a promise
That frees this restless heart
The Lord will never lose me
And He can finish what he starts…”

Monday morning is here and I have to leave. I don’t want to say Good-bye and to have to wake them up to say it. I tip-toe out into the driveway and I am driving down the same road I came. After an hour I get a call from my ineffable social worker friend. She is hurt because we left without saying Good-bye. My heart sinks but I tell her I will see them all soon.

“And when I least expect it
I believe these things are true
It's as if to say
I am on my way from here...
Here on Bright Avenue.”

Pune city smells like home, feels like home, wraps around me like home and it’s all because of you…Neha, Varun, Dr Kagal, Anju Ma’am, Nishu, Satya and Smurthi. And I think my home is Heaven’s reflection, because my home is here with you.

"To be held in the heart of a friend is to be a king." Bruce Cockburn

Running into a free-fall!

2007-03-15T11:13:00.000+05:30

I just ran 22 km last Friday night. It felt great and very freeing. I also realized the "gap" moment where your body strength peters out and your mind takes over and pushes you to the limit. It was a great feeling going over the edge. I almost felt like I was flying. I am optimistic if I remain injury free, I will run the next marathon in New Delhi or Mumbai.

And here is something else. I promised I would write a short story for a friend, the story is coming along nicely. When you set your mind on an endeavour, it takes its own shape and then "Life Happens!" For me this moment has been a long time in the making; but its here now and I am enjoying every breath I suck in. Life couldn't get any better than this. Thank God!

I have almost mastered the seminal song by Extreme - called "Hole-hearted!" It is such a great song and the glissandos and hammer-ons used by Nuno Bettencourt are out of this world. Have been trying to play it on my acoustic guitar for years and it comes along in bits. My Yamaha has such a nice warm tone, almost like a kindly human voice...not quite but almost. Now I got to find a woman to play it to... kidding...kinda!!! But the song is great!

My favourite ballad has to be "Amanda" by the rock band Boston. I only wish I could play it like Tom Scholz and sing it like Brad Delp their guitarist and vocalist, respectively, but the words are great and uplifting.

Happy Women's Day!

2007-03-08T15:23:00.001+05:30

My friend and inspirational guitarist, singer, songwriter, Martyn Joseph sings this song “I Can’t Breathe” and no sooner does the first lyric makes sense to your ears…you just know the song is about a woman…

Your beauty steals everything
Runs through me
Am I alone?
This island I’m so frightened
I’m just a prodigal
Who’s too scared to run home

And I can’t’,
I can’t breathe
Falling down

So come on now
There’s so much more now
I saw it written
Under the moon and the sun
Your beauty steals everything
Warps around me
Am I alone?

And I can’t’,
I can’t breathe
Falling down

Switch to another scene in another time and another place…just like a different angle panned by a camera and here is what unfolds…

After surviving internment in a Nazi concentration camp, Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor went on to become a famous therapist. In his memoir, he recalls a time when, fearing death at any moment, he and another prisoner were forced by Nazi guards to march towards an unknown destination. I would imagine they were being taken to be shot and dumped into the mass graves that were created for just such a purpose.

….”as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both new; each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked up at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was more luminous than the sun that was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which men can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love…

For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

As I sit here writing this excerpt from his book, I wonder if any man has ever learned to love his children, his friends or even his God, if he had not learned first through his wife, through her, to love.

I know I have said this to you before but I want to tell you again, that we men-folk and our kids, relatives and friends, “breathe” around you women-folk and I wish that every day is a day, just like a moment we capture in prayer to be grateful for all that God has given us, to be grateful and thankful for You!

Happy Happy Women’s Day!

A Song for the Road!

2007-01-01T19:08:00.000+05:30

When you feel afraid
When you lose your way
I’ll find you
Just try to smile and dry your eyes
I will bring back the moon into your skies
Whenever you will, remember darling

I’ll be there to sing to you
I promise you, I promise to
Comfort you and sing to you,
Darling, I’ll be there just for you

There’s so much to learn
And when you want me
Then I’ll show you
And through the years you will always be
The gentle lullaby in the heart
Of the child in me
Whenever you will, remember darling

Hold it and feel it,
This music that is in your heart,
And when you need it
Just keep listening
Let it sing
Let it sing

And though you grow away
No matter how you change
I’ll know you
And when you tire of life alone
There will always be one sure way back home!

I’ll be there to sing to you
I promise you, I promise to
Comfort you and sing to you,
Darling, I’ll be there
Anytime and anywhere
Anushka, I’ll be there
Just for you.

(Lyrics adapted from Kenny Loggins song - "Song for Cody"

Closing thoughts on life in Chennai...

2007-01-01T02:20:00.000+05:30

I know the old year has just wound out and the New Year has gushed in! I also heard the sounds of fireworks and the Church next door has just fallen silent. I know this is a great moment for everyone or atleast for most people. For some the success of the past year have been sweet; for others the challenges have been plentiful and perhaps as the year ran out; they felt good because it somehow made them feel stronger because of it. As the saying goes..."what does not kill you will only make you stronger!" But there are a few like me for which the passing out year parade does not make a difference.

Call me strange but even as I see folks heading for their do's with all the wining and dining, the cheers and the songs and I feel good for them unbegrudgingly, as these are the things that give us happiness, I went for a 10km run with my IPOD stuck in my ears and it was a feeling as good as any. This run on a day such as this is not of my purposeful choosing. If I had my way, I would be in the midst of a group of people, my friends mostly, playing my guitar and cheering on other folks to sing and then hug them as soon as the gong struck 12:00 AM. But such is my life as it has been given to me, for the moment that is.

I both love and loathe this city. Chennai is the best place to be when you are a family man or if you are the love of someone's life. It seems as if the whole city celebrates with you in your joy as the folk here are kind and tend to talk only in superlatives as if the best part of you, is the real 'you' and you could never be any different. Such is the grace that is found here.

But if you are alone it is different story. The politeness will still be there, but a little too much of it as if there is a vacuum of invisible space that one cannot cross even if you had the best intentions.

So for the time being, I will continue the routine that I have followed for the last one year... come home from work... have a cup of tea with the music on... warm up, some calisthenics and then hit the road ( it is no wonder I call running a serious hobby!) with the IPOD; get back, shower, eat my grub, check my phone for messages and missed calls, and then pull out the guitar and play... until I am ready to fall asleep if the night is kind.

If my wishes were horses, I would make a rainbow instead of marking time...but God alone knows why I am here for the time being and I will be heading home soon...

Million Dollar Baby

2006-12-31T08:06:00.000+05:30

My first foray into the ubiquitous world of ‘contradictions’ happened when I was 7 years old while taking a stroll with my Uncle along Juhu Beach road in Mumbai city. Looking up at the huge hoarding, which advertised about the pleasure of smoking filter cigarettes. On the illustrated carton was a line that said, “Cigarette Smoking is Injurious to Health.” Grappling as I was with the meaning of the “I” word, I struggled to figure out the meaning of why a serious warning would be juxtaposed on a carton of the very thing, which obviously gave some people a lot of pleasure. And so the struggle with paradox began which continues for me to this day. Sometimes the contradictions are far away for me to ponder but sometimes they are too close to the skin, close enough for me to feel their burden and the struggle which sometimes leaves me “running to a standstill.”

I recently experienced another such moment but it was more serendipitous. I saw the movie – “Million Dollar Baby” twice last week and counting. “Million Dollar Baby” is a movie that is not entirely about boxing, but is rather a love story between a cynical old man and a dirt-poor girl who was always told and believed herself to be “trailer trash.” It’s a movie about a journey of an old man who is in search of forgiveness and redemption, the shape of which he can’t quite define and a young girl who wants to be ‘somebody’ but especially to be someone who is worthy of being loved.

Frankie Dunn is a cynical old boxing trainer, who although is the best trainer in the business always chokes before sending his fighter for a Championship fight. The source of his hesitation is an old friend who works with Frankie – Scrap, a potential champion in his prime who lost his eye in the last fight but one, when Frankie at ringside, hesitated throwing in the towel to stop the punishment. For Frankie, everything is black and white and for most people like him, contradictions are hard to adjust to. Living in their cause and effect world, they steer clear of deep relationships to somehow minimize the effect of paradox.

There are two issues in Frankie’s life where the power of paradox is most telling. Afraid of being hurt to closely, he emotionally distances himself from his fighters; they can come to the gym but they cannot visit him at home. He will share with them his head but not his heart, his skills but not his experiences. But when he is at ringside, or alone at home watching his ‘boy’s’ fight on television, he feels every blow and the tensing of his aged body when it trades punches with his boy’s opponent. His tensing and twitching is so pronounced, you even see him move his feet in a direction similar to his ‘boy.’ His arms flailing in imaginary jabs, hooks and upper cuts. Although Frankie has the experience to mentor his wards, he will not steer his champion to a title match. It inevitably happens that once his trainees learn their skills which make them better fighters, they move on to a manager who will help them get a winning chance at the title. But Frankie does this on purpose knowing fully well he will be hurt when they leave.

The other issue which goes under his skin and deeper into his bones is the issue of love and forgiveness. Frankie is estranged from his only daughter Katie whom he deeply loves. Being a man who works with boxers – men who are accustomed to brutal training regimes and great physical pain. He gives no quarter in speech and expects no graces in gestures from anybody. His training philosophy follows through in his real life as well. When he meets Maggie Fitzgerald – his “Million Dollar baby” for the first time after she greets him. He sardonically replies – “Do I owe you money?” “Do I know your mama?” But after hours it is a different story. His only free time is taken up by two poignant rituals which he has been following for more than 23 years.

Frankie Dunn comes home alone every night and opens the door to find one more unopened “Return To Sender” letter from his daughter. He sighs quietly and opens a cupboard, nine shoes boxes full, of such unacknowledged letters from his daughter, Katie. Receiving nothing in terms of kindness or grace from her, Frankie tries to work out his own remedy of forgiveness and salvation by going to Church every day. He has been going to Church for all 23 years in a typical fashion. The Church service ends each day with Frankie taking a short stroll with the priest, badgering him with questions about God and I would think, about forgiveness. Though hidden, it seems to me that Frankie is wondering why forgiveness eludes the soul who desperately and sincerely seeks it. And if one is sorry and wants to make amends, what does one do when the injured party provides no opportunity whatsoever for such a blessed exchange to take place. His daily jousting with the priest always ends with the priest asking the proverbial question – “Did you write to your to your daughter today?”

Maggie is the southern girl who has taught herself how to box out of extreme circumstances. It seems as if each punch she throws on the speed bag is a reaction to ward off the blows that life has cruelly dealt her. Far from home in every sense, she waits on tables during the evenings and practices her skills during the day in Frankie’s gym. Initially Frankie refuses to train her because she is a girl but seeing her grit and determination, he goes from giving her a few tips to being her trainer. True to his nature, he warns her at the outset, that he will only sharpen her skills but she will have to find a manager who will help her get a title shot on her own. Frankie also tells her not to come crying to him when she is in pain due to the body blows and glove burns. Sensing the great opportunity to be tutored by a great trainer, Maggie is delightedly enthused and immediately agrees.

Her character forged out of poverty, desperateness and adversity, Maggie is a natural talent in boxing. She learns her moves quickly. And she can withstand the pain. Extremely willful, she also never takes unquestioned advice from her trainer. She is always probing and quick to retort when given instructions. Steeled with determination, she practices late into the evening after everyone has left the gym, as if her very existence depended on it. In one conversation with Frankie, after his blunt comment that she is too old to be boxing material, being a shade over thirty, Maggie tells him, “Boss, if I don’t box, I ain’t got anything else.”

But there is another side to Maggie which is as beautiful and human as anything connected with love can ever be. You see, Maggie, quiet simply, knows how to love. She is fiercely loyal, ever forgiving and is blessed with a child-like spirit of tarrying commitment. This faithfulness is not only evident in her relationship with Frankie but in simply everything she does. She ‘waits’ on tables to earn her rent; she patiently collects her penny’s worth of tips to buy a new speed ball and a new set of gloves; she shadow boxes deep into the dusk trying to iron out her moves, her breathing and her footwork. One sees the evidence of this spirit as she grows in skill and experience with each fight. Her results in the ring after only a couple of fights are so phenomenal, that no manager wants to pitch his fighter against her – no single contender lasts more than three rounds with Maggie. After some time, Frankie has to pay the managers to keep sending their wards to take a beating! After each final knockout with her opponents flat on the canvas, Maggie simply smiles, raises her hands, looks at Frankie and says, “I’m sorry, Boss.” Frankie smiles wryly and says – “You’re doing great kid!”

But nowhere is Maggie’s love and loyalty more evident than when it comes to Frankie. She loves him like a daughter. When Scrap in collusion with Frankie sets her up to meet a Manager who will lead her to a Championship fight where they might earn a million dollars, Maggie meets him and politely tells him that she would not leave Frankie even if she was offered all the money in the world. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity, she is more hurt that Frankie would consider such an arrangement above their relationship, even if it was beneficial to her. After a particularly tough win, Maggie pointedly asks him – “So you’re not leaving this time?” He replies shamefacedly “No one’s leaving, Kid.”

During all this time, these two lonely souls develop a deep bond of friendship and Frankie even gives her a Gaelic name as her professional title. Before long all the crowds chant her new name when she enters the ring before a match. Frankie makes a pact with her that he will reveal the meaning of her name only after she will win a Championship title.

One day, during the run-up to the Championship fight, a serious interruption takes place. This interruption tests the mettle and resolve of Frankie and Maggie till their utmost, until there is nothing left, in human terms, to give. But there is a door that swings ajar to the beyond. The story remains open ended with many unanswered but immensely ponderable questions and leaves the viewer with her or his own interpretative choice. I once read a sign in a seminary during one of my early morning runs and what it said was this – “Don’t Speak Unless What You Have To Say Can Improve Upon The Silence.” This movie has some deafening spaces of silence and a large number of them. It’s almost as if the story teller has left them there as reflective cues for the listener.

Before I get to my final summation, there are two very touching scenes where Frankie and Maggie’s deepest needs and their fulfilling answers kiss. Maggie always wanted love in a shape and form that showed her that she was worthy of being loved. Feeling unlovable and unworthy her only answer to a hard world was her hard fists. One night, before saying goodbye, Frankie kisses her on the head and tells her the meaning of the Gaelic name her gave her. He tells her it means “My darling, my blonde.” A single teardrop flows down Maggie’s cheek as she realizes that she always was, what she most longed to become – a person beloved.

There is the other scene which really tugs deep and hard at your heart strings, Frankie, the old man, struggling to get down on his knees to whisper a very well worn prayer – “Lord, take care of Katy… and Mary too.” And the other matter, well I leave it to You.” Although the story never tells, I suspect that Frankie too has a deep longing to be loved by his only daughter and the evidence of that was her forgiveness of his past mistakes. Both never came. But Frankie has his moment too, one day when Maggie jokingly tells him – “Frankie, you are a hard man but you’ve got your love coming to you.”

I came away from the movie, wrestling with a question which in fact has no easy answers but I fought for a long time and came up with this thought. What is the “One” singular thing that we as people long for, our human souls salivate for, and which although contained in the quality of Love, is altogether distinct but yet not quite separate. That which exists and is to be found everywhere among people who loves us and especially among people who don’t; among people whom we know fairly well as friends, parents, and lovers and but yet, paradoxically can exist between enemies and even strangers which will only lead them on to something more meaningful, a more unmistakable joy perhaps.

Picture this if you will, a ragged alcoholic faltering in his twelve-step process towards recovery walking his way home. His marriage is collapsing, his friends are in despair, and his honour is broken. His brain is scrambled, his mind a junkyard of broken promises, failed dreams, unkept resolutions. Wrestling to stay sober one day at a time, he passes by a convenience store and convinces himself that he can quell his cravings with just one sip. As he takes a swig, he shudders at the pain and heartache he has caused. He cries out in a tear streaked drunken haze – “Jesus, where are you?” Two hours later, he passes out on the pavement among the remnants of two bottles of Smirnoff vodka. When he comes to, he is being carried on a stretcher into St. Mary’s Hospital by two staff members.

Frankie Dunn’s “other matter” in his prayers, the cry of my friend the alcoholic, you and me, all need that quality of “unlimited liability,” from those we love. A guarantee of love even when there is no bottom line. This unlimited quality that keeps us giving love and coming back, for more, I believe is “Forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is that quality of love that keeps on giving even in times when we are truly deserving of the opposite. Forgiveness binds a love deeper, turns strangers in difficulty into friends, and fills up the burrows of a wounded heart with gushing love. Forgiveness makes possible a love that is based on the mutuality of the confession of our total self to each other. Believing then, it makes us free to declare not only: “My strength is your strength” but also: “Your pain is my pain, your weakness is my weakness, and your sin is my sin.” For it is in this intimate fellowship of the weak that love is born.

Ensconced in forgiveness there is also powerful paradox: in forgiveness every enemy changes into a friend, in hatred love is hidden, in despair hope, in doubt faith, in evil good, in lostness redemption.

There is one other thing as well. There comes a time for every wounded man like Frankie when his heart welts disappear because forgiveness happens; taking a line from a book I read recently - “ I wonder if this how forgiveness is budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany but like the pain packing its bags silently in the middle of the night and leaving. This happens when our pain transcends and is taken over by God. This experience, I believe, is common to everyone. Just when you think the emotion is unbearable, something unseen happens and there is release. We say time heals, but that is a misnomer as time is unreal, but God is.

The deep irony of this movie is that Frankie’s redemption did not come the way he wanted it; but receive it, he did, and in a manner he could not imagine. It was simply grace overspill. No matter what we’ve done and no matter where we have walked, there is a joy in the journey. And we may never know when the cross we carry becomes a Jacob’s fractured hipbone and finally becomes a natural rib or a grace-reminding scar. Yes, and though the memories we wished we’d never made, may cause us to close our eyes and wince, now and then, we have a desperate gift to be grateful for – abundant forgiveness, a reconciled relationship, yes! But even more, in Jesus Christ … a faithful friend.

Verses of Broken Poetry – An Unfinished Life

2006-12-31T07:58:00.000+05:30

I first met Venky in the winter of February 2003 as part of team of idealistic youngsters in our early thirties, who although having strongly diverse opinions on almost everything this universe could serve up on its multi-layered palate, worked and bonded together with one singular resolve; that all our efforts along with the many partnerships we forged and co-workers we made, we would make a positive change in the way HIV and AIDS is viewed and addressed as a critical issue in our country today. Together we worked with over 70 community-based organizations with more than 3,000 staff and our work always carried a sense of perpetual urgency – a forceful metaphor that time was indeed a precious creation and that true success was more like a dark hidden spring rather than a powerful vivid wave of change.

We live and move and have our being in a country that is broken and torn by issues beyond poverty, underdevelopment, rapid urbanization, communalism and other schisms that silently divide people who actually share so much more in their collective humanity than just their citizenry. According to Government estimates in 2005, India has 5.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS between the ages of 15 to 49 and 37% of them are women and how many of the “others” are children below the age of 15, many of whom are orphaned, is anybody’s guess. But the sliver of hope lies in the collaborative involvement of people living with HIV and those who don’t on a collective platform of ideals, policies, institutions, governance, systems, procedures and safety nets for women and children in particular to address this issue at all levels and stem the onward direction of this epidemic. Our friends and partner organizations, people living with HIV and ourselves are still part of this effort…and Venky was too.

The first thing that struck you about Venky was how disarming and powerless he was. He was not powerless in the sense of weakness. He came across as powerless in that you felt completely safe with an individual who would find no reason to hurt you. Although our work was tight, he always gave you time. Proof of this was in the easy way any conversation with him flowed, unfettered by pretense or motive, between his smoke breaks and arriving and leaving from work. There was never any reason for the other person to rethink about what she or he was going to say next and sometimes a thread of conversation carried on unbroken for many days when you met him outside the elevator with a nicotine light between his fingers. His earnest listening to your half of the tale of life left you with a sense that Venky had ‘time’ for time; long after the conversation was over and we had gone our separate ways. It was as if the curtain of intense affinity had been drawn across the busy tasks of an ‘every day’ and after a spell when the curtain was drawn back we could step outside into our ‘every day’ as the rest of the world remained untouched while we had had a time-out.

Venky was also an intrinsic part of our team. His expertise on HIV related risk issues specific to injecting drug users helped to design and set up many programs to address the needs of substance users who needed care and support for second chance at life. Sometimes these chances ran into double digits but such is the way of life for people who are broken beyond their ability to cope with the every day realities of life; some of which people like you and me take for granted. Working with Venky and learning from him, I slowly realized that most drug users are almost always lonely with a constant absent sense of self-love and these dark emotions wreak a hellish chaos in their lives as well as in the lives of the people who love them. For most of them, life is a slow-burn of pain that is unending and their lives are sucked dry by the next “fix.” Time becomes irrelevant as their slow motion life becomes sluiced from one fix to the other. It would beggar the mind of anybody as to why another human being would want to do this to their personal selves. And there is the other edge of the sword of pain; the loved ones watching their beloved helplessly from the sidelines – their own love and lives being twisted and bent out of shape like burning wreckage in a mine-field where there are no empty spaces of safety. After the initial dawning of this realization, I had once mentioned to Venkat in conversation with our friend, Mins that rehabilitating substance users had had to be living each day in God’s bosom otherwise how else could they recover to live a normal life after such a storm of anguish?

Venky was also unstintingly generous as a person. I remember working closely with him to develop a new project for the care and support of substance users in New Delhi City. All the ideas were his and even the budget items; my only paltry contribution was simply editorial. Once the project was finalized, he congratulated me in front of our team members as if the entire project was mine! He was also very gentle – the timbre of his voice remained the same whether he was happy, joyous, irritated or sad. This quality endeared him greatly to our colleagues in the office. What we appreciated about him most though, was his empathy. Having lived and worked among people living with HIV and substance use for so long; he could deal with all the broken shards of humanity of a person and yet give him or her, the dignity of life as a gift. My favourite definition of the word “dignity” is “according to someone else, the same measure of respect you would give yourself.” Venkat en-fleshed this definition and this made him a favoured person of any interaction. My friends at work experienced this, felt it and made it our own. Writing this as it is, I find it more a gift of grace; as it is humanly nigh impossible to address an issue in the lives of others while the demons in your own life so closely mirror the pains in theirs and threaten to overwhelm you at your weakest moments.

Close to the middle of 2004, Venky’s hold over his own life started slipping and his resolve to embrace life as a new moment each day began to wane. He fell into a spiraling vortex of pain and addiction. He kept returning to a counseling and care program and it always seemed like he had barely finished cleaning up when the next circle of hell came around the corner. This not only battered his heart, but his mind and body as well. He avoided spending too much time talking with his friends and he spoke to very few people; my friend, Mathew being the only person at work. When he chose to speak about it, we tried our best, each of us in our own way to get him back into the program. But our efforts proved too weak and he lost the battle. By then some of us were angry and hurt with him, so much so that we stopped talking to him. I think we were also afraid that his needs had become too large for any of us to manage. Our intentions and good efforts had been spent and for me personally, I felt that he needed time to be alone to sort himself out. I also chose to foolishly believe that he would be around for a long time as he had always been so healthy.

Last Sunday, my friend Kaku messaged me that he had died in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He was just shy of 40 and his life was still unfinished. Although it may seem that he is one of many sons gone to God that the world has given up, he will always remain alive with us, in our hearts and minds. Not many will know this but he was among the first people who penned the first draft of a policy that promotes the greater involvement of people living with HIV and AIDS (GIPA) to address issues of HIV and the fears that result in stigma and discrimination of people who are in every sense, just like anybody else. Today this policy is on the website of The National AIDS Control Association (NACO) – the primary organization responsible for its implementation and to address this issue in our nation.

Venky fought for every day of his life and he lost. But in his powerlessness, he showed us all, the path to dignity and grace. That there is no shame in acknowledging that the way to strength lies in first admitting your weakness and that you need the help of your friends, your loved ones and God to help you through it and that without them, you could never make it. And that once you are strong, you begin to help others in similar circumstance, if for no other reason than pure gratitude. Such is the common gift of love and life. And Venky’s life was a gift to us but most of all to himself.

I remember this singular exchange at the elevator – the common prop for daily communion and we were discussing the merits of the rock group - Pink Floyd when the topic suddenly changed…

“You know I have HIV, don’t you?” he asked calmly.

“No” I replied… too quickly as if to hide the fear that might come into my eyes.

“I thought you knew.” He said.

“What about your medication, are you taking it?” I asked gingerly.

“No I don’t’ need it just now.”

I returned to my desk later and typed him this message – “One day all this pain and suffering will be over…for we will walk in a different place, hear the voice of God and run where roses grow….

“Wish you were here…”

A Piercing Hope and A Love Less Ordinary

2006-12-31T07:52:00.000+05:30

I am very grateful for my vocation. If at the very least, it keeps me moving forward and always with a sense of expectation that every different corner I turn, I will bump into serendipity herself, her presence of which makes me grateful for the very gift of life itself. Last week I was blind-sided by her presence- I am still reeling under the shock of it. See the serendipity that I have a burning thirst for has a name and I fondly call her… Hope…inspite of; because of; and because she is there.

My profession involves working with people who need generous portions of Hope to help them make it through each of every day for the rest of their lives. If you happen to talk with any of them to pursue the common sharing of life stories with the purpose of rooting a friendship; you will realize while listening closely that there was a defining moment in their lives where their yearning for Hope became a very real preoccupation.

As I sit here, I find it difficult to imagine a time where every waking moment would be spent in trying to understand the complexities of life and the consideration of safe options that will not only take care of my predicament but also give me something that I would want more than anything else…a second chance to make it better…some form of a higher redemption, perhaps. We have all had, at one time or another, been placed in situations where we have felt a choking fear and made a desperate surge towards hope, and for most of us the series of events blew over; and although time moved on in bitter chapters – hope did come to us and the grief within us was reduced to a manageable size and for the more fortunate, disappeared altogether. The resulting impact is almost always a very palpable deep gratitude. A gratitude for every ‘thereafter moment’ and for many chances to make it better, with some ‘second chances’ running into double digits but hey, life is all about learning to fall before we learn how to fly!

Last week while running myself aground into my daily activities, I ran smack-bang into a vision of Hope that I had never previously glimpsed before! Part of my job is to conduct capacity building trainings for positive networks and the only singular thing about positive networks is that all members live with HIV. The wonderful thing about the “positive” part of the network is not that the members are sero-positive (which means that their immune systems contain the HIV virus) but that they resolve to live “positive” lives. Lives that characterize a deliberate purposefulness; where the phrase making “each day count” becomes infused with new meaning and that all of this comes from making choices that render life to be a precious gift to be nurtured and considered with fresh gratitude.

Anyway, as a common practice I try to round off a training workshop on a note of hope (the h-word again!), instead of the standard “farewell-see you soon” kind of note. I invite, instead, a participant to share their experiences or their story, if they wish. This time, a participant called Surya stood up to share about his life and it was a most unlikely life-story.

Surya, a tailor, is 34 years old and has been living with HIV for a couple of years now. He was tested for HIV without his knowledge or consent and became aware of his status only after a year when he contracted pneumonia while visiting a Catholic hospital in Bangalore. The nuns broke the news while counseling him on the treatment regimen he now had to follow. I can only imagine what he must have felt at that time when his life irrevocably changed – as if suddenly possessed of a sharp fault-line; between the “then” and “now” and deep enough to swallow him into a darkness where even the light of life could not touch him there.

After his diagnosis, Surya became possessed of only one thought – to pursue the trail of a medicine that would make him well. After visiting a couple of hospitals and NGOs, he was told by an NGO about the Positive Network of his state where people like him would not only receive emotional succor but also access to medication that needed to be taken to keep him healthy. These positive networks are a community of people living with HIV. Among their key important functions of advocacy, networking and service delivery, they serve as safe emotional spaces for a people whose belief in their own humanity has been shaken and come here to find meaningful ways to rediscover it.

By his own confession, Surya’s sole preoccupation was acquiring his medication when he became a member of the network. Since he hailed from a district outside Bangalore, he was asked to get involved in the different activities of the network in his district, which he did. Carrying his anxiety along, Surya attends a district network meeting on his first day and beyond all expectations is elected as President of the network! This, for a man who’s only thought was to lay hands on a few strips of powder; unbeknownst to him the healing process that would change his life had already begun.

Surya begins his work as President in earnest, not only liaising with other NGOs working in the field of HIV but also attending meetings and counseling his peers and their families whenever he was needed to do so. Throughout all this time, Surya had not disclosed his positive status to his family or relatives. The only folk who did know were his peers in the network. But being 34 years old and like most Indian families, a search for a suitable bride for him began by his family. A choice was made and the girl was Chitra, a 27 year old who worked in a garment shop in the same place where Surya lived. The couple grew to like each other fairly quickly and spent many hours in each other’s company after work. On the surface of things, everything was going smoothly; a couple was courting and would soon be married with the consent of both their families. The hidden reality was another story; they were hanging on to each other by a very fine thread. Surya was HIV positive and no one knew; Chitra was sero-negative (she does not have the virus) but Surya had fallen deeply in love with her. The thought of his honest disclosure and her leaving him was a risk he did not have the strength to take.

Time moved along and their love blossomed and, I would assume, so did their marriage plans. But still, he could not bring it upon himself to tell her. One day, a lady whose husband was admitted in a local hospital with an opportunistic infection (an allied illness that affects positive people because of a depleted immune system) asks Surya to visit her husband and counsel him. This conversation takes place in front of Chitra and Surya does the unthinkable; he takes her along with him to the hospital.

During the closing hours of the evening, Surya and Chitra returned from the hospital and while traveling had a conversation that would change the way they looked at love and life forever. (Though much of what Surya shared was lost in translation – here is the gist of it…)

“So this is the kind of work your network is involved in, counseling, care and treatment of people living with HIV?” asks Chitra.

“Yes, for the most part.” replies Surya

“So does this man have the virus in his blood?”

“Yes… yes he does.” There is a long pause in their conversation.

Then Chitra asks the question (softly) – “Do you have HIV?”

Surya exhales deeply and replies – “Yes, I too have HIV.”

“Were you ever planning to tell me?”

“I could not find the words to tell you so I thought I could let you know slowly by allowing you to observe my work and through what I spoke to the couple this afternoon at the hospital.”

“Why has it taken so long for your family to find a suitable girl for marriage?” asks Chitra.

“I keep putting it off and discouraging them as I have HIV and besides I have not told them about my status yet.”

Another pause.

“Do you still want to marry me…now that I have told you everything?” Surya asks Chitra knowing what comes next might sift him like chaff in the sweltering wind and he will lose her forever.

“Yes.” She replies softly. “I will marry you because I love you and it has nothing to do with you having HIV.”

At this point to those of us hearing him tell his story, we were tempted to think the story had one of those ‘happy-ever-after’ endings. In fact, the following months prior to and after their marriage, hell broke loose.

The network which Surya was a part of accused him of duplicity and that he was deceiving a girl into marriage without disclosing the truth about his status. He lost his candidature as President because of it. Some others even went to the extreme of complaining to the Lawyer’s Collective about him over this issue. Quite remarkable was the reaction of the local NGO. They went a step further and gave real-life satire another dimension. Two women of that NGO invited Chitra for tea at a local tea stall and began “counseling” her on the folly of her decision and their advice kept swinging between conjuring up visions of impending doom and begging her to reconsider her position, after all she was a girl who did not have the virus and had her whole life ahead of her but was instead wasting it by marrying a man who had already spent his. At one point one of them lost their composure and blurted out – “He may not live for even three more years since his diagnosis! I urge you to reconsider!”

Chitra’s reply to that hollow exclamation is a telling testimony of the power of love to heal all wounds – “Even if he were to live for just three minutes after our wedding ceremony, I will still marry him.”

By this time, Surya’s voice is choked-up and we all had lumps in our throats. You could hear a pin drop as we sat wide-eyed in a circle watching this man narrating the story of his life. My own heart was in a semi-state of maddening grief and ecstatic joy. We all gathered around him after the meeting and the next day we even got to meet his wife, Chitra. A doe-eyed soft spoken wisp of a girl whose face had an ethereal grace; not of this world! I asked her, quite foolishly, how she had attained such maturity at such a young age and she said that working in the garment shop made her interact with customers from all walks of life and that every face had a story to tell and a life that had an experience to learn from.

They say the reason we all naturally love stories is that it is God’s way of opening a window into our souls and allowing His message to creep in. A message that makes us more attuned to the daily rhythms of what it means to be truly “human” while sharing all the experiences in the stories that tug on our collective humanity and ultimately allowing us to walk a little closer with Him.

Without excuses, my own life has unraveled over the last three years and all the ideals I held close to my heart about love, loyalty, forgiveness and togetherness have become unglued. Sometimes, I imagine myself conversing with God and the short exchange goes like this:

“Why do things have to happen this way to people? It’s not fair.”

“You’re right, life sometimes isn’t fair.”

“You do one wrong thing and _____.” “If you truly loved me, why did you sit back and allow all of this to happen to me?” I ask belligerently.

“If all of this did not happen, how would you have been able to receive the gift of “yourself” to yourself and in doing so, be a gift to others as well!”

“But this road has been long and very hard for me to walk on and I am scared.” I chime in.

“Feelings are scary and sometimes painful,” says God. But if you can’t feel pain, you can’t feel anything else. Do you get it?
“You’re alive and you feel that, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t feel good.” I say.

“It is good, believe Me.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Because I am your friend.” He replies.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here. You’re really my friend?”

“I AM, you can count on it.”

I have yet to uncover the mystery of Surya’s story for my own life but I know the hopeful healing has begun. I also understand that all my honest intentions would fill only empty boxes, if not for His love.