DEAD RIGHT

Our sermon today was based on the reading from Sirach – a eulogy to Elijah and Elisha, stalwarts of their time and comparable to none.  Their conduct was blameless and their exploits legendary.  And they did what they did for God alone. Who could hope to match them? 

The priest reminded us of the eulogies we hear at funerals – all good and sometimes even better than the person we remember.  He asked us if we would be able to live up to our eulogies and then set us an exercise.  He told us to write our own – everything we would want said about us – and then check and see if we were living up to our better selves!!

So, how do I want to be remembered? First as having a sense of humour – definitely that!  To be able to laugh (with a little bit of the ribald thrown in) and make others laugh with you is to me priceless.  Second, as being punctual because punctuality is a mark of respect and time is precious. An inbuilt military upbringing has taken care of that.  Third, a caring heart – that’s a toughie.  Because it means sharing yourself even when you don’t want to share.  Genuine caring is never selective. And fourth – making a difference for the better.  What other reason do we have for being here? That’s a tough ask too.

If I were to be honest – as eulogies are sometimes not – I would need to put a curb on a critical tongue, impatience and ‘justified’ anger.  I grew up being measured against the better achievers and have inherited the attitude.  Some legacies are best surrendered.

I love being my own person, so I won’t change that – who cares what other people will say! If I choose to serenade on a full moon night, I will. I once joined in a midnight barking contest with the street dogs – it puzzled them no end (I was dead sober)!! Oh yes – eccentricity is one more thing that I would love to be remembered for.

Now that that’s off my chest, I can rest in peace.  By the way, I love coloured flowers. Ditch the white.

From as far back as I can remember, I have loved St Peter.  He was a big, burly fisherman with foot in mouth disease who loved Jesus at first imperfectly and then so wholeheartedly that he died for Him.  Peter was totally human and he is the rock on which my church is built - the stuff of legend.

My fascination with Peter grew through reading and movies: The Big Fisherman, The Shoes of the Fisherman (this was more about a Pope in the mould of Peter than Peter himself).  Both books and movies were epic; they fuelled imagination already coloured by Biblical accounts.  How could I resist one more narrative linked to Peter, linked to my faith and one that promised a really good read?  I bought the book by John O’Neill, settled into a comfortable chair and blocked all distractions.

The book is really well written in clear and readable prose, and adheres to the best journalistic principles of providing, upfront, the ‘Who, What, Why, When, Where and How’.  The pace is easy – neither fast nor slow.  One does not have to move back to go forward and it is totally factual (annotated as well); there is no room for doubt about veracity.  If there is one problem that I had it is that there is too much repetition – identical statements and phrases – sometimes even in consecutive paragraphs, much like a favourite family elder repeating stories, forgetting that they have been told before.  Once is forgivable, more is not. A proofing oversight?

It is historical in that it traces back to 1939 but could only be told now because Pope Francis provides the end note.  It also gives an inside view to the functioning of the Vatican – both happy and appalling: humanity at its very best and clericalism at its very worst.  Strangely – or, perhaps typically – it is the individual personality that typifies both. There are those who spent their lives in exemplary faith and those who arrogated power to themselves in the worst possible way.  And, at the same time, it is the story of the foundation and amazing growth of our faith, built upon the ‘Rock’.

Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) who have published the book, have also provided an online interview with the author.  His concluding remark is worth attention:

“…it (the book) gives you the ability to see physical relics from the first and second centuries. With the wave of secularism that is overwhelming the world, people want to treat people like Peter as though they never existed, as though it’s all a fairy tale or Santa Claus story. Just go look under the Vatican. It’s not a Santa Claus story. They really did exist. Peter really was killed in Rome, and there were a lot of really brave people who prayed to him, who sacrificed their lives to transmit this great faith down to us in the 21st century.”

Find the interview here: https://www.osv.com/TheChurch/Article/TabId/563/ArtMID/13751/ArticleID/24487/Finding-%E2%80%98The-Fisherman%E2%80%99s-Tomb%E2%80%99.aspx

TITAN HAS MOST DEFINITELY LOST ITS EDGE

Boosted as the ultra slim watch from Titan – truly world class, unmistakably Titan – it did not come cheap.  But it did come from a brand that had served me well for the best part of twenty years. Unfortunately, this time the brand did NOT live up to its name.

To know the whole story, we have to go back to the beginning.

As a Tata employee, I received Preference Shares when Titan was floated.  Those Preference Shares got me a discount to purchase products from Titan, which I dutifully did.  Result? Some really good wristwatches and Time Pieces for hubby, home and me.  The Time Pieces were phased out and so were the spare parts and when they stopped working, they made the trip to the junkyard where worn out timepieces go. 

The wristwatches have done duty for many a year, without a glitch and only the mandatory battery change.

Now comes the ‘edge’.  This model was a little out of budget but I succumbed – after all it was a Titan and over the years it would be paisa vasool.  Unfortunately, just two years on – and just outside the guarantee period – it stopped working.  Time for a battery change, or so I thought.  While waiting in line, the previous customer, who also came in for a battery change, was told that her watch needed a new motherboard!  I commiserated with her.  It was expensive.  Then I was told the same thing!!  My watch which I had used so carefully and caringly also needed a new motherboard.

A very expensive watch is now costing me money instead of living up to its price.

Shame on you Titan.  You sold me a lie!

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD CAST STONES

I keep getting messages, through various digital media, about Amoris Laetitia and the dissenters are pretty raucous.  They quote the purists, the righteous and the traditionalists. This got me thinking.

The ‘regular’ Catholic (and even most of the irregular ones) should be familiar with the story of the adulterous woman whom Jesus saved from stoning.

Let’s go back to that moment for a bit. Jesus was, at that time, a young Jewish man familiar with Jewish law and all its nuances.  He would know very well that the penalty for adultery was stoning to death.  Here were elders and Jews, steeped in their faith, who brought this woman before him.  Did she deny the charge? No. Was it a questionable charge? Again, no.  Apparently, the woman’s transgressions were well known. Were the elders well within their rights to stone her? Technically, yes. Because it was the law and they observed the law very rigidly.

What did Jesus do?

He did not harangue the woman. He did not conduct a court of inquiry.  He made a simple statement,’Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’!

While the elders were ‘rooting out’ sin, here was one who sought mercy for a sinner and offered a second chance.

Jesus was radical for his time. So radical that they crucified him.

History repeats itself.

Because mercy is beyond the comprehension of those who cannot love.

A Collect Prayer and a loving message for the day….

 “O God, who through the folly of the Cross wondrously taught Saint Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ…”

Attending Mass, whether daily or for fulfilling the Sunday obligation, unwittingly becomes routine.  The common prayers – I Confess, Gloria, Creed, Holy Holy, Our Father – are so familiar that we can just rattle them off when they turn up at their appointed place in the Liturgy.  Even the readings, after time, become good friends and, on hearing the first few words, we know what comes next. 

On the other hand, how often do we actually ‘hear’ the other prayers recited during the Liturgy? They are unfamiliar (unless you have your own personal copy of the Mass missal), privy only to the priest at the altar and, if you are not particularly attentive, you could miss the words altogether.  Today, our celebrant intoned the Collect Prayer with unusual clarity and my ears picked up the words, ‘….folly of the Cross…’ and I was intrigued. Yes, I checked the Book after Mass and I had heard correctly. 

This set me thinking about how much we are loved.  If you have ever cared for another so intensely that you forget self for the other, when no sacrifice is too hard and no expense too great, you throw logic to the winds, there is irrationality in the face of danger and there is even less thought to the consequences. How foolish we are when we love deeply! 

Imagine, then, how deep and how immense was Christ’s love for us; all we need to do is to look to the ‘foolishness of the Cross’ to know this reality.

Hold fast to this thought – it will get you through the day.  It will also get you through life.

SPOTLIGHT!

It’s a word; it’s a noun. It’s also the serendipitous choice for the title of the investigative journalism segment of a provincial newspaper – the Boston Globe. You couldn’t get a better title than this except maybe ‘Five Find-outers and Dog’ (once an Enid Blyton fan, always an Enid Blyton fan)!!

But this is serious, responsible and accountable find-outing. They smell a story that should be in the public domain and follow their noses to put the facts out there, to set the record straight, to right a wrong, despite seemingly insurmountable barricades. They are a small team but a dedicated one, working in tight-knit coordination to uncover the information that starts with a small niggle and ends with a burst of incredulity. Could this be true?

The lives and work of the journalists by themselves makes a good story but not an exceptional one – most investigative teams work this way, taking in the highs and lows, the sleepless nights and fractured personal relationships, the door to door trudge, the meticulous sifting of information and the courtroom attendances. What does make this particular film news is the scandal that it is linked to – the scandal that rocked that unshakeable behemoth, the Catholic Church.  A Church that in Boston, in particular, was an institution that underpinned all of public, social and political life. Incidentally, it still does today but perhaps not with the same self-assurance.

The Boston Globe was where the story broke, leading to the coming out of thousands of victims not just in America but in other parts of the world too, an indication of systemic failure to address a problem that was real and that had traumatic consequences for its victims and ultimately for the Church. Lawsuits and settlements have drained finances, parish churches have shut down, priests at the ground level have had to rebuild on the debris left behind. Thanks to the digital medium, the news had global ramifications in real time. And the biggest victim was, so very regrettably, ‘trust’.

That men betrayed the cloth was not new. That the betrayal was covered up was not new.  In earlier times, the victim would be considered the one accountable and the Church was considered above scandal. A few whispers here and there perhaps. A collective clerical shrug for an unfortunate lapse, but nothing in the public domain.  But times change and truth will out – the longer it is suppressed, the more explosive it proves to be.

Time has passed, there has been compensation, there has been healing and there is now a watchful gaze with a hair-trigger response.  Never again.

So how is ‘Spotlight’ the fantastic experience that critics cite it to be? Because it resurrects a scandal from the past?  Because it holds the audience in rapt attention from frame to frame? Or, because it confronts us with the uncomfortable truth that but for one man’s dogged conviction, the facts may never have been told? 

For Catholics everywhere and for priests in particular, the upheaval was real.  Trust is difficult to earn and for those who remain with the Church, this film will resurrect doubts that were buried.  We can only hope and pray that ‘never again’ is the reality for the rest of time.

BLANK SLATE

The New Year is given to us as a blank slate – 366 days (it’s a leap year!) to ‘write’ on and imprint our actions and interactions. But, what of our thoughts, feelings and memories? Where do these go?

Since way back when, I have kept diaries.  Not just memories but scrapbooks of stuff that has caught my eye and, not surprisingly, most of my collection is ‘words’ – bits and pieces from books and articles that I have read.  The odd illustration finds a place too and clippings from here and there.  I treasure my collection; in moments when I need to ‘get away’ but can’t, I tuck myself into a chair and go back in time through the pages, lingering over the memories that they evoke and delighting once again in the connection felt at the first encounter. The vibrancy remains undiminished with the passage of time.

The electronic blog and Facebook provide tempting alternatives and I do succumb from time to time to the ease of the digital medium, but this year, thanks to a young lady who finds colour in words (and whose words add colour to the day!), I have the blank pages of a diary/album to accompany the unfolding year.  And I will take her happy advice to imprint the pages with memories, experiences, new encounters and the ‘mud of places’ that I will visit.  A concrete legacy for the future!

For now, the immediate present, I will savour the texture of the handmade paper, reveling in its pristine newness. I have one more reason to be eager for what is to come!

MORNING WALK

Daily bread does not land on my doorstep; I must fetch.  So, in the murky early hour after first Mass, I make my way through the back lanes that take me to the bread shop.  It is not a pleasant journey.  Dingy, shuttered shop-fronts line the pavements on either side; pavements that one cannot use because the previous day’s garbage has been put out for the collection that has yet to be accomplished.  The contents spill out onto the road, thanks to rummaging canines, cats and the hopeful crows. One has to walk in the middle of the road to avoid the odd squelch and snapping teeth, the occasional remnant from the previous night’s hangover – denizens of the local ‘joints’ – and the amorphous, swaddled shapes of the still sleeping homeless who make the pavements their bedroom.  

It’s not a long journey, but the surroundings make it seem so.  I hurry past my daily encounter with now familiar squalor, with purposeful determination. Today, the bread shop is manned by the father, a courteous old man who patiently waits on each customer. He reaches out for my shopping bag and fills in the items as I recite my list – bread, buns, butter, milk, eggs.  He takes my money and hands me my change. I shoulder my bag and sidestep a couple of eager cats playing tag and waiting on the probability of a punctured milk pouch – there is a crateful of them at the entrance. It’s time for the return journey.

In the time between, the conservancy gang has visited.  The garbage has been picked up and the road swept clean.  The pavement dwellers have gathered up their bedding and melted into an invisible background. The shop fronts are still shuttered but in a few hours they will be humming with arriving and departing customers who require the barber, the chemist, the tailor, the electrician, the stationer, photocopies, hot snacks – name it, you’ll find it; practically every need is met! Come evening, the bars will thrum with customers ending their day by getting high to remedy a low. And then shutters will down, some by nightfall others in the wee hours.

Shifting scenes on a temporary canvas – painted over but not obliterated. A living pentimento!  

THE WORST NIGHT (AND DAY) OF MY LIFE

The weather suddenly turned foul, the thunder thundered vigorously, the lightning flooded the sky and the rain poured down in buckets.  I needed a refuge and I needed it fast.  I saw the light on in this house and I sought admittance but no one answered.  Fortunately, there was an entry point and so I took advantage, hoping no one would grudge shelter to a bedraggled stranger.

 

No one was home! That was surprising. I checked out the place, made myself comfortable and heaved a sigh of relief. There was food on the kitchen counter top too.  What a welcome! But it did not last too long.

After a couple of hours, I heard a key turn in the lock and light footsteps enter. It was a woman carrying a shopping bag and she sang as she entered.  Happy company, I thought and sat up to say hello. She took one look and yelled, ‘Get out of my house you varmint!’ and she set to with a will, banging about and screaming till I cowered in fear. I managed to find a roomy cupboard and concealed myself there but apparently she had seen me enter.  The next thing I knew was that I had been locked in and there I remained for the night and the best part of the next day.  You can imagine my plight. When would I see daylight again? 

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I heard was the voices.  A man and that woman talking.  The woman was explaining in shrill staccato and the man seemed to be in vociferous agreement.  Then, the cupboard door swung open and my place of concealment was flooded with light.  The man had a thick stick in his hand and looked dangerous.  Was my life in jeopardy? It was ‘do or die’.  I leapt past the man; the element of surprise was on my side.  He chased me around the room but I was quicker and, seeing an open window, I jumped out as fast as I could without a thought to the consequences.  Oh, the joy of being free and out in the open again.  

Whatever happened to ‘shelter the homeless’ and ‘feed the hungry’? Is charity so very dead?

Take my word for it, it’s certainly no fun being a rat (especially if you land up in Wendy’s home)!!

WHY?

I am haunted by a name – Janhavi Gadkar. When the story broke, like the average Mumbai voyeur, I followed it avidly not because of the condemnation heaped upon Janhavi’s head but because it raised one burning question,‘Why?’

All I know of her is what the media told me.  Accurate? I know from experience not to trust everything I read, but the basics were corroborated across the board and one can draw inferences that are pretty close to reality.  Here was an attractive young woman, from a fairly conservative but educated Maharashtrian background, better off than just merely well to do, evidently smart because she qualified for a top post with Reliance, well read and well travelled.

She was obviously on the up and up, ‘in’ with her colleagues – on the social front, at least – and one who inspired affection (Her ex-husband came forward for her and that must make her special. The ‘ex’ usually moves on and never looks back!). Her happiness spills over in her photos and she seemed to be in love with life.  When everything is going your way, why would you throw it all away?

I do not ask why she was driving while inebriated.  I ask why she was inebriated in the first place.  Why did she put so much store in the pub culture, in social drinking where she matched her male colleagues in their ability to imbibe what was clearly ‘over the limit’?  Why would anyone want to lose self-control or choose to be deliberately vulnerable to external influences? That, too, after more than one bad experience? When did she start and why?

For some time, Janhavi was erased from the news thanks to the ‘Sheena Bora’ case, but today her name popped up again and the questions came flooding back. Yes, she took a life. But she is not a murderer.  And, unless she is extremely thick skinned, she will have to live with the horror for the rest of her life. She will have to start over, if ever she is given the chance and so will her family. In a sense, even if she gets off with a light sentence, she will, in reality, serve a life term.

Why would someone for whom life was opening up in amazing ways do something so stupid?

Why?

A friend of mine…

She’s bright, vivacious, an ever-charged battery in a small, compact frame.  Her frequent in-your-face, foot-in-mouth moments are charged with an honesty that is refreshing and what some would consider the crassness of youth, I consider enviable. There is no subtle veneer that shows you one face to your face, and another behind your back. You know where you stand with her and to be ‘liked’ is a privilege.

She is that odd mixture of old fashioned wisdom and naivety; she will immediately grasp the fundamentals that govern the serious, but will fail to catch a meaty joke. She challenges, opinionates, likes and dislikes strongly and, most importantly, she is herself. She has the vulnerability that is typical of her youth but will still take risks that are very obvious (to others!); sometimes she comes off without a scratch and sometimes the price is heavy. But she takes all that in her stride. The lesson is learnt.

She has a heart that cares for the less fortunate and she is ready to pitch in and be an agent of transformation – she radiates the joy that she creates! And she leaves behind unforgettable memories; the kind that bring a smile – sometimes rueful - to the face.

Though she can make you spin on your head (even if unwilling), and throw a whirling dervish out of whirl, she is not a problem to be solved like ‘Maria’. She belongs to the tribe that will change the world for the better, provided the world does not change her.  We have this habit, which is understandable, of being protective of our children and conformity keeps them away from harm. Little do we realise that we might be quenching a fire - one that lights and warms but does not destroy. I would like to think that that is impossible in the case of my young friend. 

From another realm, one day, I would love to be able to look down on the woman she is and say, ‘age did not wither her, nor custom fade.’ And the Lord will endorse that with a thunderclap!!

Aarushi…Rays of the Dawn…

Years ago, while on the drive to Poona, we were playing our favourite game: spotting ‘Truck Graffiti’. ‘Horn – Okay – Please’ was a common rear-end request but, occasionally, one would come across a gem like this one: God spare me from the clutches of a doctor, a lawyer and a scheming woman.  Being a woman, I would change that last to ‘a scheming man’.  And who wants to invite ill-health? But lawyer? You would have to experience an encounter to relate to that one!

 

When Mumbai Mirror published an extract from Aarushi by Avirook Sen (Penguin), I read through it avidly – I’ll admit to the voyeur in me.  But it was more than that.  It was a tragedy that had unfolded in real time with no sense of closure, even though a conviction was reached - too many questions, too many ‘whys?’, too many loose ends.  I picked up the book during a lunch break and delved into it post dinner.  I didn’t stop till the last page was turned.

Gripping narrative? No! But it was a fluid read through a journalist’s meticulously reported journey through the case.  Objective for the most part, it is not entirely dispassionate. But comment, inference and opinion are supported by illustrative and damning fact. Take the text of the judgement, for example: “The cynosure of judicial determination is the fluctuating fortunes of the….who have been arraigned for committing and secreting as also deracinating the evidence of commission of the murder of  their own adolescent daughter – a beaut damsel…”. There is more! The judge in question is apparently in the habit of reiterating, “I have command in English.” This was one of the lighter moments.

For the most part, the book takes us through the very sordid environment that is the Indian legal and law and order system, no holds barred. The scarred and the inured would probably retort, ‘So what’s new?’ There is, on the other hand, a new and rising generation who could make a difference, even if it is one person at a time. Which is why I make this my fervent recommendation: every college of every university in India should make this book compulsory reading.  This is no work of fiction. It is pure fact.

The book closes at the end of yet another ‘ordinary’ day.  For Aarushi, the rays of dawn are forever an altered reality. And I fervently paraphrase that driver’s prayer – from the clutches of the law, O God, spare me!