Sam

I dare say I am familiar with the heat greeting the entrants to the outer circle of hell. Does this familiarity ensure a better stay for me in the inner circle? I doubt it. I deem myself experienced in the terrain of the valley of death. Does this mean I am fearless at the idea of the Dolorosa? Heavens, no! I have heard the deafening silence in the wind that shook the mountain and shattered the rocks. Does this equip me with the virtue to be able to listen in the breeze? I don't know.  But then, what do I know? All I know is that hundreds of thousands of faithful over the centuries, dared the summer’s heat, trod the undulating path and suffered a myriad of discomforts to get to a church in a small town in northern Spain. All I know is that the bones of a man lay in the crypt of that great cathedral. And all I know is that on that journey to embrace the bejewelled statue of this man, the faithful went expecting.  'What are you expecting?', we were asked on day zero, in an i...

She is dead.            The phrase I had uttered without hesitation during my time as the resident doctor in Palliative Medicine were the same words I was trying to avoid saying. She, a middle-aged mother of one, on life-support a few wards away from where I stood, had ceased her struggle with  the virus . Sitting before me, occupying a bed each opposite each other were what was left of the woman’s nuclear family. Her son on one side and her husband on the other side of a Covid general ward. The situation where, amidst a global calamity, entire families were admitted to the hospital, where a Psychiatry resident was called upon to care for medically unwell patients, wearing a dehydrating space-suit seemed something out of a dystopian novel. But the terrible update I was privy to wrung me back to the pages of reality.        The nursing staff and I were in possession of the knowledge that the third member (first?) of this small family...

            Pit against the Almighty yet frequently mistaken for Him is Life. Life is praised beyond words by some and yet cursed with rich verbiage by others, a few intensely meant 'F this's and 'This is S's. Unless asked by a teacher or demanded by a PPT slide, why would anyone attempt to define life? Humans commonly claim to be merely looking for the meaning of life rather than its definition. What good would a definition do? What good would a technical interpretation of life do to the twenty-four-year-old man who was parched beyond description on his way home on the back of a truck? Life bestowed the man with the determination to work as a labourer a thousand kilometres from home and when a global catastrophe struck, life blessed him with a few thousand rupees that bought him standing space on a truck that would take him home. Life in its generosity positioned a friend next to him who refused to leave his friend alone when he was asked to leave the tran...

           Not everyone has it hard.      Life on earth made him susceptible to disease and diseased he was, bound to a bed. Life placed him in the company of friends of faith. Nature bestowed these friends with the strength to lift the man and his bed to the roof. Divine Will placed Divinity under that roof. All the man had to do was lay still. Choosing the wedding theme is the most difficult decisions for some (believe it or not) while for a few it is the choice between an expensive treatment escalation or certain death.  Not everyone has it hard.      Not everyone has it easy.      A woman hid in a toilet for ninety days trying to flee the machete destined to chop her. When she eventually emerged, she realised that though she had escaped death her family didn’t. After a conflict that claimed the lives of millions including their loved ones, they  hoped for liberation. But  lit...

“I have come closer to God. Family matters have not changed much…” came the message on Whatsapp. “I have gone farther away from God. Family matters have not changed much…” the reply went. Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen! (Come, ye daughters, help me lament!)      Johann Sebastian Bach chose to start his masterpiece ‘St. Matthew Passion’ with this apt chorus. The passion narrative from the Gospel of St. Matthew set to music calls on the one who listens to it to gaze beyond this world to the One who is the source of the celestial music and the fountain of all that is good. The grief filled notes recall the day when the sweetheart of heaven was labelled a criminal.      It is said that if ‘Bach’s St. Matthew Passion’ exists, God exists.      This piece of music that is said to give us a foretaste of the beauty of heaven begins with a lament. This is not surprising though, considering the apparent oxymoron by whic...

     Of all the incredible scenes in the epic-animation film ‘The Prince of Egypt’ the most remarkable scene for me is not the parting of the sea but what happens immediately after. For a few seconds everyone including Moses is shown dumbfounded. No dialogues, just open mouths. No movements, just some heavy breathing. No awesome score by Hans Zimmer, just the sound of the wind. When mere humans stand witness to the hand of the Creator, all that they can do is just look. Scripture and liturgy use one word for such moments.            Behold.           “Behold the lamb of God…” the priest proclaims. A very apt use of the word which, when uttered during mass, demands that all eyes on heaven and earth turn toward the altar. Whether one realises it or not, those few seconds that you look at Him are no different from the moment when the sea stood still. Could all the visions of the old and the new testaments put toget...