Sam

     The regime had just decreed a new law and as a result, in every town and city that I came across there were long columns of frustrated people. One had no choice but to stand in the line. Many were not particularly fond of those in power or their methods. In fact they would be rather pleased if the rulers left their posts for good. But even thinking such thoughts could prove fatal so everyone simply complied and stood in the queue, even pregnant mothers.     It was a difficult time. Not just for the country but for the entire world.     It was ‘the fullness of time’.     The period in question was Anno Domini the year of the Lord and the country was Palestine, an outpost of the Roman Empire. Caesar Agustus's ‘Census of the World’ was underway.     I left my time-machine in the desert outside Jerusalem and set out to visit the Holy Family. After a change of robes and a neutral headgea...

    He made it.          It is a miracle that he did. Standing at the edge of a cliff expressionless but full of emotion is the obscure human. You may or may not know him. It could be the man you pray for or the woman you try to encourage. It could be the woman you detest because of her lack of faith or the man no one seems to understand. It could be your neighbour who you think simply needs to hope or your colleague who you reckon just has to believe. To openly generalise, it is a human who merely reached an inevitable milestone of human life. It could be you. No one is immune to life. That he came thus far is a miracle in the eyes of some but only a prelude to it for others.          Most don’t care.          He has travelled a long way. The memory of his journey is magnified by the depth of the valley inches away from him. He was not there by accident though the set up looks like it. Not just ...

      There is light at the end of the tunnel, it is said. How long the tunnel is, no one said.      Even when he hangs by a thread a person clings to hope.      The incredible tensile strength of the thread in the previous statement makes for a good metaphor for hope. The man is so proud of his super power (more specifically, a mutation) to hope until the metaphor morphs into reality and the thread snaps.      As he falls he spots a figure climbing over the cliff. That figure was also hanging by a thread. That figure also hoped. ‘What was the difference?’ the man asks moments before his head is crushed. ‘Hope doesn’t promise; hope doesn’t deliver. Hope only hopes’ the figure from above replies to the corpse below.      ‘Do not lose hope’ a woman was told once. She wasn’t sure if she had any hope left to lose but she was a human and humans have the tendency to dig out hope fr...

     That I am a hypocrite, I say with no pretence. I am a hypocrite because I claim to believe in a Person who forgave those who went a few extra miles in torturing and dragging Him to the hilltop where He was to die; forgave those who killed His followers; forgives habitual sinners; forgives those who have one foot in hell but I do not forgive. I was forgiven, I am forgiven and I will be forgiven if I repent. That is the assurance the Scripture gives me.          But I do not forgive.          Mercy I get readily, 24/7 and with no strings attached. Mercy I give with a reluctant heart, after a long pause and with a laundry list of clauses. Sometimes I do not have mercy on others at all. Somehow, I missed one of the most important take home messages of my faith, in fact a map back home.          I missed the lesson of forgiveness, I missed Christianity.          I...

A man who comprehends what it takes to be a Christian and still chooses by his own free will to continue to be a Christian is a fool. A man who  comprehends what it takes to be a Christian and chooses not to be one is also a fool and how wide the difference between the two! For those who have crowned Him in the run down, constitutional Monarchies of their hearts...              Do you have any idea what you got yourself into? No you don't.      You have made the best decision you will ever make. It is better than the choice of your life partner because now you have chosen a companion for all eternity. And let me tell you that more than being the best, it is the right decision no matter what the world might say. You will not regret it when you get to the end of your multi-Athlon here on dirt.      But, while you are here, do you have any idea what you got yourself into? No, you don’t. ...

     If Mohammed Bin Tughlaq was to return from the dead and be made the vice chancellor of AARJEEUHS, he would I’m sure, find its current administration very pleasing…to the point of nostalgia. He would then, I guess, incorporate all the engineering colleges into the university, forcing them to follow its current curriculum. With AARJEEUHS unleashed over those ever-holidaying laymen, this is probably how a typical engineering course would be…                   Every engineering college would be attached to a servicing centre or at least a mechanic shop complex (one with >1000 sheds) for the students to see cases. All the colleges will have to conduct “Continuing Mechanical Education” programs and ‘workshops’ etc. Some of the must-have books for the students would be- Harley Davidsons (since Harrison Ford would be too heavy to carry), Freedom Park Community Mechanics, Fire Fox Basi...

     I don’t like it here. I don’t understand why father brought us to this city when we had our own house and farm in the village. At least we had food there, however little. It has been a week since I saw bread. I forgot the taste of meat. My brother keeps asking my mother for food but where can she get it from? The other day I saw people lying next to the road. They were very still. I wanted to go near and see but father said they were sleeping. My father goes out every day in search of work or any food. Mother and I wait eagerly at the door in the evening. It is water again … for breakfast, lunch and dinner.      Nothing can get worse than this. -Anton Shevchenko Kharkiv, May 12 th , 1933. (An estimated 7.5 million Ukrainians would die in the Famine-Genocide between 1932-1933)             I feel alone most of the day. The only friend I ever had left for America. He asked me to go with him bu...