WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ME?

WRITE TO ME AT: ivan.arthur@gmail.com 
I NEED YOUR HELP. 

 I am stuck. Fr. Ubaldo has requested me to write a piece on Compassion. Such an easy subject. The Gospels are full of it. The Prophet Mohamed talks about it. So does the Buddha. Anybody should be able to write about it.

But I am stuck. How can I write about it when I am what I am?

 On the way to Yaari Road, I see a man whose limbs are twisted like the branches of a vine. He drags himself on the muddy asphalt, dodging cars and buses to stretch out his crooked hand for a coin. I click my tongue in pity. My eyes get moist. I drop a coin. Then I go home and put on some music. You call that compassion? What has happened to me? Tell me.

Write to me at: ivan.arthur@gmail.com

****

I wasn’t always like that. I promise. When I was five years old, I remember seeing a man lying in the gutter. We lived in Bandra then. As a child, I felt terrible to see him there. I went down to him and asked him. “Are you drunk?” And he said, “I’m starving.” I ran home and asked mother for a glass of milk and some puranpoli. He ate, drank. Then he fished out of his bag beautiful sketches that he had done. He was an artist. Looking for a job. I was glad I helped him.

But today? What has happened to me?

Sorry, Fr. Ubaldo. I cannot preach what I do not practice. Something has happened to me Tell me what to do.

Write to me at: ivan.arthur@gmail.com

****

It wasn’t always like that. I promise.

I remember January 2002. I was walking home from work. Lakshmi Building. Sir P.M. Road. Heavy traffic. My eyes caught the sight of a young man. Lying in the middle of the street. Totally naked waist down. Cars swerved to avoid running over him. I ran to where he was. Tried dragging him to the pavement where he would be safe. He screamed at me in anger. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Get away. Let me lie here.” I told him he could be run over. “You’re a fool,” he said to me. “The police will arrest me.and take me to jail. There I will get shelter and food. Go away, you idiot” So I went away. I didn’t put on any music that day.

You call that compassion? What has happened to me? Tell me.

So then, you can see: I am making excuses: the city has made us like that. All those crafted beggars have eroded our compassion. Right? Write to me and tell me that I am wrong.

What would Jesus do in my place? But don’t you see, Ivan Arthur. That was Jesus you saw on the way to Yaari Road and on P. M. Road. And I ask, “Was it?”

You tell me. Write to me at ivan.arthur@gmail.com

****

O forget those street scenes.

What about my neighbour who is bringing up her son alone?

Or that old, lonely widower with no one to talk to? (Oh,but then he is at the other end of town.)

Or Mrs. D. Cooped up in the house because she cannot walk?

Or ... Please don’t remind me of all that.

Please do not tell me that Compassion is nothing if it does not end in action. If it does not make me get up and do something.

Write to me at ivan.arthur@gmail.com

Maybe then, Fr. Ubaldo will be able to print your sermon to me. Thank you.


Published in Fr. Agnel's magazine, October 2015

What a friend we have!

How good a friend am I of Jesus? I wonder.

If I see him on the street today, would I go up to him, thump him on the back like I do with my good friends and say, “Hi Jeez! Coming home for a cuppa?”

Or would I fall down on my knees and say, like Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

Or would it be: “Jesus, it’s good that you’re here. You see, I have this house I have set my heart on. Can you be a friend and help... And this daughter of mine who cannot find a husband at age 30 ... And can you do something about that terrible migraine that the doctors can’t seem to fix...”

Or would I quickly cross the street, lest he see me and question me about that shady deal I entered into and that ugly spat I had with my neighbour or the unfair wage I am paying my maid ...

Or would I come face to face with him and just remain tongue-tied, not knowing how to address the one I know as my Savior?

What would I do, I wonder.

What kind of friend am I, if friend I am at all? And then I wonder even more. What kind of friends were the apostles to Jesus. What image does the gospel give me of their ‘friendship’? Do I see Peter going up to him, thumping him on the back and saying, “Hey Jesus. Want to come fishing with me?” Or would Jesus himself say with a thump and a chuckle, “Hey Simon Pete! Come let’s take that stroll upon the water again.”

But no. Jesus is shown as benevolence in action; a man of compassion for all, a master, a guru, a rebel, a reformer, a miracle worker; divinity clothed in flesh. But not a friend as we see it. Jesus is no buddy. Except in Matthew 11:19. “The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say,’Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Or again “And it came about that he was reclining at the table in his house and many tax-gatherers and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples...” Or perhaps, when we see him in the house of Lazarus and of Martha and Mary, we see Jesus with friends. Our saviour and Lord was keeping bad company, wasn’t He? Friend of sinners on the one hand and Lord and Master to his disciples on the other?

And in all this, was He telling me something about His friendships and mine?

Look at me. I have a lot of friends. I thump a lot of backs. Of those in my own social circle. Of those with whom I am comfortable. Of those I know will be of use to me tomorrow. Of those who admire me and sing my praises. And I have on a few heaven-sent occasions thumped the backs of those who were in need of my help; of those who had nobody to turn to; of those who had nothing to offer but affection. Was it then that I got the feeling? That it was His back I was thumping. And did I hear at those moments His whisper “Inasmuch as you thumped the backs of the least of my brethren...’’ or something to that effect.

But then, I have also felt His hand on my back. Not in any hail-fellow-well-met thump of jollity. But in grim seriousness, with the firmness of reprimand; a hard push against the direction I was taking; a slap of chastisement, painful and seemingly merciless. And I may have said, “Why, my friend, why?” Until I felt his hand again, gentle and healing. When I had sinned. When was confused. When I was shattered. When I was sick. When I was grieving.

And then I remember John 15, where he proclaims his friendship and his love. “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” He said it. He did it.

What a friend!


Published in The Agnel Ashram Magazine

Wedding Anniversary Prayer

First Anniversary  
Thank you Lord for this day and the three hundred and sixty five in between this and that day before Your altar when we gazed into each other’s eyes -- or was it Yours? -- and said our I do’s. I thank you for the love you have shown me through his caresses, his concern for me, his scolding, his acts of giving and forgiving, our time together, the movies, the one sandwich we shared on a broke day, the time he stood up for me with his family, the ... Oh so many big and small events... Thank you for all that love, so big that it could not be ours, not his nor mine. It is yours. Poured out into us. This I know and I thank you.

Second Anniversary
We have gone through two whole years, thank you Lord. But it has not all been smooth sailing, you know. I am seeing sides of him that I hadn’t before and not all of them make me happy. His job and his career ambition have become a thorn between us. We have had arguments, fights, sometimes severe, exchanging hurtful words so much so we thought it would be the end for us, but now I know it was only the miracle of your love that made things right again and made us feel that nothing had happened to the caresses, the concern, the acts of giving and forgiving. Thank you Lord.  

Fifth Anniversary
 He’s a wonder. Our little Rahul. Two years old already. Just looking at him makes me want to sing hosannas to your name. He takes up all my time and can be quite naughty. But he is cute. His father is so proud of him, you’d think the brat’s name is not Rahul but Mozart or Einstein. Thank you, God for this gift. Again your love for us. It is so big that you needed one more vessel to fill it in. And so we keep pouring it from one to another like warm milk that will not cool. Thank you Lord. Thanks again.  

Tenth Anniversary
Thanksgiving day again, Lord. Both Rahul and Reena are growing up beautifully. Rahul as a beautiful voice and has won prizes for his singing. He tends to show off a bit and that worries me. Reena tends to answer back already, but it is only with me. She is OK with her father. He has again gone back to giving his job all his attention. There seems to be trouble in his office. Politics. He comes home tense. Doesn’t speak. I try to soothe him down the best a wife can. But it doesn’t seem to work. I know he loves me, but he is certainly not showing it right now. I know what you are doing now, Lord. Your love is playing a little game with me. But I can take it. With a little help from you.

Twentieth Anniversary
What are you doing to me, Lord? And why? We don’t seem to have any control over both our children. Serves us right, you will say, for our pride. Both come home late every night. I am afraid for Reena. The world is not as innocent as it was during our time. I am afraid of consequences. Their father loses his temper and threatens to throw them out of the house. In all this, I know there is love. Between them and us. Your love. Playing peekaboo in the corners of our despair. With some difficulty I say thank you Lord for this anniversary.  

Twenty-fifth Anniversary
Beautiful day, Lord. Thanks a lot. The parish priest came home with his holy water sprinkler and he blessed us as we exchanged vows and rings again. My fellow looked handsome even with his paunch and I think that he had not noticed how much weight I had put on since the last time we said I do. And friends, Lord. Wow! So many! Where did you find them for us, Lord? Like bells ringing out our joy. Yes we know. This love of yours for us, so big that you had to find more and more vessels to store it in. And it still spills over. Thanks.  

Fiftieth Anniversary
From Silver to Gold. I didn’t think we would make it. But you decided that we should. That there was still a lot of love to go around. For each other. For our children. Our four grandchildren. And our many, many friends. And You, the source of it all, still pouring it in plenty. Thank you once more. I try hard to hide my wrinkles now and he his limp. But how does one hide one’s love?  

Fifty-ninth Anniversary
I’m celebrating today. Only the memory. Dressed in black still. We buried him six months ago. But funny, I still feel married to him. See. I still have his ring on my finger.This sacrament of yours is a stubborn thing. It sticks to one for ever. Strong glue this. Your love. Pouring out on us from that day in Eden.

Two Brothers

Two Brothers

Rahul sat in the last row with his wife, Sheila. He was too nervous to sit up front. There were all kinds of important looking people there. Some were in uniform. The others in well-pressed suits and saris. He had worn his best kurta pyjama, which his wife had ironed for him that day. He cast a sideways glance at her in affection and gratitude. His wife, he thought looked good in that sari. He had bought it with his first bonus. Oh, she looked so good, he thought. She could sit in front, he thought, but not he.

They were there that day to applaud his younger brother, Randhir. A jawan in the army, he was one of those who were to be awarded a medal for bravery. He had shown great courage at the border, where he and a few others had confronted militants and overpowered them. This was a big day for the family, Rahul thought. He hoped they would take pictures that he could frame.

Sitting there, his mind went back to that other morning, ten years earlier. He had woken up with an uncomfortable feeling in his chest. He rushed to the mori, that small enclosure that served as bathroom in their one room home. Involuntarily he coughed up blood. At first he thought that his gums were bleeding. But then after cleaning his teeth with tooth powder on finger, he coughed again. Blood. He decided not to tell his wife. Why bother her. She had her own problems, poor thing. Their five-year old son was constantly falling sick and Sheila had to take him to the municipal hospital and wait in long queues for almost the whole day, while he had to go to work.

He was a loader with a transport company. Every day he thanked God for the job. It barely provided his family with what they needed to keep body and soul together. But he managed, somehow. He worked extra hours to get overtime. His brother, Randhir was then living with them. He had passed his 9^th standard. The school had granted the boy a freeship. But his books and uniform and an occasional tuition fee all added up to quite a sum. After the 10^th standard board exam, Randhir expressed the desire to study further. His friends told him to forget it. Randhir should start working. But Rahul thought about it. He would send him to college.

Randhir did well. Passed his 12^th standard. On the morning of the bloody cough, Randhir gave Rahul the news that he wanted to join the armed forces.

Life was not easy. Rahul kept coughing up blood almost every day. One day, he took an hour’s leave to visit the municipal hospital’s OPD. It was TB, he was told. He had to take his medicines regularly. But more important, he would have to stop doing his kind of work. A loader’s job was too heavy for a TB patient. When his company came to know of it, they told him they could not have him work there any more. He was given three months pay and asked to leave.

This hit him hard. He went home and wept like a baby. His wife watched him for a while. Then she took his hand and said, “Look at me.” Slowly he looked up, his jaw hardening with resolve. “Look at me, she said. I am there. Don’t worry”.

The next day Sheila found work in two houses. But Rahul could not bear the thought of doing nothing himself. He took the three months pay, went out and bought himself a second-hand cart, loaded it with bananas, oranges and fruit, which he bought in the whole sale market. Every day he went out in the sun selling fruit.

Yes, life was not easy these past ten years. But they had survived. His tuberculosis had left him, thank God. Life was still quite hard, but he was not complaining. He was alive with the best wife and son in the world. And now this brother of his! God is so good, he said under his breath.

He heard Randhir’s name being announced. He saw his younger brother in uniform walk up to the dais and receive his medal to loud applause.

Then his brother did a strange thing. He unpinned the medal from his shirt, held it up and briskly walked down the aisle. The audience followed him with their eyes as Randhir came to the last row to where Rahul was sitting.

He pinned the bravery medal on to Rahul’s kurta, clicked his heels to attention and stood for a good minute saluting his older brother.

For the Agnel Ashram Magazine May 2015

Last night
I discovered the secret
to peace
in the family.

Until last night, on passing our house, you would hear the din of battle; terrible, disturbing, scary: screams, abuses, cacophony of voices. The sounds of people wanting to kill each other.

Last night it was over. I put an end to it.

I had the whole thing thought out and planned a week earlier. This is what I did.

I looked through my album of old photographs.

In my younger days, I loved to take pictures. I clicked little babies, beautiful women (wife included), beautiful landscapes, birds, flowers, shapes, shadows, designs … everything that caught my fancy. I made enlargements of these and kept them in a big album. Once in a couple of months at least, when I was feeling out of sorts, I would look at them and feel good.

Last evening, I picked out six of these pictures. They were really good pictures, even if it is I who say so. They made me feel very good. I showed them to my wife, who said that they made her feel good too. Next, I took a large sheet of thick hard cardboard, which I had at home. I stuck those pictures on to it. Then, with great care I took the measurements of our television screen and cut the cardboard accordingly. Meticulously, with Fevicol, I fixed the cardboard with pictures over the television screen. And voila! There was peace!

No more screaming from that ill-mannered anchor (I forget his name) on that channel (whose name too I forget, blame it on my age). No more verbal chappals hurled at each other. No more sound of fighting in my home.

Oh I had patience. For a long time. I tried other channels. But then I saw that every other anchor on every other channel was aping that one anchor on that one channel. I tried the movie channels. No use. Again noise. Fighting. Sex. Or else excruciating boredom. No peace. No goodwill towards men.

But now, thanks to cardboard, all that is in the past tense. Our home is no longer the noisy place it was, particularly at prime time. Now all I see on TV are those nice, pleasing photographs that make us smile.

Peace at last.

You would say this was very clever of me. But I must confess. This was not my idea. It came from the Bible. From Jesus himself. So you can do the same. I have no copyright on it. Ask Jesus. He said, “If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” Well, I didn’t gouge that eye and throw it away. I just gave it a nice eye-patch.

That, you may say is too flippant a metaphor for something very seriously wrong with society: Negativity.

People more serious minded than yours truly are saying that there’s too much of it in the world today. Negativity. We tend to look at everything through soot-tinted glasses. So we see devils everywhere. In government. In schools. In our homes. In the Church. Among doctors, lawyers, politicians, police, priests, even family. Negativity everywhere. It shows up in the form of suspicion, dissatisfaction, jealousy, excessive ambition and a whole long list from the devil’s menu card. It ends up in chronic depression, stress, suicides and murder.

We are told to be positive. As if it is as simple as turning left or right at a crossing. Never see your glass as being half-empty, they say. See it as half full. Positivism, see? But what if the glass is more than half-empty – if it is three-quarters empty? Well, it is still one-quarter full! Something that the thirsty crow was clever enough to know. Remember what he did when he saw that 60 ml of Scotch, right down at the bottom of the glass? He asked for a lot of ice. 60 ml on the rocks is good for any beak to reach.

There we go, being flippant again! Right?

But that’s my answer to the devils that surround us. Be flippant. Pass them off as a joke. Laugh them away. Jokes are sermons that are easy to take. They are swords that tickle instead of wound. Laughing gas, not tear gas. The creative eraser of all things negative.

So, now you know.

For a start, go and get your thick hard cardboard and those nice pictures. Head straight for your television screen.

Peace be unto you.



Written for the Agnel Ashram Magazine.


Ivan Arthur

Email: ivan.arthur@ gmail.com

Make a Joyful Noise

An inconsequential conversation between the writer and his friend.

Writer: Christ had His desert experience; the yogi has is Himalayan retreat, the cloistered nun her monastery; but you and I, where do we go for our portion of silence?

Friend: The heart. Go down deep into your heart. There you will find Silence.

W: Says you?

F: Says sage, mystic, priest and parlour preacher.

W: Oh yes. We have heard that one before. Journey to the centre of the heart and all that. Have you ever tried it yourself?

F: Yes and I’ve got lost on the way. Perhaps the Himalayas, the cloistered convent and the desert would be easier destinations than that little place under your shirt pocket.

W: You may be right, my friend.

F: And Silence, just in case you find it there is not an easy thing to handle. Witness the silence of Christ’s desert. Only the Son of Man could have handled it the way He did. For you may hear in that silence of your heart the amplified tremolos of fear, the groans of guilt and envy, the roar of ambition, wailings of self-pity, the urgent clanging of deadlines to be met …. And other jarring noises. Not silence. A tinnitus of the spirit. The heart is a noisy place.

W: I looked at Silence as the womb of Thought; of ideas, reflection, contemplation and prayer. Particularly prayer.

F: You don’t need silence to pray. Do you?

W: Don’t you? Have you tried speaking in a pub? Loud music. Much babble. You see lips moving in pantomime. You cannot hear a word being spoken.

F: So, you’re saying that God cannot hear you in a crowd?

W: Rather, you cannot hear God amid all that noise.

F: But listen to this: I once happened to be at a Hare Krishna satsang in one of their temples. There were more than a hundred people present. And a hundred bells of various sizes clanging out their brassy tones that got louder by the mninute until the din reached a deafening pitch.

W: Ah! Deafness. Isn’t that silence?

F: You got it. Suddenly, amid the clangour, I heard nothing. A strange silence, paradoxically engendered and protectively enveloped as it were by all that noise. You don’t believe me.

W: On the contrary. I do. I have seen an elderly bachelor say his rosary in the train every morning on his way to work. He told me that the rhythm of the rails, the loud confusion of a hundred conversations and the general noise in that overcrowded compartment created for him a ‘silence’ he could not find even at home.

F: I do believe that the urbanite learns to find his silences in the very heart of noise. In the rhythmic banging in his factory, the continuous whirr of machines, the urgent sounds of a traffic jam and the dissonance of so many voices …. Useful silences into which he enters to look for ideas, insights, contemplation and prayer.

W: Didn’t the psalmist say, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord”?

F: The Psalms are full of trumpet blast, the sound of timbrel and harp; claps of hands and shouts of joy. Beautiful noise that helped them to pray.

W: But there are other noises, not so beautiful. Those that offend our sensibilities and disturb the peace. What about them?

F: Noise for noise’s sake. Those that ruin our most joyful festivals, making them imitations of war and strife. These can never engender silence. These we should shun.

W: But then, my friend, we are a noisy nation, celebrating every event with volume knobs turned to maximum. We live in a city that rudely wakes us up even before sunrise with din of traffic, the cacophonous chorus of shrill voices and the raucous calls of everyday living.

F: That’s OK. The regular, quotidian noise of your city. The rhythm, if you like, of our existence. Like the rumble of that train. These are the trumpet blasts, the timbrel and harp of today.

W: The rough, hard oyster shell inside which you may find that pearl of great price. Silence.

Appeared in the May issue of Agnel Ashram News

Blackboard

A Prayer for Humility

I want to be your blackboard, Lord

A black piece of blankness,

Nothingness

Inviting Somethingness

Anythingness

From the hearty scribble of that two-year-old

(The promise of tomorrow’s wisdom)

To the scientist’s quod erat demonstrandum

And everything in between

For only in blackness can I see the stars

Only in blankness can I be enlightened

Only in emptiness can I be filled

Only in Shunyata can I be open to grace

And yet

Deliver me from the painted blackness

Of the sainted braggart

Of Simplicity worn on my sleeve

If it has to be mine

Let It be my skin not garment

Preserve me from the priestly cassock

The monastic sackcloth

The godman’s saffron

The mahatma’s put-on nakedness

Stagecraft of the humble show-off

No. Not that, Lord

Nor even the bent meekness of Diffidence

Or Cowardice or Self-regard

Or the careless slovenliness of Sloth

Masquerading as this hard virtue

If those be the chalk marks on this blackboard

Wipe them off, Lord

Wipe them off

Because I am a blackboard, Lord

Not a printed sheet

Or carved granite

Blackboards are devoid of pride

Can be dusted to new blankness

An Eternal Shunyata

The blackboard waits for Vidya

That comes from Vinaya

Only to wipe out the differences

Between high and low

Between him who has and her who has not

A Humility that engenders Learning

And a Learning that makes for true Humility

Write again on this blackboard your beatitudes

And your promise you made then

To the poor in spirit

To those who mourn

To the peacemakers

To the meek

That they shall inherit the earth.

This appeared in the Fr. Agnel Ashram News Magazine of March 2014