From the journal

The Mall road is where I am headed this evening. The hotel cars are expensive, so I would either take a bus or a cheap cab down the road. At a curvy turn I settle. The climb is steep. A few buses pass by without stopping.

Eventually other passengers join me. Waiting is always easier in company. Then, around the corner, an unlikely sight of a bicycle emerges. The figure is revealed from the top to the bottom with a dramatic slowness, so much so that two wayfarers simply walk past the bike. But wait, the rider . . . is a very old man. His exhausted stand-pedalling is barely moving him, for all he can give that machine is the weight of his own body. As he approaches, he is squinting at the floor due to the dripping sweat, but also due to his great resolve. His passing is like a spectacle, like the sight of a pilgrim.

In another few minutes, bored by the inactivity, I negotiate with a local driver and leave the waiting crowd. The car catches up with the old man in no time who, still at it, is oscillating upright like a sedated metronome.

Later as I walk uphill on the mall road I see another man – poor, gaunt, tattered clothes. His shoulders are so drooped and rounded that he appears to be lacking his arms. But the arms are intact, pushing uphill a baby carriage, again, no quicker than a snail. It is strange that the struggle, be it ever so slightly, has the appearance of an act. When I pass him my surprise is surely more than what I express. Far ahead I keep stopping to take peeks at the bizarre show. The carriage is empty.

To some is given the yoke of loneliness, to some is given fear. Although it may not seem like it, but you will bear it fine.

The other day in the metro, some folks have thrown themselves before the train. Some say two lovers died, some say they were students, some say it was just one person. Everybody talks about it as if they know something. The rickshaw driver scoots to make space for me in his seat, and he brings it up unprompted. A strange excitement pervades the air.

When I return to the university I am walking my usual walk by the sunken field. The sky is downcast. And so am I. Dense trees line up the other side. I have been told I walk in a hurry, but this time I am stopped at my tracks when those trees catch my eye. Some green, some dark blue, some gray, pale yellow . . . they are lined up perfectly from the dark to the light, or, from the light to the dark, like in a catalogue of a paint brand. The edges are blended to form an unexpected continuum of colors and leaves. The surreal sight has me stopped for good. When I finally make a move, a quiet inward cheer is nudging my steps. I think I should return to take a photo.

I return the next day. It is sunny. The colors look incoherent, arbitrary.

Lent begins today. The heavens are overcast. It rained after quite a while. I lament the passage of the winter. This winter was harsh. Many days I couldn’t get out of bed, and when I did, my body was stiff as a stick, on the verge of snapping. Cold currents seeped through the underside of the bathroom windows, and I could barely use the toilet. This caused other physiological problems. Let me not even get started with the psychological ones, the thorns of my flesh, although I doubt the winter had anything to do with it. Nonetheless, I lament the passage of this winter. This day lacks warmth, and yet just a shirt has sustained me. I lament the necessity of warmth. I lament the desire for it.

How different is evil from inconvenience? Can one lament evil? The Israelites did so in the wilderness. But, perhaps, that was a lapse in their judgment –– they twisted their memories, and remembered slavery as peace. But, can one truly recognize evil, and still lament it? Those who weep in hell, what do they desire? Nothing scares me more than hell. I understand it as the “theoretical worst” (theory, in my sense, is not shy of reality. If anything, it is hyper-real.) Then, heaven, the “theoretical best”, is the one that rescues from the “theoretical worst”.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
          and gave me a firm place to stand.
          (Psalm 40)

This lent I wish to pray in writing. So that I may not fail, I generously give myself two days for one prayer. May God give me the words. I know my flesh will push for the words to be good. Maybe some lent I will give up that desire. But this lent I desire my words to be true. In its truth may it have no blemish. Some lent, maybe, I will also give up my lust. Some lent, maybe, I will despise the mirror.

Today, I thank God for the winter that passed. The winter was smeared with loss, but why overlook the gain. Why overlook the many joys, moments of purpose and peace, of pleasure. Why overlook the scarce and invaluable moments of love. Why overlook the aesthetic of sweaters and jackets, and the surreal face of fog. The season is changing, and the seasons are unchanging. I am grateful to God for change. For respite from stagnation, for variety and multiplicity. I am grateful to God for permanence, and constancy. Thank you Jesus for the seasons never fail to come.

This prayer is for Pippy, our dog. I don’t think “our” is an overstep here. I love Pippy, although I feel disrupted by her at times. Pippy, truly speaking, fascinates me. In many ways she is an animal … for example, her loyalty to us doesn’t surpass her loyalty to food. Of course, this is not a volitional charcteristic. Now, in some ways she is also a person (what is even a person?) Pippy reminds me of Mr. Skimpole from Bleak House — a man blind to every concern, lost in himself, without awareness; rash, childish and frequently a nuisance. I hated Mr. Skimpole even more than Tulkinghorn the antagonist. But I absolutely love Pippy, for such nature suits a dog.

You could be admonishing her with yelling, and her tail would still be waggling, for it is her axiom that she is loved and wanted all the time. You may be amidst something very important, and Pippy wouldn’t hesitate to scurry through the furniture, tread on your devices, and scratch your hands and demand to be loved, right there, right then. For it is her axiom that you love her supremely. Every time you eat she is convinced that you would spare her something, even if on the previous hundred occassions she was left wanting. If you accidentally hurt her, or scold her, it wouldn’t take her two seconds to return and long for your touch. Neither is she slow to express her utmost satisfaction at a simple belly rub. The old, regular belly rub, somehow fresh and equally potent for her every day, like the morning mercies of the Lord.

Something about that satisfaction is final … it is restful, again, in a “final” sense. God’s children speculate much about the final rest, about the sheer “distantness” of heaven, how it doesn’t only elude our experience but also our imagination. Heaps of pages of intellectual output of theological giants dedicated to articulate even a speck of the coming kingdom. And then there is Pippy … common and poor, exhibiting some approximation of that elusive finality, at the plain sight of God’s cynical children.

Pippy is not human. She doesn’t live in the moral universe. Yet somehow, Love permeates out of the moral universe, and stretches abundantly over creatures like her … who not only recognize it, but also participate. My little girl is a theological conundrum. An expert at faith, at adorableness. An expert at life. God bless her.

She has suffered much lately, sicknesses have struck her, one after another. Not a month after recovering from a gland removal surgery, she currently has a urinary tract infection. I pray that God will heal her soon. I pray that God would allow us to love her heartily, for her to gleefully enjoy her life. In the precious name of Jesus, who is Love Himself, the lover of mankind and of all creation, Amen.

Sitting at edge of the enormous cavea, I am facing its long flow down into the empty amphitheater. A swarm of young men and woman are aggressively dancing in the bars behind me to the beat of erotic music. Saturday nights here are loud and crowded. So it is quite unusual to see eight year old Piu jump down the empty flight of high stairs stretching before me.

I don’t know Piu at all. In her appearance she resembles my childhood friend with the same name. And hence I call her that too. For Piu the journey down is not yet comfortable. Every new jump she makes is just like her first one. Carefully thought and then acted out.

But, close to the amphitheater Piu stops. The further she goes the darker it gets. She turns back with an intent face, and she motions with her hand to call someone to her. I turn back and find a beautiful woman returning Piu’s gestures with her own. Piu’s mother is calling her Piu back. She has an approving smile on her face. As if it was equally hard for her to see her daughter run down into the dark amphitheater, all by herself. But Piu has proven herself. She has moved far enough. And it’s time for her to come back.

Like an obedient child Piu turns right back and starts her journey. Yet, at just one step up, she pauses. Eight year old Piu suddenly starts to think. She looks back to the amphitheater where she was originally headed. And she looks back to her mother. With a newly found zeal Piu gathers the courage to choose the unknown over the familiar. She rushes back towards the heart of her destination. She covers the last few stairs much faster than the ones before.

Once she is there, she touches the ground, like in tag, and without spending a further second, Piu starts returning back. And all the way up at the edge of the cavea, I inwardly clap, wondering what the source of such desires is. I feel as if I had watched a miracle.

I turn back and find that Piu’s mother has moved her eyes from Piu. A beautiful live song has caught her attention. So I silently step in and watch over Piu as she makes the rest of the way up. This time Piu has to use her hands too to climb up the high stairs. Once she safely makes it to the top I get back to my own thoughts.

Piu’s mother had probably missed the glorious moment that Piu had brought about. I imagine whether Piu would tell her about what went into her choice, and if she does, whether her mother would appreciate the enormity of the experience. I get an impulse to narrate Piu’s story to her mother, in the absolutely picturesque way in which I saw it. So I immediately jolt backwards to find them. I don’t see them anymore. They have probably left the place.