Destiny or Choice - Judas a tragedy

Sunday, July 24, 2016

How do your eyes Look?

"When eyes talk to eyes
The entire world stands still."
So wrote a young poet named Ajey Pai K last year.

In fact, many poets and singers have eulogised eyes as being captivating and mesmerising.
My world stood still for a while when I was asked “Tell us how do your eyes look?” by a young gent.

Pretty simple question, is it not? It depends on who asks you and the challenge it poses in framing your response.
I was thanking the group of visually impaired persons at the Salvation Army Hostel for Blind after they sang and greeted me for my birthday today.
Probably curiosity got the better of this young person to ask me what he did and I realised my response was nothing but clumsy.

As a family we decided to visit this Salvation Army Hostel for Blind to observe my birthday.  A call to our grocer ensured essentials be packed in a jiffy and placed in our car. We reached the venue effortlessly thanks to Google Maps.

We thought, perhaps we will give the items and leave. Capt. Nirmala, the lady-in-charge, asked Nazarene what the purpose of our visit was earlier in the day, so when we reached, we were told all the inmates were waiting to interact with us.

We found them all sitting quietly in the foyer.  Capt. Suhas, the chaplain, introduced us and the group sang a song of Blessings after which Capt.  Suhas prayed for all of us. We found that Capt. Nirmala and her team were very sincere in their efforts to keep the inmates comfortable. However, they have limited resources and will be  happy to receive spontaneous  unconditional  support  which can be in the form of food stuff, linen, clothes or beds.

As we left the place Nazarene, my wife, remarked that it is so easy to reach out and touch the lives of those who are less privileged than us. Esther and Rakshan, our children, were ideating on how to sustain such initiatives.

I am grateful to God for the gift of sight and immense possibilities of that gift for those who are endowed with it.  In fact the question has made me reflect over the evening on the many blessings I have since my birth.

I was not inclined to take pictures or the proverbial selfies as I knew I could never show the picture these gents.  I am using my words to share my insights I received from those who are visually impaired.

July 23, 2016

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The Unseen are Important

A couple of years ago, I was visiting Rio Di Janeiro with a friend, a few days after Easter and I happened to visit the empty Sambadrome. I was able to soak in the atmosphere, standing in the centre of the runway with galleries on either side, imagining how it would have been when the carnival was on.

You will appreciate that a few days before Ash Wednesday, Brazil hosts one of the most spectacular carnivals in the world, the Samba Parade. To imagine that a few weeks earlier, this same place was chock-a-block with about a 100,000 people, was a kind of unbelievable. The carnival is the culmination of a year-long preparation of various samba schools who display their skills and abilities in dance, choreography and music.

The Samba schools concept is an interesting method of harnessing the energy of youth in a creative pursuit. I was told that these Samba schools can have anywhere upwards of 3000 – 4000 young persons. They prepare their act carefully every year and have several rehearsals.  Finally, they are on show at the carnival in all their splendour. Usually, their whole performance is on a colourful float which moves along the 700 meter runway on the Sambadrome, and on each day of the carnival, approximately four samba schools display their performance one after another in sequence. It’s one of the most colourful performances anywhere, and most of you might have seen it live on television over the past few days as well.

The parades  are judged on various aspects like creativity, dance, choreography as well as their timing. The timing  is of utmost importance for  if they do not maintain time, each school loses marks… and ultimately the top honours. So who ensures that all these dancers, drummers, trumpeters and others adhere to the time?
One would assume that it could be anyone among the artistes, the creative director, or even the musicians, but the fact could not be farther from the truth.

Consider that the colourful floats have to cover the distance of 700 meters and be out of the Sambadrome within 75 minutes. The floats are beautifully but heavily decorated and have to be physically put in motion. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as the floats have to be pulled by men inside it – trouble is, they cannot see outside due to the heavy decorations. They work in unison with the music, maintaining time and leave the Sambadrome within the stipulated time. The success of the whole school depends on the efforts of these people who do not know what is happening outside, and who are just not visible to the outside world. 

Amidst all the pomp and gaiety, it’s so easy to forget or even ignore the immense contribution these unseen heroes contribute to the success of this pageant, but in the middle of all the din, tens of thousands of revellers cheering, colourful costumes, loud music, singing, dancing… these unseen people do what they are allocated to do, and ultimately in the success of the Samba school.


As the carnival comes to a close this year too, we should perhaps pause and say thank you  to those who are unseeen  yet important in making our  performances  and life  better..