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A Tale of a Drunkard and a Man Drunk with Power!

As a boy witnessing a drunkard’s antics on a day-to-day basis in the street was our unfortunate lot. Every evening his drunkenness was on full display. Seldom did he go sober. His schedule during the day was idle talk, playing cards and in the evening drinking and wife-beating. The poor woman earned her living through hard labour in the fields and a bottle for her sadistic ‘husband.’ In our neighbourhood, everyone felt sorry for her yet it was commonly held that it was their family affair. Now and then, someone witnessing extreme cruelty stepped in only to hear the drunkard - even while intoxicated - that he could do anything to his wife and none have the right to question him. Normally, the kind-hearted ‘man’ - I say ‘man’ because women hardly came ‘out’ to see the spectacle - used to leave the spot knowing well further intervention would worsen the situation as drunkard’s next line of attack would be ‘what is between you and my wife?’ Wait a minute, I forgot to mention that he was ex
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'Thanks for All that Has Been and Amen to All that Is to Come' - A Note from a Two Year Old Priest!

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Two years back on this day there was a flooding of emotions, primarily of gratitude to God, to the Church, to the Congregation and everyone who in some way or other molded me to reach the altar. I promised myself one thing on that day - that I will remain honest with God and myself. Two years have passed, by God's grace, I have kept up the promise made to myself. A month before the first anniversary I wrote a piece, to myself primarily, and on the eve of the second anniversary what gift could I possibly give myself than to present an honest appraisal of my life as a priest! Life as a priest, more so as a Salesian religious priest, is worth the calling! This year, of all the years that I have spent in the congregation, is a very special year to me for multiple reasons. This year tested my patience like never before, offered me challenges that I wasn't prepared to face, placed me in a situation that I never imagined to be. It took an emotional toll on me to get acclimatized to a
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UN-WELCOMING WALLS

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Do we build walls to welcome people? Strange isn’t it? We make bridges, not walls to connect people. It would be a ridiculous idea to build a wall so as to build a better relationship. The fall of the Berlin wall was the beginning of a new era not only for the ideologically malnourished Eastern Germans but for the entire world. I remember reading about the fall of the Berlin wall from the history books. What person will ever erect a wall, not in the periphery of his property but right in the middle of his home to beautify it? Who will segregate his own household as 'seeables' and 'unseeables'? Have those live beyond the walls become zombies, a threat to national and international security? Questioning is seditious these days, I know! But how to pause over in silence when open and not so open prisons are being erected every day throughout the length and breadth of this country all in the name of development? If we are truly superpower, as some claim to be, why should
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Godses & Gopals - Products of an Awful Ideology!

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India is passing through the second darkest phase post-independence, the first being the emergency (1975-1977) declared by Indira Gandhi. This is nothing short of an undeclared emergency where fascists are brandishing their weapons so openly and the law enforcement authorities siding with the criminals more often than not. India is a rainbow of multiple cultures, languages, and religions united by a secular constitution that recognizes diversity. In spite of the pulls and pressures of the past, the people of India did not let the governments play with the sanctity of the basic structure of the constitution. Though most of the politicians, cutting across the party lines, are opportunists, they have not been as brazen as those holding the offices in the government right now in exhibiting their love for an ideology that led Godse to slay one of the all-time icons of India, Mahatma Gandhi. The ruling dispensation has effectively shut the voices of politicians and its critics employing t
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Walking with God by Fulton J. Sheen [A-book-for-a-week-series 7]

Walk with God   is a good guide for the pastors and anyone who is interested in Catholic Spirituality. ‘One does not go to bed one night a saint and wake up the next morning as a devil… Moral decline often brings with it mental indecision.”  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1iZ3h_DCxT0CnNYJBDkMzM5RvDiyPja0Zx1GOYxvUV8Q/edit?usp=sharing
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Note From a One Year Old Priest!

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I am celebrating the first anniversary of my priesthood a wonderful, perhaps the greatest, the gift of God. I have been wondering as to how to describe this gift of God. Honestly, there aren't any words to describe the joy of being a priest, to act in the name of Christ, to offer consolation and guidance, above all, to part of someone's life whom I otherwise would've never known. To express priesthood in the words of St. Paul, it is "a treasure in clay jars" (2 Cor. 4, 7). While priesthood is holy, a priest is, I am, far from being holy many a time. It's a mystery why God chooses some people, most importantly why has God chosen me? It is and shall be a mystery! While a priest deals with the holy he remains very much earthly, sometimes even lacking humaneness that is expected of anyone. Very often I would like to tell Jesus the very words of St. Peter, "depart from me O Lord, for I'm a sinful man" (Lk. 5, 8). After all these years of being i
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Celebrating Immorality: Is Indian Democracy on a Headlong Collision Mode?

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Recently I quit Facebook for a simple reason that it keeps you anxious all the time bombarding you with problems one after another. It robs your peace, doesn't provide the space to reflect on any single issue. If you are an Indian you can find that media is celebrating the immorality of politicians who usurp power somewhere all the time in the country or those crying foul over their opponents. I happen to watch news just now and the first thing that is flashed across the Indian news channels is the formation of government in an Indian state where president's rule was revoked early this morning to pave way for a party with the support of another party - whose leader himself does not know about the intentions of his party MLA, needless to say normally in India such a person is a kith and kin of the party leaders themselves.  Mahatma Gandhi gives the list of seven deadly sins. The seventh one is 'politics without principle'. There isn't any principle for politi
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