Saints And Other Holy People.

Welcome to the Loose Bloggers’ Consortium, where every Friday, some of us post on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Maria the Silver Fox.

My exposure to Saints are restricted to three. Two from my misspent youth, and one from my present.

The first one was a fictional character called Simon Templar. Because his initials were ST, he was called The Saint. He was a thief. My readers, mostly of my generation, will remember the days when the only entertainment was reading – comics and books mostly with the odd movie thrown in. In India, we read most English authors and two of my favourites were Leslie Charteris, who wrote The Saint books and the other was P G Wodehouse. One of my greatest wishes was that these two authors could get together and write a book involving The Saint, Jeeves the butler and his master Bertie Wooster. I still think that some enterprising soul who can do it, will have a best seller and a block buster to follow.

The next Saint in my life came via my then steady girl friend who was a Roman Catholic. She insisted that I stick a magnetic medal of St. Christopher on my scooter and carry one photograph of his in my wallet all the time. She told me that he was the Patron Saint of all travelers and that he would protect me. I was an atheist those days, but humoured her anyway. He certainly saw to it that I lived long enough to write this post!

After these, the only Saint that has come my way has been our irrepressible Mayo. Just see how saintly he looks!

Now coming to Holy People. I know plenty of them. Why, I am known as one too. Not one of my shirts is without a hole or two. Result of years of smoking and careless sparks burning holes on the front of shirts. All my smoking buddies are similarly holy too!

There are others, including some regular readers of this blog, who are also convinced that I am eminently qualified to be called Holy; for the reason that, I appear to have a big hole in my head. What say Conrad and Grannymar?

What I would like to do.

Right now I am going through a very difficult and stressful time with my father in the ICU following a fractured femur and consequent shock. Since I am not allowed to be with him at the ICU, I am at home blogging.

Seeing Grannymar’s new avatar with her Christmas cap on, I am tempted to choose this one as mine till I can really sleep like that.

What do you think?

Greetings From Bunc.

This is one comment on my post “Conditions.” that I missed while indisposed. This is from Bunc, all the way from Ayrshire. Rum is unusual there, what with so much of the good stuff – Scotch available!

“There once was a chap called Rum
Who suffered a condition called glum
Not wanting for cash and in good health to last
yet he pined for a non-plato chum

So he cast his net wide and the females he tried
The large and the small and the plump
But he hasn’t yet found in this casting around
The one who can cure his chum slump.

Don’t give up we all cried your libidos not yet fried
There’s bound to be one who’s out there
You’ll once turn a corner and there she’ll be for ya
a lady all willing and fair.”

Bunc, In India, we respond for such good wishes by saying “Aap key moohn mein ghee shakkar.” Literally, “I wish you get a lot of sugar and clarified butter in your mouth.” In other words, “Many thanks for your sweet wishes and I hope that they come true.”

Relationships And Karma.

Our young blogger friend Ashok has an interesting post on his blog “In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade” which has prompted me to write this rather poignant post.

During my recent frequent visits to the hospital for physiotherapy, I came across a story from a doctor who used to bring his daughter for physiotherapy too. She had met with an accident while riding pillion on motorcycle and had had multiple fractures on her leg. The doctor and I got to talking to each other and this is the story that he told me.

He is a pediatrician and his wife a gynecologist. A perfect college romance followed by a perfect family life with two children. One son, killed two years ago while on a motorcycle by a drunken truck driver and the daughter currently undergoing physiotherapy who was widowed at the same time as the son and son in law were riding together on the motorcycle.

Since then, the wife had been out of sorts and had taken to spiritualism in a big way culminating in her wanting to go away to an organisation doing scial work in the South as part of the orgnisation’s missionary work. Just two months earlier, the father and the daughter finally gave her permission to go away to follow her bliss. Yes, that is the expression used by the father!

Now, the father is saddled with his practice, his temporarily handicapped daughter and running the household.

A lesser man would have broken down. Not this spirited man of about fifty, who is determined to find his own bliss seeing that his daughter is fully rehabilitated and to serve his patients with full commitment. In typical Indian fashion, he accepts his lot as his karma!

Since then, I have been thinking about this family often and the intense experiences that they have undergone in such a short time. I was talking about this with some other friends the other day when one of them chose to comment on the wife leaving the husband at such a time. He was all praise for the husband for being so understanding and letting her go. Another friend, more shall we say, worldly, quipped whether he would have let her go, had she decided to go with another man!

That is a very interesting way of looking at a broken relationship. Since that discussion, I have been thinking of possible answers to the question and find it impossible to!

Leave aside the Indian context to the story, I wonder whether this question can be answered at all in any other context as well.

Resurgent India.

My friends Nat/Usha and Anil/Nina were recently on a long motoring holiday in Gujarath and Rajasthan. They had an absolutely grand time as Anil has repeatedly told me on the phone and email.

His latest mail adds a bit of spice to the travelogue.

The text that accompanies that photograph makes for fascinating reading.

“At Udaipur where we stayed I saw this sight in the morning.
 
Husband & wife team of Municipal sweepers came on their motor-cycle with a huge broom and with their daughter to sweep the streets around the place. Their daughter came ready with her school bag for the school due to start some time later.
 
They were around for over an hour claeaning the place and then drove off to drop the child to school.
 
On request they posed for the photographs. Soon I need to send them a copy too.”

Christmas morning’s Business Standard has an editorial by a favourite writer of mine, T N Ninan which talks in terms Economicese about this phenomenon too!

I was beginning to feel good till this article in the Times Of India brought me back to reality.

Anil, we have some way to go before I can crow!