The Chained Generation

They whizz past my eyes, with an urgency that seems unwarranted for. Some sweaty, some dark, some tall, some tired, some angry. People. Different faces, different thoughts, different aspirations, different lives. One fate. I watch.

The view from the foot-over-bridge at the thane station isn’t entertaining. Otiose luggage leaning on my knees, people scampering around me en-masse, lonesome I stand in that crowd, awaiting my uncle. He should have been back with the tickets by now. Maybe the line at the ticket counter is long. Its almost 7 in the evening, ‘rush hour’. A rush to catch that train, to meet a beloved, to escape the city agony or maybe just to get there… faster. But are they really getting anywhere? I watch.

As the trains crawl into the station, people jump out & clamber onto the FOBs like animals. They push and pull, and don’t care if they hurt anyone. I am pushed to one side and am fighting to keep my luggage with me. Opposing a torrent of agitated & frustrated flesh, it is a losing war that is being fought here. An old man falls, a woman shrieks and concern & human emotion dampen the sweaty unrest & turmoil. People try controlling themselves and make room for that feeble old man. I watch.

Yes, Love still remains. These are not machines that are rushing somewhere. Each one was is human being. From the north Indian young struggler who doesn’t know whether he would meet dinner, to the maharashtrian middle class wife, who is struggling to meet dinner on time, everyone is as human as I am. Emotions, egos, a desire to excel, failure, regret, hope, joys, passions and… a right to be saved. I watch.

I stand on the banks of this river of men. I look at the sweaty water flow by. I am watching hundreds of worlds passing by. Each person has his own, and is the king, the centre of that beautiful world. But where are they heading to? towards doom? So many! They would flow out into the dark sea! How horrible this is. I wanted to help them. I am supposed to be a ‘fisher of men’, ain’t I. I lift my hand to pull out someone from this river. But my hand refused to budge. It is numb, frozen, bound, with chains of respectability, shyness, honour and selfishness. I can see the blood of Jesus on my hands, but the chains won’t budge. They won’t let me use the power of the blood. The chains cry out to me… “Its useless, they wont believe you! Do you want to be mocked! You cant convince someone who is born in a different religion. No way!” I struggle a while and give up, look up. I watch.

And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. – Mathew 28:18-20

The crowd starts to dim, my uncle is back with the tickets. I walk towards the train, disappointed, chained. I am going back to my world. What about all those people and the dark sea. There probably is a better ‘fisher of men’ downstream, I say & try to comfort myself. After all I am a part of this chained generation, aint I?

Waking up the BLASTed way

Well, after something like the blasts, I cannot think of writing on any other subject. 7 blasts that shook Mumbai, injured mercilessly, destroyed agonizingly, traumatized tardily and woke up instantly. Yes. Woke Mumbai up instantly!

Instead of raving about voices like “Look at the pain it caused”, I am going to jabber about “Do you need a blast to wake you up?”

Picture this. The bomb blasts take place on the 11th of July. And in the next two days, 26 communities on “Fighting Terrorism” Sprang up on Orkut (the popular friends network). And surprisingly, before the 11th not even a single community existed that raised a voice against terrorism or at least none showed up on my search results. Strange eh?

People talk about why it happened? How bad it was. And then a couple of days later, the whole city is patting itself on its back and grinning “Mumbai is unaffected, we can get back on track in a couple of days. No bomb blasts can shake us.” Well, I say ”You were unaffected because you didn’t lose a brother, mother or a father in the blast. You were unaffected because you have developed insensitivity towards the blast, developed by the frequency with what terrorism strikes. You are unaffected because you have to meet your deadlines, and you cant afford to take a day off because of some blasts.”

People may talk, people may cry. But if the same “people” look deep inside, they will see tainted souls that are deficient of the spirit of God. Did the blasts really affect you. What did you do? What about the hundreds who die on the streets because of Hunger? What about the thousands who die because of crime? What about the children who die as children, because their parents didn’t have enough money to get them treated? Why do we ignore the blasts that are happening everyday in the lives of the handicapped and the disabled? How many people prayed for the terrorists who did this? Don’t their souls deserve salvation?

Well the blasts were Gods way of telling a sleeping generation to get up. This is what I believe. Because we are a generation in slumber. A generation in sin. What are we doing as Christians? Do we need God to wake us up the BLASTed way?

Nailed for me...

The church organ began churning out tunes of lamentation. Everybody sank into their seats to send up a small prayer (or at least they pretended to) before they started scurrying out to avoid the human traffic at the small door of our church. In a few minutes, the exit was cramped with people of different shapes and ages, all wanting to get out and go home. For most of them, they had finished their responsibility of attending church on a Good Friday, and all they wanted to do, was to get out of that place now. Some of the more religious souls stayed on to be a part of the Holy Communion. As I walked out of church, I could imagine the scampering that would follow, scampering to eat the bread and wine as soon as possible, and just get out of there. I wondered how many people actually meant what they were doing that day. It was a Good Friday, not too different from the others that had come and gone. But for me, this year it was different. The message had worked its wonder on me.

I trudged out on to the street, the noon sun glaring on to my face, the message from the pastor still fresh in my mind, when something suddenly made me look at the palms of my hands. Why was it scar-less? Why weren’t there painful holes in my palms? I felt the side of my stomach. I didn’t find any spear wounds there. I felt my back. The flesh of my back wasn’t torn. Still wondering, I ran my fingers through my hair. I didn’t feel thorns clinging on to my skull. The sun beat on my forehead, and I wiped off my sweat. My sweat was colourless. Why wasn’t it blood instead of water?

That’s when Isaiah 53:5 hit me like a brick on the back of my head.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our infirmities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds are we healed.”
- Isaiah 53:5

I walked on, and before I knew, someone I disliked caught my sight. My heart was filled with abhorrence. Immediately I heard someone hammer on something. It sounded like a big nail being hammered into wood with a huge hammer, but on looking around I found nothing of that sort happening. I was stunned. Still in disbelief I walked towards the railway tracks, when a dirty beggar came up to me and grabbed my arms, dirtying my white shirt. The tragic expression on his face didn’t soften the anger that exploded in my veins. At that moment, out of nowhere, I heard whipping sounds accompanied by moans. This was crazy. My eager walk broke out into a desperate run. I was sweating and panting as I ran on the streets of my colony, I ran till I could run no more, I stopped under a tree and thought to myself...

“Whom am I running from? What am I running from? Am I running from the fact that Jesus was nailed on the cross for me. For every sin that I commit, I should be the one nailed through my hand. But in contrast, each sin of mine is like a blow to those huge nine-inch nails that almost crushed the tender bones of his hands as it inched deeper into the timber. Every blow must have sent raw agony down the spine of Jesus. Every lash must have ripped off a part of His determination to have the cup of sorrow.

Every thorn in that crown must have felt like a spear of torment embedded in his skull. Every second on that cross must have felt like a hundred years in hell. Every drop of spit that hit his face must have felt like boiling concentrated hydrochloric acid. Every centimeter he walked on the road to Golgotha must have felt like crawling on a 100- mile stretch of red-hot coals. And every time I sin, I rub his face into the burning coal. I hurt him exponentially more than he was hurt on the cross when i sin!!! Why am I so blind? Why…”

…. The church organ began churning out tunes of lamentation. I opened my sleepy eyes to find myself in church. What??? This was a dream??? The people around me got up and started scampering out of church. I just sat there, again in disbelief, realizing that I had missed the Good Friday message and I knew the late night movie I watched the previous day was the culprit. The church started emptying out. I just looked upwards and said, “That was the best dream I ever had.” I was somebody without a conscience when I slept in church, but the dream changed things. That day, I walked out of church determined to live for him, determined to make sure that the next time someone has to be nailed, it would be the guy with the tail. Three Cheers for Jesus!!!