As a Matter of Faith

As I cycled on JN Road, I passed by the Housing Society where I sat to write my Science and Maths Test Series almost 12 years ago on 24 December 1999 in preparation for my SSC (public) examination. Like most kids, I desired to give my very best and I knew it would require of me to give up things that I loved the most. That year, among other things, it was going to be Christmas! The house wore a sombre look with just a stuffed Santa Claus hanging from the curtain rod as if it were executed! Giving up the festivities was a big step we decided to take as a family and my Science and Maths Teacher Murtaza sir told me this sacrifice will be blessed richly one day!

I believe the life I live today, in fact that we all live, is a dividend of all the sacrifices we made in the past. We keep cashing it each and every day. The Rational see it as mere Coincidence or even a Disconnected set of events. The Romantic see it as Serendipity and the Whimsical as the Butterfly Effect. I however, have always enlisted myself in the line of Believers: the Faithful who have hope in humanity, in the love of man and the justice of the universe. And there is this thing about the Believers: they always seem to see miracles in the everyday ordinary things that surround all of us but inspire only them!

Like this queue of devotees at the Sai Baba Temple on SL Road or the Hanuman Temple in Mulund East that I witnessed today caused me to ask a question to the staunch Christians I know: Won't the hearts of these devotees filled with faith and goodness lead them to live a blessed life? Wasn't that what Jesus was referring to when he said, "Your FAITH has healed you"? Isn't that what faith is about: a lot of Hope and Belief in the Love that is inside us?

Then there was another kind of waiting I noticed, another kind of queue. This was a queue at a bus stop, with people waiting for a BEST bus to take them back home. There were young and old, men and women; just as there were at the temples. There was patient waiting just as the devotees showed and a sense of Justice that exuded itself from this queue. It is this sense of justice that defines the path we choose to take in the hour of darkness and it is the same sense of justice that brings us back home when we lose our way. It is our moral compass and our map through life and faith without a Belief in Justice is no faith at all!

 

Today 12 years later, I could experience a sense of what transpired in my life from then to now. And it certainly has been a long wait but it is definitely worth it. A deep sense of Faith: Hope, Love and Justice that engulfed me as I rode through Mulund. 12 years back as I rode my cycle back on Christmas Day of 1999 answering a Science-I test paper, I asked myself and my God if this would amount to something. 12 years later, my Faith has only been renewed as I rode back that route once again!

So Don't Ever Lose Faith!
It is the glue that binds your life together 
with Hope, Love and Justice!