Sunday, July 5

Love acts...

I need not make a statement for every noise in the society. However, this is something that has deeply caught my attention. I do not know anything about same-sex orientation. Nevertheless, I know that many who oppose same-sex orientation does not understand any bit of it either.

Delhi High Court surprised all of us when they gave a green signal to the gay moment in this country. In a deviation from the normality, the ruling Congress stood silent in a tacit approval of the court verdict. One of the first groups to raise voice against the ruling was the Catholic Church. They made their stand clear that they will challenge the verdict in an upper court. Then came others; and lastly the Hindi-belt under the leadership of Lalu from Bihar made it clear that this ruling from Delhi court was a challenge to the Indian way of living.

I wonder why Catholic Church wants to raise this issue in its infancy. We hear so much about the paedophilic scandals all around the Christian churches that I believe they have no right to step on the offensive. The public image of the universal Christian church is tattered so much in countless sex abuses and court cases that I am not going to hear the voice of the church on this issue so soon...so easily.

What are the feelings of the majority, powerful and the elite Hindus brothers on this subject? India is after all the nation that has gifted mankind one of the most illustrious and celebrated documentation on human love in her ‘Kama Sutra’. Temple walls portray the man-woman contacts as the acts of Gods in their amorous games. Certainly, those stories point out that the opposite-sex orientation is the real thing. They point out that the chemistry of sex is male-female chemistry. If so, the same-sex orientation is porridge cooked in wrong recipe. Holy Bible too speaks about same-sex orientation as a ‘perverted’ act. Last of all, these same-sex love acts cannot sustain procreation. Same-sex acts will always remain recreation!

As we live in God’s presence, the fundamental truth is that we are addressing a holy God. He is the Holy of holies. His holiness far surpasses the standards of human judgements and reasoning. In addition, our life is a worshipful act to God. In that process, can sexual orientation stand on its way? I have gone my way out and have tried to understand the life, sadness and moments of these unfortunate brothers and sisters of ours. From our vantage point, they are ‘unfortunate’. But they are going to be with us. Hence, we cannot ignore them. Though not share their way of living, we have to give them respect, love them, dialogue with them and show them that there is more of beauty and ecstasy in our way of living. After all God designed human organs and put human anatomy in place for our kind of living. Will they ever understand that? Till that happens, the legislation, the court, the police and the public will battle it out.

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Two feelings at the mountain...


Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God… Psalms 90:1

On a short voyage to the remote niches of a mountain range, I saw sights that fascinated me. Towering above us, mountains point to things we cannot see. Moreover, climbing on a mountain, we see things that others cannot see. Our perspective changes during a climb. As a mountain range unfolds the beauty, it also isolates us from the crowd, the plains and the conventional. What surprised me is the great enormity of the vastness of the Himalayan meadows. Eyes cannot go tired and mind cannot fathom the immensity of nature and her green calling.
At the peak of the mountain trail, there were two instant feelings that stormed me. “Yes, I have done it!” is the sentence that I whispered many times. Nevertheless, another question that came out of my heart was a simple one, “Yet, what has all this climb taught me?” The vast panorama that seems to span the whole world gave me a breathtaking view. Up there, there is the howling noise of the chilled winds and sometimes the cold silence. The green meadows gave way to the brown stones. Then came the black granite fortresses covered with ice and snow. What a sight! And I say that I am insignificant in comparison with all the grandeur of God created nature around me.
When I am so bemused at the opulence of the God’s creation, can I connect to God’s presence through these experiences...?


Photo Location: Himalayan panorama on the way to Roopkund

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