People who come up to my garden wonder why I keep an old tire on which I’ve made a seat. Ah well, there’s a tale everywhere, isn’t there?

It happened some years ago, and I must say that watching your car going up in flames isn’t a pretty sight, and as my wife and I watched her car on fire that day, we felt a deep sense of sorrow. It had been a short circuit, and the flames we had battled had gone sky high.

The mechanic who came the next day to look at the remains of the car had a smile on his face as he met me.

“What’s there to smile?” I asked angrily. “The car is a write-off,” he said.

“So why the smile?” I asked again, even more annoyed.

“You’re alive, sir!” he said. “Weren’t you driving?”

“No,” I said, “My wife was. I came later.”

“Then madam is a very lucky woman!” he said, “Because I noticed they couldn’t open the bonnet. Sir, when the bonnet is stuck, normally the flames cannot be contained and the flames spread like wildfire underneath your dashboard to the seats and then explode when the flames reach the petrol tank; it’s boom!”

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It is one of the most impressive old structures among the heritage buildings along the sea front, looked after with total dedication by a tall Anglo-Indian gentleman with a booming voice. The building would have gone to the dogs if not for this one man. And yet I remember him twenty-two years ago; a watchman for an orphanage, he was an alcoholic and lived more in the gutters where he fell asleep after his last drink than in the room which the trustees of the orphanage had given him.

He was Mr. Nobody.

One day he decided to change. It was a long haul from his little room to the hospital rehab centre. I was there often dragging him back to the centre from the local bar he strayed into. Finally he made it and then came this job as caretaker and then manager. Those were tough days. Today when people visit the building they know who is behind its restoration and maintenance. Now he is Mr Somebody.

It was the same with my friend from Orissa. He was a poor farmer’s son who lived in a small thatched hut. His job was to work from morn to dusk with his father in the fields. He was a ‘nobody’ if ever there was one. One day he fell sick. The doctors told him his disease was fatal. He lay in bed waiting for death when a man of God entered his room, prayed for him, and he was healed. Suddenly he was a changed man; his one mission was to tell people about God.

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The rising and setting of the sun,
The position of various stars,
The changing of the seasons,
The possibility of life on Mars.

Man sought to understand the pattern,
In almost everything he knew,
But he found some peculiar things,
Which left him totally confused.

The extinction of dinosaurs,
The birth of a ten-dimension space,
The chance of a boy or a girl being born,
The fact that everyone has a unique face.

Man thought he understood the pattern,
And understood the universe.
But some things didn’t fit in,
So he used a term which works.

The peculiar things in nature,
Were labelled as random.
I know it’s not a fancy word,
At least it rhymes with… phantom!

Are these phenomena really random?
Or is it something that we yet have to understand?
Or is it that randomness,
Is itself God’s plan?

There is evidence about it,
For in the Bible, God says,
“Just as the heavens are high above the earth,
So is the same with my thoughts and ways.”

So, what looks distorted to us
Is actually a pattern for Him.
Thus, “randomly” you experience a miracle,
Even though the chances are slim.

I know, this seems philosophical,
And you are trying to grasp all you can,
But my friend,
You reading this poem is not random,
But part of God’s plan.

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“If we prayed as much as we worried, we’d have a lot less to worry about. Give God your worries.”

~ RICK WARREN

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Very often I pass a church, temple or mosque and see crowds outside. Initially I used to think that God must be so pleased to have so many worshipping him, till I realized very few came to worship; most came to barter. “God, please give me a promotion, and I will give you my whole month’s salary!” or “I will come to church every Sunday!” or “I will give up smoking or drinking!”

Says writer Ben Edwards, ‘We’ve all heard it, and most of us have either thought it, or even prayed it.” “God, if You do this thing I currently want, then I’ll do something I probably should do but haven’t.” And that’s how the world works; people want something in return for something done or given. People don’t just give away favours. They want something in return. So we begin to barter with others when we are seeking their favours.

We started doing this when we were young, trading our veg sandwiches for our friend’s non-veg. The other person has something we want — either an item or the ability to accomplish something, so we offer him something we think he wants.

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