Posts from ‘Compassion’
Short of Change
Yesterday, I was on my way to the Nehru Place. Excited and happy, out of many reasons at all. I found an auto-driver who agreed to charge according to the meter was one of those many reasons. The weather had taken a smooth turn and it was more-or-less cloudy which gave my burnt skin a salving respite from Delhi’s charring heat. After a short-siesta and a shorter lunch, those fluffy clouds played the role of the dessert.
The auto-driver was exercising his racing skills and it added to the fun since the not-so-warm wind was kissing my bearded-cheeks all throughout. The speedometer was touching the likes of nineties and I was feeling that the auto-driver had some ulterior motives of setting some speed record or testing the agility of the tyres, until my body started experiencing the sudden forces of inertia. Yes, the auto started decelerating. The image of a red-pixellated-disk of the traffic-light managed to cross my spectacles to finally paint my retina. The image was clear-enough to furnish my curious mind with the reason behind that sudden advent of inertia. Continue Reading
It was 2006, and I was in a groove. I had found my department in college after bouncing around pretty much every major the school had to offer: I was studying Comparative Religions and I was going to be a theologian. We were covering Buddhism in class, and specifically how the ultimate goal in the conceptual version of Buddhism is to alleviate suffering.
This is not an uncommon concept in religious texts – across the board, the ideal is to give of one’s self completely and wholly, without want of reward. I was contemplating this idea while I was walking to the subway – I was heading home from a friend’s apartment in Manhattan’s Lower West Side. As I was tying a relation to the Buddhist concepts to the ideas espoused in the 18th century Kabbalistic text, The Way of God, I arrived in view of at a secondary staircase, heading downward to the train platform I needed. Continue Reading
“Hey! Check out the new kid! Where’s your hair? Where’d you buy those sneakers?” taunted Billy.
Giving Billy a stern look with my eyes, I introduced Ricky to the rest of the students in the high school resource room. ”Everyone, this is Ricky. He came to us from Pennsylvania and I’m sure you’ll help him feel at home…Mrs. Slep, will you show Ricky his locker and help him learn his combination?”
As Mrs. Slep and Ricky left the room, some of the students burst out laughing. ”He looks like a rat!” ”He has buck teeth AND pointed ears!” ”I wonder how he keeps his tail hidden so well!”
“There will be no more mocking Ricky!” I exclaimed. ”You need to show respect and maybe even challenge yourself to extend friendship toward Ricky. If I hear one more rude comment, we’ll address it during detention!”
As the students settled down and returned to their assignments, I glanced over the profile given to me by Mr. J., Ricky’s guidance counselor. I quickly discovered that Ricky was born prematurely, never knew his natural parents, and was in and out of 23 foster placements, expanding four states! Included in the profile were four pictures of Ricky. He did look like a mouse, or a rat. Even his fingers were long and scrawny. His mouth was tiny which made his buck teeth appear bigger than they were. His head was shaved due to living in a lice-infested environment. Continue Reading
How does one kid born from a crack addict mom and another kid born from a well to do family eventually become sisters and inseparable?
Arriving home with their newest family member, Ron and Grace gathered the family around. Looking lovingly at her youngest daughter, Grace said, “Annie, meet your sister Shamile Liliet.” “E-ett? E-ett?” cried out Annie as she hugged Liliet, her roommate from the healthcare facility.
Flip the calendar back to 1985…the beginning of Annie and Liliet’s story.
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