Skip to main content

Terrorist

Fiction

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have no love in my heart, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Reverend Felix Markose was preparing his sermon for the next Holy Assembly.  His flock of sheep would arrive in the morning on the day of the Lord to listen to the word of the Lord.  He, their pastor and mentor, would read the scriptures and deliver the sermon in his inimitable style that is highly appreciated by his flock of faithful sheep. 

He would count the sins of the people on his fingertips.  Adultery and fornication, drunkenness and drug addiction, gluttony and sloth, greed and envy, it’s an endless list of human errors.  Sinful creatures.  Lord, have mercy on them!

If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move the mountains, but have no love in my heart, I am nothing.

He wondered whether he ever loved anyone.  Except his own voice.  Stentorian voice that resounded in the prayer hall and shook the souls of the sinful creatures who sat on the pews indifferently, callously, or sometimes attentively.  They all said he was a great orator.  Eloquent speaker.  Powerful preacher.  He wove magic with words.  His words touched hearts, said some. 

Did he touch any heart?  Louisa, his wife, was slogging in the kitchen as usual.  She had washed the linen and put them out on the lines.  She had ironed the children’s dresses for tomorrow’s prayer service.  She had cleaned the house.  And he?  He sat down looking at 1 Corinthians 13 to draw inspiration for his rhetoric. 

Paris was attacked by terrorists.  It was an attack on human liberty.  An attack on the human spirit of inquiry and creativity.  He was preparing his sermon.  Terror has no religion. Terror comes from insensitive hearts, unformed hearts, hearts that have not experienced the tenderness of love. 

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have no love in my heart, I am nothing.

What have I given?  He heard the question rising within himself.  Have I given anything to anyone at any time?  Except words? 

Am I a terrorist?  Word terrorist?

One thousand sermons.  Half a dozen books on religion and the Bible.  What else have I given?  To anyone?  Would even Louisa say sincerely that there was love in my touch?  Would my children?

What have I given?  Except the noise of the gong and the clang of the cymbal? 

When will my words lead me to life? 

One thousand sermons.  To others.  Asking them to reform themselves.

One day I shall speak to myself. 


Note: Whatever is in italics are quoted from the Bible, the part mentioned in the story.
Labels:

Comments

  1. wingsNovember 16, 2015 at 6:17 PM

    Why have they deified those who led by example and listened only to their inner voice and sermonised only with conviction, not with skills of oratory or eloquence?
    Now the result is only terrorism and Nihilism.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
14 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more