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
47 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more

Maveli in the Pothole Republic

Illustration by Copilot Designer I was trying to navigate the moonscape they call a ‘national highway’ when my shoe vanished into a crater big enough to host the G20 summit. Out of it rose a tall figure, crowned and regal, though with a slight limp. “Maveli!” I exclaimed. “Yes,” he said grimly. “Your roads are terrible. I thought the netherworld was bad, but this—this is hell on asphalt.” I helped him up. “Don’t worry, Maveli, our leaders say we’re heading toward becoming a global economic superpower. See, even Donald Trump is impotent before our might.”   Maveli frowned. “Yes, yes. I saw your leader guffawing in the company of Putin and Xi Jinping. When he’s in the company of world leaders, he behaves like a little boy who’s got his coveted toy.” “Are you a little jealous of him, Maveli?” I asked. “I have reasons to be, but I’m not. Let him enjoy his limelight. A day will come when history will put its merciless foot on his head and send him to his own Patala.” Tha...
8 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more