Quotidian miracles

When he was a young man, he stayed in Thiruvaroor, the birthplace of three important Carnatic composers Saint Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Shastri. On the sitout of the little house across the street, an old lady would recite from the Ramayana every morning, with her eyes closed. A baby monkey would appear from nowhere and quietly lie on her lap. It would run away just before she opened her eyes.

I began to look for miracles in daily life and here a few I think I found. If you don8217;t run a car, every ride you hitch is a miracle 8211; your bones have been saved one rattle and your skin one assault by free radicals. If you8217;re on a dark road with not an autorickshaw in sight and suddenly one appears that8217;s going your way, that8217;s a miracle. In fact, in some places, that8217;s a BIG miracle and worthy of a weekly coconut to Ganesha, just to let Whom It May Concern know that you are not unappreciative haven8217;t done it yet. If a stubborn creeper suddenly blooms like mad, that8217;s a miracle. If you don8217;t have water problems, that8217;s a Super-Shakti miracle: my balcony is a green bower.

Even in this harsh cityscape, the birds miraculously abide with us. Two red-vented bulbuls, one purple sunbird, several noisy mynahs and parrots patronise my garden. The subird is a tiny, exquisite and completely crazy character. He swings upside down dementedly from the hanging baskets and darts about so fast that my eyes have to swivel like a Kutiyattam dancer8217;s to keep track. It8217;s a miracle that I have an avid birder friend to call every time I spot a new kind. I saw a rusty crow-pheasant once and don8217;t entirely despair of seeing hoopoes some day. Those quaint, stripey fellows were frequent fliers on the lawns of my youth, but they8217;ve gotten rare in Delhi now.

Like these little gifts of heaven, the kindness of regular people on the road is a miracle. Our streets are so busy and crowded, the stress levels are so high, it8217;s no wonder that we lose our tempers. But the city is full of goodness, too. I want to raise a special cheer for the hard-pressed band of autorickshaw drivers who must queue up patiently for hours on end, for CNG. When we sit behind them, their thin shoulders evoke a terrible tenderness. Generations of malnutrition have produced those shoulders. These men ply about the city all day, exposed to so much cruel weather, inhaling the exhaust of every passing vehicle. Yet, I find they are invariably a gallant, kindly lot, who help with sliding parcels and books, or stop without grumbling when you want to pick up flowers or medicine on the way. One chap had a book on how to start a small business. His dream was to open a bakery. Another, a graduate, had come down in the world he said, 8220;by wasting his youth8221;. But his smile and good manners, even through a horrid traffic jam, were a miracle 8211; the kind that makes one thoroughly ashamed of discounting God8217;s many blessings, just because one lacks other things. Do you suppose that8217;s the sort of thing the young cyber-pujari on the train meant?