Coming or Going?.........Who knows?

Coming Or Going…Who Knows??
Dear Friends,
For the past few months, I sure didn’t know “whether I was coming or going!”…now a flashback…early 1962…
As a cadet, it is taboo to walk about in the premises with out one’s head gear. I saw from afar our new Commandant’s Jeep; I hastily put my side cap and gave a smart salute; the jeep stopped and out came the ‘Tiger’ (the Cos are known thus) and roared. “Come here!”. I marched, stood at attention and saluted again.
“Are you coming or going, son?” asked the commandant. I got flummoxed, stood silently ram-rod straight, but petrified; shaking as an aspen leaf. The commandant gently removed my cap, reversed it, putting it front-side right with brass buttons glowing and facing him, and said “Umm.. That’s better….The way you donned.. I didn’t know which side is your face; whether you are coming or going..” and laughed. “Don’t forget to report to the drill master in the afternoon for a pack parade..”
Cut to Recent days
During one of our culvert conferences in the evening with oldies, I addressed no one in particular “Guess what? I seem to experience a strange phenomenon for the past several months”
“What’s that?...age must be catching up after all” Chaturvedi
“Yeah ok. But that’s not it” said I.
‘Kyon Bhaai Biwi se jagada hua kyaa?” Gulati.
“No..Nothing of that sort..It is mystical, allegorical..Awe inspiring..” I replied. “I am kept under stress almost all the time with some problem or the other. It worries me no end….seemingly with no solution in sight at the first instance. But as time elapses there comes a light at the end of the tunnel and the problem just melts away..albeit through divine intervention. Each time the insurmountable become thing of the past I am left wondering why I worried at all. So now I throttle back, put my life on autopilot and tell Him,” Well, you gave the problem and so you solve it” and Lo and behold He does find a way.” I gushed forth.
My friend Martin had this to relate:
“I read recently how a well-known television circus show developed a Bengal tiger act that was performed live before a large audience. One evening, the tiger trainer went into the cage with several tigers to do a routine performance. The door was locked behind him. The spotlights highlighted the cage, the television cameras moved in close, and the audience watched in suspense as the trainer skillfully put the tigers through their paces.

In the middle of the performance, the worst possible fate befell the act: the power went out! For thirty long seconds the trainer was locked in with the tigers. In the darkness they could see him, but he could not see them not even the glow of their eyes. A whip and a small kitchen chair seemed meagre protection under the circumstances. But he survived, and when the lights came on, he calmly finished the performance.

In an interview afterward, he was asked how he felt knowing the tigers could see him but that he could not see them. He first admitted the chilling fear of the situation, but pointed out that the tigers did not know that he could not see them. He said, "I just kept cracking my whip and talking to them until the lights came on. And they never knew I couldn't see them as well as they could see me

We all feel caught in the dark with the ‘tigers of your heart’ or circumstances that seem to be out of your control? I sure have. But the Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’?" Martin concluded. Martin is nearing 90.


I later prayed: "Dear God, thank you that my life is in your hands and that you are always with me in my dark days of despair just as you are in my happy days of rejoicing. Thank you, too, for your promise that you will never leave me nor forsake me. Help me to always remember this, and trust my life to you, and be willing to face what I am contributing to my situation, change what I can change, and learn to accept joyfully what I cannot change.”

Warm rgds
V~v~R
13-12-08