Naked I Came

Ivan

  ‘God writes your destiny’ means one’s destiny takes shape according to the laid down principles of the Word of God. That is why even the predestined by God may undergo change of course during their lives based on how they align their actions with reference to the Word. It was predestined for King David of Israel that his kingdom would be an everlasting one. Nevertheless, in conjunction to various actions initiated by him during his life, King David journeyed through the valleys of trial and tribulations before his predestined life could achieve ‘the purpose’ centuries later, in the coming of the promised ‘Messiah’ to establish the kingdom.

  Psalm 128 speaks about a man who feared God. Sitting quietly in his room, all of a sudden God led Justin to the truth about a man who feared God. His name was Ivan, Justin’s father-in-law.

  On that fateful day in the early eighties, what intrigued Justin the most was, while undergoing a severe heart attack, Ivan was experiencing more of an emotional trauma rather than the physical pain. Ivan’s eyes seemed blank when suddenly Justin caught sight of something in his eyes that spoke volumes. In those moments between life and death, Justin sensed a struggle that this righteous man was undergoing.

  Justin experienced a strange phenomenon of life in those moments, the truth of which he comprehended much later in life, when he himself was in his late fifties.

  The Bible says, ‘The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him’. (Proverbs 20: 7)

  Ivan, Justin’s late father-in-law, feared God and the above saying became true in the lives of his sons. His three sons displayed an indifferent attitude towards God but still they started life on a positive note, getting all the worldly blessings for the very reason that their father spent a righteous life.

  On the other hand, Justin who by then was in his late fifty’s, deduced that in spite of being a minister in the church, he never strictly adhered to God’s commandments, for the fear of the Lord is carrying out His commandments with one’s might and strength and without reservations. Justin, though convicted at heart on numerous occasions, kept one area of his life closed to any remorse and reproof, and as a result, the principle of the Word of God worked adversely in his life.

  Ivan, Justin’s late father-in-law, was a frail-bodied man; he had the built of an average Indian male on the outside and a delicate person on the inside. Even though Ivan did not possess eloquent speech and was a man of few words, he was always humble and truthful to the core.

  Ivan was dark-complexioned himself but had a very fair and lovely wife named Eugenia, and it could be clearly seen that even after so many years of married life, Ivan was in complete awe of her beauty. Justin noticed that every time Ivan called out his wife by name, his facial expressions and mannerism indicated as though he was enjoying the beauty of a blossoming flower. Eyes gleaming with joy, eyebrows arched up, with mouth slightly open, he would let out a deep ‘aah’, stretching out the last two syllables of her name to complete his admiration.

  Ivan always dressed in white cotton pants and a half-sleeve shirt that was left untucked, the outfit completed by open sandals on his feet. He preferred to walk long stretches rather than take a city bus.

  In the evening, one could usually see him standing in his covered balcony on the first floor of his house, overlooking the main road that ran parallel to the colony. This was an exclusive residential area built in the early forties, when people started to move out from the walled city of Delhi, and mostly inhabited by people from Christian faith. The colony had four rows of fifteen houses separated by a service alley. In the evening, the lanes between the rows of houses were full of young children at play. The boys were busy playing cricket or football, while the girls were generally engaged in playing jump rope, hopscotch and so on.

  The corner of the colony was landmarked by a church building of red bricks with a steeple that housed the big church bell. No one ever ventured to ring the bell except the sexton, called church baira in the local language.

  Strangely enough, even though Ivan lived close to that church, he was never its member. He dutifully and without exception attended another Main Line church that was a few miles away from his house in the old city.

  Ivan always served as a member of some committee in that church. During the committee meetings, he was not very forceful in expressing himself. His tongue—a bit heavy at the base—did not shape-up like the pointed tip as usually is but was round in the front, which was probably the reason for his sort of gabbled speech. However, his truthful spirit more than compensated the lack of eloquence. He always threw his weight around in favour of the true and the humble. For all of the blessings in his life, he repeatedly said, ‘By God’s grace’. Every now and then, he repeated this sentence with utmost sincerity and thankfulness to God nodding his head slowly from side to side accompanied by the raising of his hands.

  He owned a few shops constructed in the front portion of his house that brought in a steady income as rent. However, he always shied away from going down to collect the rent; so when the shopkeepers approached him instead, to pay the rent, he never failed to express his thankfulness that simply spoke volumes of his humility. His wife, the beautiful Eugenia, was a homemaker and reared his seven children. His was a big family by all standards even in the fifties, four girls and three boys. Ivan and Eugenia named their four daughters after precious stones but such sentiments did not show up while naming the boys. Four out of their seven children took after the mother and were very fair with light hair; the other three took after the father.

  That day sitting by himself, Justin remembered his late father-in-law and thought about him in retrospect. It was that fateful evening in the eighties when Ivan was struck by a massive heart attack. In those critical moments, looking deep into the eyes of Ivan, Justin could fathom the emotional trauma and grief that Ivan was undergoing. People in the society valued his word but when it came to dealing with his children, he sounded like a man out of touch with reality. In fact, his older sons were struggling to get a foothold in the world, at the peak of their youth and yet undecided about the vocation to follow. This had created a tense atmosphere in the family, which often proved a recipe for clash of ideas and disagreement. On that fateful day, apparently Ivan could not take it anymore and collapsed. A few days later, he breathed his last in a hospital.

  Brother Eric

  Portly looking and endowed with spiked hair like a porcupine in its fearful state, ‘this man’ in his mid-thirties came out of nowhere and started injecting a lot of spirituality into a small group of Christians whom he visited every week. These Christian families were otherwise accustomed to a semblance of a presentation as given by an orchestra conductor of a philharmonic society, which was ‘the style’ imitated by their Main Line church pastors in conducting the Sunday morning services. The only difference was that in the philharmonic concerts, the symphony or the presentation started in slow, synchronised movements of the players, but by the time the crescendo was reached, the players were immersed in it body, mind and soul, progressing feverishly towards the free expression of emotions through music. Whereas in the church that boasted one of the biggest congregations of the city, the ‘players’ that were the worshiping congregants remained devoid of any spiritual experience be it the beginning or the end of the service.

  In contrast, here was this evangelist called Brother Eric from the state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) who started conducting Saturday worship services that attracted horde of Christian believers to it. Brother Eric was the man with the complexion of a very well done steak and a resonant voice easily bordering on being ‘hoarse’, singing and worshiping as if David himself came down with his harp in the Central Delhi Community Hall.

  When Brother Eric was through leading the first half of the Saturday worship service, his face would shine with beads of sweat that got deposited on the contours that textured his face before finally dripping down towards the delta that was his chin. His eyes that were a cross between that of a cat and a
fox would gleam in anticipation of an excited response from the worshipers. And what a response he did get! In fact, the worshipers were on a roll-coaster ride of awe and bewilderment before finally landing on the platform of agreement that this was the true form of worship. Eric supported his actions and exhortations by quoting verses from his Bible, which was literally in tatters due to overuse. The second half of the worship service, when he brought forth a message from the Bible, was still the more gripping as most of the listeners would be left in a state of amazement. Mouths open and heads nodding in agreement from side to side as they experienced spiritual revelations like never before.

  Once the service ended, which was usually short of two hours, someone from the gathering would give Brother Eric a ride on a two-wheeler scooter to the train station to be in his own church in another town the next Sunday morning.

  By the end of the fifth week, Justin felt compelled to carry his own Bible to the service; however, the chronological order of the books in the Bible which he had learnt in Sunday school were hard to recall by now. Still Eric, as he was fondly called, would give ample time to the congregants to look up the reference from the index and open their bibles.

  Justin & Pearl

  Justin, his wife Pearl, and their son Rahul started attending these worship meetings as conducted by Brother Eric.

  After the initial setback to his life by the separation from Shelly, Justin moved on and on a night with near freezing temperatures, when he had joined a Christmas carol singing group, and there he met Pearl. While caroling with the group, he noticed this fair-complexioned girl in her teens singing the soprano part of the carol. Such was her enthusiasm that her cheeks had turned red by the energy she was putting into the singing. Her beauty smote Justin. By now with the history of his past dalliances, Justin had developed his own theory about a relationship that may ultimately culminate into marriage for him. And according to it, he was determined to marry a girl whose beauty would keep him glued to her forever.

  He was so sincere about this thought that he approached Pearl, who was virtually unknown to him, and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ The abrupt straightforwardness of Justin’s proposal turned Pearl crimson.

  Nervously twisting the scarf around her fingers she said, ‘Do I know you?’ and quickly mingled with the carolers.

  Justin made it a point to get back in her circle during the ensuing Christmas season and after few more encounters, his sincere endeavours were able to break through the damsel’s barriers and, thus, started a three-year long period of courtship between the two.

  Since meeting Justin, Pearl had successfully dislodged her father Ivan from his favourite place at the first floor balcony of their house. Now every trip of Justin to ‘any and everywhere’ took a detour onto the road passing in front of her house. Twice a day, he would strap-on his helmet, put on his driving glasses and ride his two-wheeler scooter to go on his pilgrimage—the fair maiden’s house. In the beginning, while riding his scooter, Justin would just give a slight nod of his head, and Pearl would acknowledge him with a small wave of her hand. As days passed by, he reciprocated the confident smile on the face of Pearl by intently looking and constantly turning his head in her direction while driving straight ahead, as if presenting a guard of honor to her, army style! The hesitant acknowledgement by the damsel gradually progressed to a more enthusiastic response and Justin felt that, in her own way, she was trying to tell him that she appreciated the attention.

  The nod, the hesitant response, the enthusiastic wave all culminated into more close encounters between the two—long before they made life-long commitments to each other. However, history is mute witness to the fact that never have the parents of a fair maiden married off their little princess without spilling bad blood. Justin and Pearl also faced fierce dissidence from her family. Therefore, they got married in a hush-hush way, lest their names were added to the list of immortal lovers such as Romeo–Juliet, Heer–Ranjha, Lailla–Majnu, who were harassed relentlessly by their ancestors until the young lovers gave up their ghost. Nevertheless, those were epic lovers whose saga of love that are staged repeatedly on the Broadway shows still cause people to sigh and cry.

  Court marriages in that era were reasons enough to prompt a family-feud that could only be settled on the streets, but Pearl’s father Ivan, the man that he was, put a damper on any such ideas that the men-folk of his clan may have entertained.

  This is how Justin and Pearl came together to start their family.