Dispossessed

‘He is omnipresent’ is how they would have described Him, when i was growing up. This indefinable prowess to transcend time and space had left an indelible stamp on my infant imagination. He was there in the unlit hidden part of the courtyard where my play mates couldn’t find me, He was also on the other side of the hill where the sun rested in the nights and while I slept He spent time playing with shadows. ‘He is there in your heart’ my grandmother would add. And yet whenever i wanted Him to intervene and help fructify my trivial desires and small dreams, i would always look skywards. That is where He lived keeping an eye on the universe, an estate that was entirely His.
Later, as i grew older, He had settled in a cosy corner my conscious. It was an intimate yet functional co-existence, whenever i was in need i would implore Him and at times plead to look the other way while i indulged in the vagaries of human nature. All along i was aware of His presence but perhaps never really felt it then. Now sometimes when I recede into the quiet and dark alleys of my heart i feel His presence around me. I have started feeling His presence often in some small and minuscle moments. When I saw the old beggar vainly trying to protect himself from sudden rains, i could feel Him in the hope on his smiling face. When the tiny little hands of my day old baby waved at me as she struggled to live, in my helpless state I felt Him right there giving strength to me. I felt Him on my father’s face in his silent prayer as he waited outside the hospital door for his son to come back and live again. When I see the urchin girl and her ugliness that surrounds her I feel Him in the optimism of her eyes.
Today again I feel He is amused at the absurdity of our collective avarice to claim His ownership, to deny Him to others, to confine Him to a few brick walls, to colour those walls. Perhaps today He feels abandoned, dispossessed by His own creation.Perhaps today instead of trying to own Him we need to belong to Him.