Pilgrim's Ponderings

The city's getting colder, the days are getting shorter - there may not be silver bells and snow here in Delhi but we all know Christmas is around the corner. Very soon the Diwali sales will give way to the Christmas ones and here in India one festive, family holiday of giving and recieving will give way to another and once again lights will be lit and celebrations will start. Growing up in a christian home, Christmas was always a big deal. There were many guests over and lots of celebration. But in the middle of all the fun that Christmas began to mean there was a sad undercurrent that I did not see. Slowly the wonder and grandeur of the first Christmas was lost to me.  The stories of the nativity, the angels, the shepherds and so much more had now become rather commonplace. I had acted in various roles of this story through sunday school years and heard the same story year after year and now slowly Christmas had become replaced by more dynamic and fun things rather than the ...

Nov 14 th , 2013 the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai will be hosting a Cricket test match between India and the West Indies. Any cricket match played in India is a special one and draws a sizable crowd. But this test match is expected to be sold out and is also expected to witness one of the largest audiences any test match has ever had. There is no number one ranking spot up for grabs and no major international trophy that hangs in the balance. The simple reason for the importance of this match is that it will be swan song of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. In case you don’t know who this is – he is undeniably India’s greatest ever contribution to the world of cricket. Since the time of Gandhi there has not been another man who managed to have the whole nation follow him and hang on his words other than Tendulkar. Somehow this little and outspoken master managed to transcend the boundaries of class, caste, ethnicity, race and religion. He managed to endear himself to the rich, the poor, t...

The last chord is played, the last prayer prayed and the benediction has been given, then the familiar words are heard again – “thank you for a nice time of worship”; “thank you for those songs” etc. While its lovely to hear these words and they come from a sincere heart, I often ask myself what the words mean. When you explore this question you are faced with the underlying question what is worship? There is an element of worship that involves music and singing. There is an element of worship that involves raising hands and voices to our God. But when we delve into it we find worship is so much more and so much richer. In the book of Romans we find Paul writing and urging the Church to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice … which is their spiritual act of worship. Many pastors preach on this passage and through humorous and serious mannerisms try to explain what a living sacrifice is. Worship pastors and leaders love to use the cliché phrase “worship is a lifestyle”. But th...

Recently I had a chance of a lifetime. As someone who loves dabbling in photography I obviously wasted no time in accepting when I got invited to accompany a friend who is professional photographer to a dream job – a forest wedding shoot. After quite an arduous journey by train, road and foot we were there in a small town named Pouri nestled away in the Himalayas. It was quite a memorable few days spent there. The location was so scenic with the wedding venue being built up completely from scratch by the bride and groom’s family and friends. Benches made of fresh beams of wood, flowers that were picked from the forest the night before and many more rustic touches just made this a standout wedding experience. The ceremony was short and beautiful and a celebration. After that came the couple portraits and I had my camera ready with a handy set of mouth-watering lenses that were borrowed. But as the shoot wore on I found a very strange reaction occurring from my end. I was not takin...

"The match the whole world will be watching", "The biggest game in football in recent times", these were just some of the phrases used to describe the Manchester United vs Real Madrid match up. It lived up to the billing. The first leg was a scrumptious mix of speed and attacking football that ended with both teams having scored a goal. That set us up for the perfect second leg. The match was everything any football enthusiast would have liked. Shock decisions from the coaches in their line ups, emotional homecoming cheers for Ronaldo, speed, action and some incredible goalkeeping - it had everything.  Then the referee played spoil sport with a decision that was deemed unfair by players and fans of both teams and any other neutral followers and players. The match had to go on though and ended with the now reduced to 10 man Manchester United bowing out of the tournament after a 2-1 defeat at home. The post-match press conference as one would suspect saw sca...