the boat without a sail

The outskirt of Bangalore holds no prize for the habitual tourists, beach brained, mountain huggers or sea sprites. Yet like any place in the world, every city has its charms & for me it was a small home for the destitute in Bangalore. It set out as a summer trip that began in front of a nice porch sign with bold red in yellow etched, ‘Home Of Hope’.
The first greeting was the number of people and the second greeting came from the pungent smell. It assaulted not only the senses but laid dormant our appetite for more than 3 days. There were no exfoliating sand beaches & no wide mountain ranges swimming in a volley of clouds. it was here that I met an old man, always lying down in one corner.1 day, I put him straight and held him while a friend fed him, he with whatever words mustered thanked me with a smile and a tear that rolled down his emaciated cheek and down the ridges that formed in a face devoid of nourishment and years of care. He saw my white gloves and quickly pointed to where it hurt, his feet was swollen. Taking out the first aid kit, cotton swab, cleansing ointment, I disinfected some of the wounds. The next day, the corner was empty and a new batch of immigrants had come in, amongst them a white man who lost all his money and sanity because a voice told him to give all his worldly possessions away to the sadhu in the train. I learned that the old man from yesterday died that night, without a sound, his departure left a silent sense of relief but it did haunt me. And it was here that for the first time that I heard singing, it was quarter past 4 & singing resounded in one corner of the home. The man sitting next to me urged me to go look. A band of 7 shabbily dressed men and women, the mad woman who slept over her baby, the man who lost half his head to an infection, a most saintly white Teresa, singing an irredeemable song to the ears, once heard the hymn did not leave your ears. It seemed as though the place most inhuman had indeed hosted the divine.