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- Denis Giles
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Friendships made in childhood are invaluable, but quite often I come across old acquaintances who’ve done well in life, not interested in meeting childhood friends who life has dealt with less favourably.
An uncle of mine told me an incident of how when he was a high-ranking officer, he had a childhood friend who was just a truck driver. One day he took his friend, the truck driver, to another officer’s place for a game of Bridge. As they sat down he noticed that the other man seemed distracted, “Anything wrong?” asked my uncle.
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- Denis Giles
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A car was honking behind me, “Let him pass!” I told my driver, and my driver quite reluctantly gave way. I smiled as I remembered a story about a doctor who was called one evening for an urgent surgery for a little boy. He answered the call, changed his clothes, reached the hospital in minutes and went directly to the surgery block. He found the boy's father waiting in the hall for the doctor. On seeing him, the dad yelled: "Why did you take all this time to come? Don't you know that my son's life is in danger? Don't you have any sense of responsibility?"
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- Denis Giles
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The little boy was weeping outside the closed doors of the church. His tears flowed like tsunami waves down his check. A stranger passing by, stopped and enquired, “Why are you crying little boy, that too outside a church?”
The little boy looked up to the stranger and said, “The priest could not pray for my mother! She’s dying, but before I could reach the priest to ask him to pray for her, the doors were closed!”
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- Denis Giles
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What is it that is blinding our people? A bridge that stretches out into the sea, tunnels, metros and bullet trains that cut short travel time and that speak of a new India, equal to the west. They think they see progress.
But is it?
In my recent visit to New York, it was a strange sight I saw. Not just subways, gigantic bridges and lengthy tunnels. Oh yes, they were all there, but what I saw was freedom written on the faces of people.
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- Denis Giles
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Years ago one of the first songs I loved playing on my harmonica was the Negro Spiritual, “Gone Are The Days.” It was a sad song and had a plaintive melody but ended with the words, “I’m coming!” as the black slave sang out to his God that he would soon be with Him. A friend sent me these words below, which reminded me of the same song and days gone by:
Gone are the days when we queued up in the book depot, and got our new books and notes. The days when we wanted two Sundays and no Mondays, yet managed to line up daily for the morning prayers.