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Denis Giles

13 July 2018

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The small fan I’d bought just three months back, made a series of grunts and came to a grinding halt. With much experience, having travelled in Mumbai locals, I whipped out a comb, inserted it into the grill and turned the blade, but unlike the success I’d had in those old trains, these fanblades refused to move. Disappointed, I called my driver and told him to take it to the electrician. He came back in ten minutes, “Made in China fan sir! Electrician says it can’t be repaired!”

It had hardly lasted three months and had gone kaput! Today, I see more of such products coming from our great neighbor,fading away shamelessly without a whimper.

A few years ago, while shopping in Hong Kong, I decided to buy myself a colourful cardigan. I found one, it was a Tommy Hilfiger and paid quite a price for it. While unpacking, back home in India, I turned the sweater inside out to see where it had been made and wasn’t I pleasantly surprised to see a ‘Made in India’ label?

“Jai Hind!” I whispered proudly.

And more and more am I seeing our label throughout the world. While in America at the beginning of this year, I bought a coloured mug and found I was taking home what had been made at home! I smiled and felt proud, our products were now good enough to be sold in high end retail stores!

And as I handle the cardigan and mug today, I think of their manufacturing factories where they’veobviously kept strict adherence to quality; no compromises in finish, good grade raw materials, disciplined workers and strict supervision, all culminating in world class products.

Today we export Yoga to the world. There’s no doubt in the qualitative difference it makes in the lives of individuals; reducing stress, calming troubled minds, healing illnesses and bringing peace and stillness in chaotic situations.

The world loves this Made in India product and turns to India with smiles of gratitude, many even coming across the ocean to visit the source, the factory where this wonderful product is being manufactured.But do they see such tranquility and calm here?

Just as the factory which makes a quality product reveals a high degree of excellence, does our nation show the same calm, peace and stillness yoga reveals?

Shouldn’t it?

As exporters of a meditative process that has already got for itself a day assigned for it, let our nation too show the world those same characteristics of understanding, tolerance, lack of prejudice, patience and quiet,Yoga brings.

I hold aloft the cardigan and mug with pride and hope, and pray that soon I will also hold to the world the calm and peace that exists in our land, which we export under the label, Made in India..! 

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Denis Giles

29 June 2018

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As I heard about the tragic plane crash a few miles from my home, my thoughts went back to another crash in which my uncle a fighter pilot was involved. He retired as a very senior officer in the Indian Air Force, but this happened when he was much younger, “His plane caught fire!” said my grandmother to six- year old me, “But angels lifted him out of the aircraft and brought him safely down!”

“Why?” I’d asked, “Many pilots die, why was only he rescued?”

“Because I prayed for him all the time!” said my grandmother, very matter of fact.

It was this same grandmother who taught me, that whatever I needed, to pray about it, and God would give it to me. “But always have a picture in your mind of God answering that prayer Bob!” she said.

Many years later when in my twenties, the Maruti 800 was making a big impact on Indian roads, I remembered my grandmother’s words,and with trembling hands cut a picture from a magazine of a gleaming red 800, placed it under a glass on my desk, looked at it, prayed for it everyday, and six months laterit happened, the only difference, I settled for white!

It was not just material things, I used this power of picturization and prayerisation everywhere. There were times one or other of my daughters would call me from school, “Dad my legs are hurting so badly, please come and pick me up!” I would get on my knees and pray and see my child with no ache, then get into my car, now a Tata Estate and drive breakneck to her school, and find her grinning at the gate, “Daddy, the pain just disappeared!”

Over two thousand years ago, a young Jesus who was healing the sick and bringing to life those who were dead told everybody, “Even if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May God uproot you and throw you into the sea, and it would obey you!’

Around two decades ago, another young man who wanted to start an orphanage would visit my home for donations, and while leaving would say, “Please pray for me!”

One day, I got impatient and asked him, “Pray for what?”

“For my orphanage to come up!” he said.

“How big do you want it to be?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” he whispered.

“Picture how big you want it to be, then pray that picture to God, and let’s watch it becoming possible!” I told him. “The three Ps, “Picturize, Prayerize and Possibilize!”

He listened, and it’s now a huge complex with buildings and guest houses, called Anand Ashram, houses over a hundred boys and an old folks home.

Yesterday’s tragic crash brought memories of another crash and reassuring thoughts of a faithful God..! 

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Denis Giles

06 July 2018

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It was a little boy living in Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram, which houses India’s rocket base who told me he’d seen most members of the ruling party climbing into a Time Machine, which had taken them back in time. “They said, there was nothing they could do about the present, so they thought they’d go back into India’s past!” said the little boy, speaking to me in Malayalam.

“I wonder what they’re finding out!” I pondered loudly.

“There’s a black box, that tells you what they’re seeing now,” said the little fellow as he led me to the entrance of the Time Capsule and pressed a switch. I heard the voice of Mumbai’s former police chief who was now a junior minister, “This is marvelous!” he said in chaste Hindi, “Look at all those planes. I told you India had aircraft in those days! Our technology was the greatest, see that plane doesn’t even have an engine!”

Another voice piped in, “India had internet thousands of years ago. Look, I am whatsapping King Ashoka and see all the Chola rulers from the south have formed a whatsapp group!”

I heard a familiar voice, “Mitron, I can see Mrs Gandhi reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf!I told you she was a Hitler, not me!”

The door of the machine opened and all the members of the ruling party stepped out, big grinsacross their faces, what with having actually seen supersonic aircraft, internet and Hitler type dictators in India’s past. But the little boy was shaking his head and pointing to another machine standing next to this one. I suddenly understood what he was saying and rushed to the group “Sirs, I think there’s been a mistake!” I said humbly.

“Bah you journalists!” said the familiar voice, “Didn’t I tell you Indira Gandhi was Hitler?”

“Didn’t I tell you we had airplanes thousands of years ago!” said another.

“And I whatsapped King Ashoka!” sneered the other member of the ruling party.

“But sirs!” I said, pointing to the machine they had just stepped out from, and gesturing to the little boy who had actually found the mistake, “Sirs, you all entered the Dream Machine by mistake!”

There was pin drop silence as the little boy pointed to the other machine next to this one, “Sirs, he says that that is the Time Machine, this one you all have come from makes your favouritedreams and fantasies into reality while you are in it! Why don’t we all go into the Time Machine and see the truth?”

The little boy and I stood next to the Time Machine, as the group just walked away.

“Nobody wants to know the truth!” said the little boy from Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram in Malayalam. 

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Denis Giles

22 June 2018

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After my morning walk, I sit for an hour on my terrace garden, savoring my pot of delicious coffee. All around me I hear the sounds of birds and squirrels, as the peepul tree towering over me provides a home to them and peace for me. As I sip away, different smells start drifting up to me; that of breakfasts being prepared by loving hands. There’s the aroma of aloo paratha, the whiff of an omelette, the crisp smell of a dosa, there’s bacon and eggs rising somewhere, and all the pleasant odours drift upto me, and enhance the beautiful mood I am in.I feel a stillness.

And as I drift into this time of sheer tranquility, I wonder whether I’ve ever heard one smell cry to another, “Hey, you’re intruding into my space!”

“You’re smelly please tone down!”

“Stop crackling while you’re frying! You stink. You’re too noisy!”

No, all these different smells from different kitchens, go through their many chimneys, then joining together in friendly harmony float to the sky as one perfumed fragranceof love!

But then come people; leaders who feelsome particular smells are not needed: They look at loving hands that make the dosa, fry theomeletteor place the potato in the paratha, then scowl as in another kitchen a different smell, tells of another breakfast being made?

“Hey!” say the different aromas sadly as they drift up into the sky the next day, “One of us is missing?”

“He’s been banned!” says the dosa and the others drift up in silence.

Time goes by and same leaders ban one or the othertill only two remain. Slowly all the chimneys start giving out the same smell, as loving hands make the same food, till one day, the same aromasdrifting up from different kitchens see something amiss, “Looks like two chimneys have no smells coming from them?”

“They’ve been banned!” say the others sadly.

“Why?”

“Because they used an inferior oil!”

And the next day only one smell remains, the otherbanned as it came from food cooked by hands from the south. But even that one smell remaining shivers, as it sees same leaders coming with a ban notice, and then it sadly sings:

First they bannedBeef And I did not speak out Because I was not Beef,

Then they came for the Omelettes And I did not speak out Because I was not an Omelette.

Then they banned the Dosa And I did not speak out Because I was not aDosa

Then they came for the Aloo Parathas And I did not speak out Because I was not anAloo Paratha,

Now they’re coming for me And there is no one left to speak out for me!

There are no birds, no squirrels, nothing but the stench of fear from the chimneys..! 

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