CAROLS ACROSS FAITH

HAPPY Christmas in advance, dear readers.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

For someone trapped in the English language as I was in my formative years, the Bible contained wonderful calls to faith, such as, 'For God is not a God of confusion but of peace', Corinthians 14:33. I also loved what Jesus said in Matthew 11:30, 'For my yoke is easy and my burden is light', which is the concluding part of a passage where Jesus invited those who were weary and burdened to come to him for rest.

I felt such verses applied to me, too, as a Hindu, and they reinforced my own, then mute, attachment to Sanatana Dharma. At that stage, I used the Bible to light my path to my own home as a Hindu, realising that Hindus didn't have one holy book; they had a library. Except that our books were somehow inaccessible when I was growing up, whereas the Bible came so easily to me in English, satisfying my inchoate inner yearning for a God-connection.

While I knew I would stay loyal to my Hindu identity, I also felt, "What's not to love about Jesus?" As a little girl, I wept reading about the Stations of the Cross, and fiercely wished that I could have given Jesus a drink of water on his last, sorrowful journey. It still affects me deeply. When I grew older, I became greatly attached to four books in the Old Testament. They were Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs and The Song of Solomon. Ecclesiastes seemed like an Upanishad to me in its wisdom. Psalms were raw emotion and deep faith. Proverbs gave me social and emotional direction while The Song of Solomon seemed like Jayadeva's lyrical Gita Govindam in its intense bhakti bhava.