It Is Faith That Keeps Us All Going

One morning, a college student, on reaching the library, didn’t know where to leave her bag since the entire rack was full. On the security guard’s suggestion, she left it on the counter, like many others. When she returned an hour later, her bag wasn’t there. Mercifully the mobile wasn’t inside, only Rs 350 and many bits of paper, with random jottings. This was the first such incident. The system ran on faith; until one person shattered it.

The next day, I was at a temple in Banaswadi, near Bangalore. There was a designated place to leave footwear, but not helmets, which are now compulsory. I was wary of leaving it unattended. So, I carried it into the temple.

A security guard, with a disarming smile, stretched out his hands, and offered to keep the helmet safely. His body language infused a lot of faith in me. I involuntarily handed it over to him, but he didn’t give me a receipt. Just as I was about to enter the temple’s inner premises, the previous day’s incident of a girl losing her bag came to my mind. What if I would be the first one to lose something in the temple, and that too my helmet?

No, I won’t take a chance. I turned around. I tore off a piece of paper from the pocket notepad I carry. Splitting it into two pieces, I wrote my name on both. I showed the security guard the tags I had just created. He looked amazed. He obviously wasn’t getting a hang of what I was up to. ‘‘Just to make sure that no one else by mistake picks up my helmet’’, I explained as I tucked one tag under the visor of the helmet and put the other tag into my pocket.

“There’s no need for all this...”, he said. The warmth of the smile - that he sported a couple of minutes back when he offered to keep my helmet safely - was missing. God, did I indicate that I didn’t have faith in him? Am I distrusting someone who is genuinely helpful? Within seconds, did I convert a trusting person into a suspicious one? How would I have felt if the world didn’t have trust in me?

No. I got to be realistic. I drew on my resources of body language and I told him gently in the friendliest tone, ‘‘Just in case; lot of helmets here...’’ He had a reassuring smile.

Yet, I couldn’t still help asking myself: What if I still lost my helmet? What if the guard would have only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘‘I told you there’s no use keeping all these tags’’. I left those thoughts aside as I moved into the temple. When I brought my palms together in prayer, I realised there were more pressing things in life than a helmet - with or without a tag.

When I came back, the helmet was there, but not that security guard. As I picked it up and began walking away, I saw him. With the same disarming smile, he raised his open palms upwards, indicating all was well, not just the helmet, by the Grace of God.

Life is about relationships - matrimonial, parental, sibling, fraternal, friendly and even the one with strangers. It’s faith that sustains a relationship, it fuels our daily lives. Faith need not be spiritual. William Adam, the British businessman navigator, said, “Faith is a continuation of reason’’. Henry Bailey, a British author of medical detective short stories, said, ‘‘Faith is a higher faculty than reason”.

St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, said, “Faith is to believe in what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe”. It’s the faith that we have in one another that makes our lives comfortable.