Jesus Christ of Marine Drive

A Story by Arun Raj

Jesus Christ of Marine Drive

Remember that Joan Osborne song, “If God was one of us...” Ah... I love that one. Some part of my right brain got that song recorded; it kept playing as the background score at some odd and offbeat moments of my life. For these many years I am stuck with these lyrics

“If God had a name, what would it be?
And would you call it to his face,
If you were faced with Him in all His glory?
What would you ask if you had just one question?

If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like Heaven and in Jesus and the saints, And all the prophets?”

We gave God different names; we drew different faces for him. I doubt whether Almighty would be really happy with these efforts of ours. I presume you would be also annoyed when your real name gets crooked by someone or when your caricature drawn has not even telescopic similitude to your real appearance. Yet we defined God (I should say Gods) in our own terms.

Last Sunday, I was strolling around Marine Drive taking a break from duty at my boat. Right on the walkway I saw the creator's creation being created. An artist was drawing Jesus Christ’s crucifixion portrait with chalk and charcoal. I had seen it before, the same artist drawing pictures of different Hindu Gods and also of Jesus Christ. I was not interested to pay attention to his efforts earlier. I rather considered it as a distraction factor for the boat business, people there to enjoy the marine-drive walkway or may be a boat ride getting stuck with someone drawing a God's picture on the pavement. Might be because of my mind reaching the threshold of getting confined with questions to ask God, I decided to be a spectator that day to see “Messiah's Crucifixion” being chalked out. THE IRONY - the artist who creates Gods of all sort and Jesus Christ on the walkway is crippled, he has his both palms amputated. He sits right there on the walkway and starts his drawing process by cleaning the pavement area for the portrait. He clutch the charcoal or the chalk piece in between his amputated limbs. He then bends the upper part of his body towards the floor, with his amputated limbs holding the chalk or charcoal piece between his face and the floor. He then moves it in all the different ways and directions, to give birth to mighty Gods and Jesus Christ, with high level of concentration and sacrificing all his energy on the busy walkway. All soaked in his own sweat, it takes him 2 hours or more hours to complete each picture. He does two pictures in a day, one in the morning and second one in the evening. If it is Hindu God Siva or Ganesa in the morning, it will be Jesus Christ in the afternoon. There is a cheap white plastic bag placed near to the portrait and you could donate money if you are humane enough, it is his way of living. It is OK even if you don’t contribute, he create Gods for free.

I wanted to ask him, “how he lost his palms?” But seeing the bright smile on his sweated face, that question got evaporated to the murky atmosphere and along with it some of the questions which I had to ask God also got dissolved to the back of my mind.

I said to him, “Hello…”

He replied, “It is about to rain, otherwise I would have added more colors.....” (He smiled)

“Your Jesus Christ is perfect; it’s real & pure. You don’t worry about colors”. I said in my mind.

Joan Osborne started singing again in my head....

“What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make His way home?

Just trying to make His way home
Like a holy rolling stone
Back up to Heaven all alone
Just trying to make His way home”