Sunday in Amritsar

Amritsar

Amritsar, Punjab: This morning a copy of Hindustan Times was slid under my door. Let's see, RSS praises Rahul Gandhi's village visits, Suicide strike in Peshawar kills 49, 100 injured, Infosys shines in second quarter, Hassanpuri cremated. And here's an interesting one: Brand Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize (Yes He Did). Local media is hitting that one pretty hard: Peace Prize nominations closed 12 days after Obama took office.

Took along walk around this dirty, dusty, smelly, vibrant city this morning after tea. Took me a long time to find an Internet Cafe, but I finally nailed down this Cyber Cafe Association. I'm surprised how many stares, greetings, waves and hallos I'm getting in this city of 1.5 million. Of course the credit goes to my shocking good looks and air of high-bred intelligence and has nothing to do with my height and obnoxious whiteness.

Tonight I preach the second of a five-day series of open air meetings involving over twenty villages. My dad is not preaching. In fact, he didn't make it in the country. In fact, turned back at the gate. Very disappointing. As he tells it in his last newsletter:

"Off I went to India! From St. Louis to Newark, New Jersey and then a 14 hour flight to Delhi. Passing through immigration I had a current passport and a current visa. The officials told me that I should have also brought along the old expired passport from which the visa was originally issued. Because of this arcane technicality they would not allow me to enter the country. They sent me back to the US on the same jet that took me to India! My son Micah landed in Delhi just a few minutes after I arrived. We were to meet outside the airport. He called me as my plane was taxiing down the airway to fly back home. He was very disappointed. I asked him to take my place in the preaching and ministry."

That was a pretty dramatic call actually. Yesterday Simon Haqq, our friend and a Delhi pastor, preached. Tonight I will address the emptiness of life without Christ, using as a catalyst the unhappy lives of Indian celebrities. For instance, Silk Smitha, often called India's Marilyn Monroe, was the sort of extraordinary female talent that "even in [her] rare non-sexual roles ... impressed critics and audiences." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Smitha. She was found dead in her apartment, having allegedly hung herself. Last year, Sharanya Bhagyaraj, a rising Tamil actress, attempted to commit suicide by jumping off the top of her house. In May of this year, Monica Chaudhury, famous print model, hung herself from her ceiling fan, two failed marriages having been cited as causes. And on and on. Indian Cinema is an obsession in this country and its stars are accorded great and near universal reverence. But as in the U.S., so often they are miserably unhappy. They have everything and they have nothing.