Faith runs deep in our veins. There are a few if any ‘non-believers’ amongst Indians, in fact in the whole subcontinent.

God’s own country has God residing in everything. We know God comes to our rescue whenever we want Him to. And if He doesn’t then we can conveniently say: ‘Hey Bhagwan, what did I do wrong that I suffer like this? And then sometimes miraculously things seem to start getting straight and our faith becomes deeper and deeper. And if things remain wayward still, then again we have God as an anchor. Our solace is: ’Eeshwar jis haal me rakhe wahi theek’, ‘Allah ki yahi marzi thi’. Well, at least we feel happy this way.

We say: ‘Kan-kan mein Bhagwan (God resides in everything, every particle)’. And we have songs like: ‘Wo khet me milega, khalihaan me milega, Bhagwan to ae bandey insaan me milega”. Whether we see any God in a ‘kisaan’ and other poor human beings or not is doubtful but sure enough, He miraculously appears in all kinds of drinks and roti-sabzi. It seems now Indian food is the favorite abode of the Almighty.

Who can forget that we had the whole nation running wild, feeding the statues of Lord Ganesha. The Lord coolly obliged the ‘believers’ by drinking milk out of the spoon or other utensils, offered by the devouts visiting the temples all over India. And many a skeptics also ended up believing this awe-inspiring miracle while others attributed this to capillary action. But can this simultaneous countrywide action take place now? Did anyone ever try again? Why not test this capillary action on an idol of some other God, of any religion maybe. It should work as per the logic.

And then there was this miracle when Jesus appeared on a chapatti. Yes, a devout Christian woman in a small suburb of Bangalore overcooked the chapatti. And as it happens in case of burnt chapattis, they seem to form some kind of shape in black. She was amazed to see a face of Jesus Christ formed on the chapatti and she took the chapatti to the church. She was considered a blessed one by the church priest. Needless to say, thousands of devotees thronged the church to get a glimpse of their deity.

Not long ago there was another miraculous food story. A housewife, who was cutting a brinjal for cooking, discovered the sign of Allah inside a vegetable. In March 2003 in Mendhasal village near Bhubaneswar, wife of one Mohammad Khalil, on cutting the brinjal into two, found that the seeds spelled ’Allah’ in Urdu. She informed the Imam of the local mosque about the ‘miracle’. The Imam ordered that the brinjal be kept in the mosque where special prayers were offered and namaz were read. The villagers believed the incident to be miracle. Therefore, the Khalil family is considered a blessed one.

What does all this mean? Is it that we are desperate for some meaning in our lives and will hang on to any straws? Or is it that God actually does flash signals to its faithful, from time to time. These miracles provide answers to our very struggling plight in our chaotic over-populated world where our efforts, more often than not, do not bring fruit. We interpret a message from these miracles: God is not dead. He is there. So He will do justice.

Now, the surprising element about these miracle stories is that it is a Muslim who discovers Allah in a brinjal and not a Hindu. It is a Christian whose chapatti is blessed by Lord Jesus. And although, I doubt it that any Muslim or a Christian tried to feed Lord Ganesha as for that they would need to be involved in a ritual involving an ‘idol’. But if they had tried at all, would they have got the same results?

Well, I have been looking for long to see some holy shape or script to appear in my daal or chai/doodh. When occasionally I gaze directly into the eyes of the perfectly featured Goddesses, I expect some holy light to come out of them, reaching out to me like it does in the movies. Only when I look at the sky I do see sometimes, the white clouds forming some strange shapes but not some God-like signal but rather demonic looking, monster like ever changing shapes. Oh! I sure am not a blessed one. I know it. So I look into the eyes of some poor innocent child, and find all pure things written there. When I help others, I am in my heaven.

A friend sent me this non-food one. Take a deep breath and read it.

There was an atheist couple that had a child. The couple never told their daughter anything about God or Jesus. One night when the little girl was 5 years old, the parents fought with each other and the dad shot the Mom, right in front of the child. Then, the dad shot himself. The little girl watched it all. Then she was sent to a foster home. The foster mother was a Christian and took the child to the church. On the first day of Sunday school, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, "Does anyone know who this is?" The little girl said, "I do, that’s the man who was holding me the night my parents died."

Hey, do you think it’s a miracle? Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” But isn’t this world and this life too a miracle in itself?

Anyway, whatever your belief, at least Ram Gopal Varma, the maker of film ‘Bhoot’, can get some ideas here for his next movie.