It was the sort of thing that even gives us agnostics goose pimples. The thrill of waiting with Maulana Wahiduddin, a distinguished Muslim scholar, in his wonderful beige headgear, for the Chief Rabbi of Israel — every bit the picture in his tall black hat, shaking hands, saying hello. Both the maulana and the rabbi pledging themselves, as Children of Abraham and as People of the Book. But distances have grown and are wider than the special tearoom where top Jewish and Muslim clerics/scholars met. An interaction that was sometimes translated, from Hebrew to English, but in the end, the same language, a call for peace — in the bloodied region.

The monotheistic bases of both faiths, the common diets and lifestyles, were emphasised. In fact, in something that qualifies for Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Prophet Mohammed initially had urged people to pray facing Jerusalem. It is only later things altered dramatically. Beyond repair, some would say. Unlike war, peace has a bad habit of not breaking out in a hurry, especially as there are so many who then have a stake in keeping things messy.

It was an hour, perhaps longer, than the seven days it may have taken to create the world, as it held so many possibilities. It was about the most ‘secular’ (that is non-religious) things, like avoiding attacking prayer homes, the rights of Arabs to go back to where they once belonged, but it carried the most deep and divine sermon that can ever be given — on the right of human beings to live. The right not to be attacked while waiting for a bus, or the right to not have to give birth in camps and to not see a whole generation knowing only tents for roofs.

... contd.