Luke At My Place

Among the younger Calvary Care Home children, Luke was the only one who had not yet been to my place. He was away when other boys came for the first time. During this Chinese New Year break, I planned to pay his older brother Mark a visit and return his money which he had asked me to keep. Since I did not know where exactly they were living, Luke automatically became my guide to their grandmother's house at Rembia and then my guest at Paya Rumput.

I also invited Daniel along. Then I suddenly assumed that he might prefer to put up at his mother's house which was also at Paya Rumput, instead of mine that night. My thought was confirmed by Daniel and approved by his mother. After we dropped him, we went to Luke's relatives' house. Mark and his other family members had just left with their van five minutes earlier. Thank God Luke's uncle managed to arrange us to meet at a corner at Rembia.

Not as attached to his mother as Mark, Luke happily followed me after we said goodbye to his family members. As soon as he reached my place, he continued to play a CD which he had started in my car.

While I was preparing his favorite soup noodles in the kitchen, Luke adjusted the volumn to the maximum. Living between two Indian houses, I never heard any Tamil pop songs from my neighbours. In this Chinese New Year season, my house was the one who bombarded them with Tamil songs!

Unlike Paul and David, this boy did not ask for any computer games. While the television was showing evening news, I told him the importance of knowing what was happening in the world. Later I let him watch "The Chronicles of Narnia" on DVD.

The next morning, Luke who usually took a long time to wake up and get up at the Care Home surprisingly came out from his bedroom soon after I knocked on the door and called him. We prayed for everybody at the Care Home before we took our breakfast. Then we got ready to leave the house

to fetch Daniel, Uncle Seelan and Matthew from three different places to church. Tamils songs were being played one after another in my car while we were conversing in English. There was a strange combination of ethnics, generations and languages. Thanks to our cheerful boy Luke, I began to appreciate one of the songs and asked him to write down the phonetic transcription so that I could sing along in future.

If you hear loud Tamil music from my house next time, I might be the one who is playing it!