The man who decided to live for lord

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The irritant look that naturally comes to rest on a man’s face who has been kept waiting for some time is hardly discernible on Ravi Zacharias, the famous evangelist and speaker. This apologetic reporter bashful of his own neglect of punctuality is, instead, offered a warm smile and a warmer cup of coffee. Zacharias, who was in the city for a talk on his book ‘The Grand Weaver’,  has a clean-shaven face, topped by an even spread of white hair. The Indian-born American evangelist, who is the author of 25 books, speaker in about 90 universities all around the globe and a senior research fellow at Oxford University, still loves doting on the episode of a failed suicide attempt in his life. At the age of 17, he poisoned himself more out of his own sense of inferiority as a dull student than because of his inability to digest the lessons of catering management. ‘’I was deeply worried. My brother and sister were too bright. One day, I thought I should die and drank poison,’’ he says. For Ravi, the turning point happened right there at the hospital. His stomach was cleansed and medicated and, in the meanwhile, the real purgation had begun in his mind. ‘Because I live, you also shall live’. Of all the lines his mother read out from Bible, these lines from ‘Gospel of John’ moved him deeply. The boy who used to be dragged for masses in church by his father reinvented himself as he lay convalescing in the hospital. ‘’That was the turning point. Never before had I felt so strongly attached to God,’’ he says. He went on to pursue his Bachelors in Theology and Masters in Divinity at Trinity International University, Florida and founded the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, which has branches in ten countries. ‘Well-spring international’ and ‘Touch of hope’, the humanitarian arms of his foundation, rescue women from prostitution, people from destitution and provide scholarships to children from slums.  He gleams with pride talking about his roots. ‘’My grandfather and great grandfather had compiled the first Malayalam-Malayalam-English dictionary  titled Zacharias and Zacharias dictionary. My grandfather was the first English lecturer to be appointed at Madras Christian College by the British.’’ Do you speak Malayalam? ‘’The only Malayalam I know is what my father spoke when he used to scold me as a child. I don’t think I have to repeat those words here,’’ he smiles.