Sometimes as the evening turns grey in winter, I reach out to read a newspaper—in fact, a stack of them—hoping for some nugget of hope to clutch onto. There is a mediocrity about information that is stunning, almost as if storytelling is taboo. One dips into a collage about a leadership summit to find a distressing banality. It makes no difference where the leader is from—be it Obama or Ambani, the assessment is trivial, tepid; it touches no moral nerve, it only adds to the stupor of indifference. Be it Modi or Rahul, one realises it is a battle about inanity, where even tea is forced into tepidity by the stupidity of politics. In all these, two men stood out—one a global figure, one a local one. The first is the Pope and the second, Thomas Macwan, both religious personae, incidentally Christian. Neither talks about spirituality, neither waxes hypocritical like a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the environment. Both are tough-minded and economical, neither is pompous about religion, but takes the responsibility, the ethical challenge of religion seriously.