Faithline is five years old this month and I can’t thank Indian Express readers enough for keeping it springing with your affection and abuse, for writing so engagingly in the Thursday guest slot, for the insight and information on this huge topic from you and your family elders. Strange, delightful experiences happen because you drop your guard for this subject and let Faithline into fragrant corners of your lives.

It’s lovely when some of you write to say how this column made you explore and write on spirituality yourselves. I notice, too, that spiritual terms are used quite naturally and unselfconsciously now, even in political writing, which betokens a welcome renewal of getting comfier in our skins.

But in the last few months, in my additional assignment as the editor of The Financial Express on Sunday, I’ve had to explain myself all over again to the incredulous. It was Montek Singh Ahluwalia who came up with a most elegant answer when movieman Bobby Bedi ragged me goodnaturedly about it at a friend’s party: “It’s still worship… worship of Mammon,” he said. But since the question comes up so often, here’s a shot at guessing what the place of spirituality might be in a newspaper.

If you think of the newspaper as a farm, the main news pages would be wide acres of staple crops like rice and wheat, right? The sports, entertainment and feature pages would be the spice crops, the mirch-masala. The business pages are the important sabzi mandi with wholesale and retail news. The Op-ed and Edit pages seem like orchards, laden with the fruit of thought. Tucked away then, in the heart of the newspaper, is a small space called Faithline, which is perhaps meant to be the Kesar Bagh, the garden of precious herbs. The quantity isn’t much, but the perfume can be persuasive and pervasive.

If this is so, it seems apt that it was the keeper of this paper’s Kesar Bagh who heard amazing news from Chaudhry Shujat Hussain, president of the Pakistan Muslim League and former prime minister of Pakistan. In Delhi last week, he told me that on March 26, the PML held a Holi Milan in its premises, the first such function by a political party in the history of Pakistan. A local pandit, Ashokji, put tilak on the Chaudhry’s forehead and gulal on his cheeks. Further, said Chaudhry Sahib, when he met L.K. Advani last Thursday, he invited him over in June for a uniquely symbolic function. He will recreate the ancient temple of Loh Lava, son of Sri Rama, after whom Lavapura/Lahore is named: “It is a forgotten ruin in Lahore Fort. But we want Mr Advani to inaugurate its remodeled version.” What do you say but Ae mohabbat zindabad.