“Sprityu” is not the only friend of us who claims to be an atheist/agnostic, and still likes to participate in the programs of Korall, including the Sunday services.
We interviewed him in September 2024 about the story of his life, how he became homeless, what he thinks about homelessness in general, how he ended up in Korall and why he stuck with us, and finally, about his plans and desires for the future. It’s not a bedtime story for children…
(Click on the buttons to switch between the chapters of this longer story; the first three are intelligible by themselves.
The thoughts below are Sprityu’s own, they do not necessarily represent the views of Korall Church.)
I was born in a miner’s village. I don’t have siblings, even I was just “stolen” out of my mother, there were no other options. Do you believe that I weighed only 2,1 kilograms?
I lived in that village with my parents until I was 10. We had animals, I got into everything: swine, cattle, cows, hens, roosters, whatever there is. But then my father decided to flee that village, because the mine was closed and he had no other opportunity left to work in that area. That’s how we ended up in a town. Two streets away from us some mentally damaged people lived, some thieves and robbers, but I had the attitude that as long as one doesn’t do something mean to me or others in my environment, I consider them good. I got into the best elementary school so I could successfully fit in the town life.
There were good friendships and gangs among the kids. We had conflicts as anyone else has, but I had a good childhood. I’m convinced that I had a better childhood than kids nowadays do.
In my family, my mother was the strict one. “Why did you get a bad mark? Study, otherwise you won’t get anywhere in life!” Dad was more easy-going, he always protected me. I loved them a lot, there was a good balance between them. That’s why I ended up being neither a bad nor a very good boy. I always liked to participate in mischief, but thank God I never got as low as my father’s family which had a lot of alcoholics. Not him, he decided to break out of that.
I graduated from technical secondary school in 1990 as a chemical mechanic in the town, right after the change-of regime thing.
No jobs anywhere. Where do I go? I started working in construction, because even though my town had one of the biggest chemical factories in the country, no one got hired there anymore. Suddenly they fired me. I had been at home for three months when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper that a pharmaceutical factory in Budapest was looking for employees. I called the number. An Ltd. was delegating there, they hired me right away. And I didn’t leave for the next 22 years.
I even got hired by the factory itself, I earned a pretty good salary for the same work. And I liked it there.
My poor mother never had great health, she got a stroke in 2000 and was paralyzed on her right side. I always told everyone not to pity me, but I felt pity for my father, because I was in Budapest, so he had to take care of her and do everything. Whenever I visited home I got the duties on myself, this is how I got sleep disorder.
After the stroke my mother lived on for seven years. She stayed mentally sound, she had only speech errors, but we got on very well, she could even rebuke me anytime!
Then my father was left alone. Suddenly he got deep vein thrombosis in his leg, and amputation was needed. But he took it easy despite being over 70, he learnt to walk with prosthetics. So we went everywhere.
Meanwhile life went on. Around 2001 in a house party a friend introduced his current girlfriend to me and I got on well with her. Nothing special, hi-hi, done, nothing else. But then they broke up.
And after that the girl started to be even friendlier. She trusted me, we met frequently and one day – bang! That’s what they call sudden… love? I loved her, admired her.
As a person, not as a woman. I could talk about everything with her, she was an educated lady with a college degree. And she was open for a guy with only secondary school paper! All she cared for was my way of thinking. Even though she first thought I was too outspoken, I always told everyone if I didn’t like something and not necessarily with polite words. This is the problem with me, my outspokenness. Often I don’t think, I just outburst and talk dirty. Not as if I was undereducated, only because if one doesn’t understand me the first time, I won’t keep telling them again after twenty! I can’t fudge – my girlfriend told me: “The problem with you is that you are too honest.” And that’s not good either. But should I lie instead?! Later I learnt how to tell someone to buzz off in a nicer way.
For a long time it was one day at my place, one day at hers, then we moved together to Miskolc. In fact we were opposites, she couldn’t stand rock and metal. But she was an awesome girl, she told her opinion about everything too. We never had a fight, but we both loved to argue! Despite all of this, she came with me to some metal concerts, and I joined her for a pop festival. I got sick from it, but that’s a different topic…
God had a plan for us – she said afterwards – because we didn’t plan to have a baby. We did all we could to prevent it.
We wanted to have kids, but at that time we didn’t feel that we had the circumstances we needed… And then “bang”, it happened. Well, I was sooo happy!
Our daughter turned out to be a really cool girl! She loved rock music too – no surprise after her father… She loved her mother too, but for some reason she clinged to me all the time. One time we visited the grandparents in the village, and my friends called me to go to the bar. The 3,5 year old little chick rushed forward: “Two pints of beew and two waspbewwy soda!” She was so silly, I loved her! At five she could write and read without anyone teaching her! I was very surprised when once when she was 4,5 we went to the forest to grill. She saw a car and read the license plate. How do you know that? – I asked. “I’ve learnt.” She was receptive to everything because we didn’t use baby talk to her but the normal speech. She had dark fair hair. My partner had fair har and I had dark brown, that’s why.
She was six when we drove from X to Y inside Miskolc. The kid sat in the back, my partner in the driving seat, me next to her, when a car crashed into us from my side. I was lucky as heck – the police officer said – that I flew out of the car.
I lost consciousness, I got bruised overall, blood flowed everywhere… But I didn’t have internal injuries, only external ones. However, my nerves broke down, because where’s the kid and where’s my woman?! Then an officer approached me: nowhere.
Honestly, I could have killed! They say I was out of my mind. I tossed two policemen as if they were grains of sand.
Father died in the beginning of that month, he was already 86, he got dementia so I was prepared for that. My partner and kid at the end of the month. And I was there. I got a hard concussion, it was brutal, blood flowed from everywhere, my skin came off here and there, but nothing more. Practically I was alright. I was told that someone protected me. But why me? Why not an innocent child or an innocent person?!
I needed three months to more or less recover mentally. That’s where my ex comes into the picture. She has been my friend since, she dragged me out of the marsh. I love her to this day, I trust her. Hadn’t it been for her, I would have gone mad or something worse would have happened. I totally got down. Serious things crawled into my mind. But one of my friends told me: “You are not brave enough to hurt yourself. It requires courage, you are not brave enough for that.” These two with my former teacher helped me out of that phase.
What made me and others was that I actually could get out of it.
I didn’t start drinking. Okay, I drank somewhat more when I had money, not just two beers + two shots, but 6 beers + 3 shots. But I didn’t do it regularly and I didn’t start to get wasted like a bastard. No point in fleeing into booze, that will just tear down your body and everything.
I was in survival mode for a year and a half, I only had the flat where I grew up and lived with my partner and daughter. Then a friend brought me up again to Budapest to live with them, because the place where I had been is now a small town without jobs. In two months I started working at a fast food restaurant. In the pharmaceutical factory before, I had got used to being addressed by the leader as a human, to be treated normally. I could stand for two years in the restaurant being treated like a dog. I left the whole dang place, because my nerves couldn’t bear it anymore. After one week, I had a new job in another pharmaceutical factory where vaccines for pets were developed.
Half a year later the company doctor called me back and said that I can’t work in high pressure places, because I had had a stroke. That pressure value was 35 millibars. Not even an ant would notice that! I got fired. That was the reason I became homeless.
When due to a former stroke the company doctor forbid me to work in high pressure places, I got fired. Next month I couldn’t pay my rent, so they kicked me out of the flat too. I wandered on the streets of Budapest for five days. I went into this place, I went into that place, I didn’t eat, and I rode the bus all through the night¹. I felt terribly bad and awkward.
Then I went to a homeless shelter in the 8th district around 8 p.m.
The boss looked at me from head to toe. “Excuse me, but you shouldn’t come in.” “Why?” “Because if you do, you can throw all your clothes in the trash in the morning²…” You know, I was dressed properly. “What do I do then?!”
I barely could walk by then, but I went on, almost out of my mind. I saw some policemen, and I explained my situation. “What should I do to have a place to sleep? Should I kick hard into the door?” “You get nowhere with that, I will just slap you and tell you to go.” Then they told me about the Baptist shelter in Bánya street that was in the neighborhood, that I should try that one. I rang the bell. First the social worker wanted to send me somewhere else, but then she told me I could spend the night in the container house³, one of the residents must leave tomorrow anyways, so I can move in. They gave me papers, sent me to lung screening and to the disinfectant bath station to check if I have bed bugs. So I was lucky that I got in right away. That day was 18. 12. 2023.
I think I live in one of the best shelters in the city. But I still lack privacy. Many people like me here, but many don’t. You don’t have to like the others, but you should try to accept the other for who he/she is!
Lot of people don’t get this and they can’t. Because they look at things from only one side, they don’t take the other side in consideration.
We also have residents who are a bit silly. For one of them – I assume – it’s an escape mechanism to play crazy. I told the others too not to call him stupid. He is silly for sure, but once you sit down with him for a serious talk, you will see that many don’t even measure up with him intellectually. He just plays the clown. He’s the one I have a great relationship with, he is terribly generous. You can talk with him about anything, including serious topics. It’s just that so much craziness stuck inside of him that sometimes he can’t help bursting out.
After these past months my experience is that many things depend on how the homeless person can conform and compromise.
Loads of people are on the streets partly because they can’t adapt or are totally damaged in the brain. However, there are some who have been here in the shelter for 10-15 years.
Why? Because they could adapt, and behave normally. But if you are stupid and don’t give a hoot about anything… There was a guy whom I really liked, still he had to leave.
The attitude of society doesn’t help either. Today I was in a shelter where there’s a doctor, to rebandage a leg. The doorman came out: “Get your butt out of here, stupid hobos!” His actual words were worse. Even though, if you bump into me on the street, you can’t tell that I’m homeless.
90% of the people condemn someone so drunk that he loses consciousness. “Stupid tramp!” or “Alcoholic swine!”
But maybe in fact that’s a good person, he just got this low mentally and had no help at all. He might be ill as well; not necessarily a bad person. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even I can get into that situation, I just don’t want to. Until 2010 I was a heavy drinker. But one day I thought: Sprityu, you stupid, you waste all the money you could spend on other stuff and you destroy your liver. So I said never again. And I haven’t gone drunk since.
So yes, maybe he’s homeless, maybe he did something bad, but for some it wasn’t their fault that they got here and you can’t tell that just by looking at him! Communication about this in the media and politics is also bad: they suggest that everyone who’s out there is a bad person. I realized that that’s not true when I really got into trouble and the one to came to help was not the strong one who could have been able, but the one who others think is “the bad kind”. Sometimes a well-off person leaves you there, even kicks you: “Drunkard swine!”, while someone who has nothing, like you, an aggressive outcast, comes to help.
So I’m not happy with society, and it’s not just about the homeless, but the attitude in general. Has the brains of people gone so thin that they are so indifferent, like “I don’t care ‘bout anything but myself”?! You might get into a situation where you need help!
This story happened at a metro station in Buda one evening: A guy was lying there, so I approached him. “Why would you go there?! Surely he’s wasted!” “What if he’s not?” I went there, by that time the back of his neck had gone totally stiff, he wasn’t alive. I called this and that. “Well, why did you have to go there?” – people said. “But if he had just been sick? Should I have left him there to die?!” When the police came, they shook hands with me and thanked me for trying to help.
Of course it matters how we help. Never by giving booze! That has no point.
But be brave enough to go there to ask if that homeless person you see needs something! Maybe he’ll say “Go to hell!”, but if he’s okay, he will talk to you and you can figure out how you can help.
¹ Many travel on buses through the night, fleeing from the cold.
² Several shelters are so infected with bed bugs that after just a one-night stay, it is safer to get rid of all of one’s clothes.
³ The container house is outside of the building. It has a few bunk beds and a closet for those, who for some reason (e.g. they lack personal documents or a valid certification of being tuberculosis-free, etc.) do not comply with legal regulations that are required for a bed inside a shelter.
Around February 2024 a guy in the shelter told me: “The Baptists are coming here. Are you coming down?” “But I’m not religious.” “Still you should come, it’s a lot of fun!” I thought to myself, why not? I don’t have anything to do, I can’t go anywhere, let’s see what the company is like. The first thing I told you was that I don’t believe in God. You responded you don’t care about that. “You believe in something anyways!” So first I was worried what you will think of me, then I just stuck here…
This group accepted me. I love you all, because you look at what kind of a person I am. I made friends here, at least I hope I can use these words.
Christie, Zsófi, Gerdine, Janet – we can always communicate with one another. That’s what I miss, you know, company! I can’t have a good conversation with everyone in the shelter. With Michel we can have fun, because he has his own views and I have my own as well. And where these views get in harmony, we get on well. True, once I was teasing him so much that he sent me away to have a cigarette! [laughs]
With your crew I can talk about serious topics, but also just joke around. I’ve told Michel: “You are pretty crazy when you’re in that mood.” I love that guy. Maybe because we’re the same age. For a long time I didn’t even realize that Janet is his wife, because she is so much more serious! I’m really fond of her. She has a vibe I can’t describe. Even language is no problem. There’s Gerdine for example, she’s been in Hungary for one year. Practically, we understand each other. True, it’s like Charades sometimes, but I feel like we understand. Michel and Janet speak Hungarian too, I can have a discussion with both of them. Even though they say Hungarian is a very difficult language.
Michel often asks me:
“Are you coming on Sunday?” “Sure, what else should I do?” Humans are social beings. I miss being together somewhere with someone I know.
That’s why it doesn’t matter that we don’t have much time to chat after the service; on some level we are still together, and… Sometimes you share even smart stuff I haven’t heard before. But the bottom line is that I like you as humans. And because the music is live and not playback…
Every now and then, I am in pieces mentally, but if I can have just 3-4 sentences of talk with you, you can put me together again. And you don’t want to convert me.
You even told me just recently: it should be my decision if I want it or not. I haven’t experienced e.g. Jesus or God visiting me in a dream yet.
And don’t get mad at me, but maybe he never will. I am at church because of the human thoughts. Because I love you all. Many times I got disappointed in religion back in the past, since a lot of people tried to take me to different churches. On the other hand, there was my father, a terribly non-religious person with a Catholic priest as his best buddy, the one who christened me. They were terrific friends. So it’s all about acceptance, from both sides.
I just had a discussion with János about my Darwinian theory. He had a totally normal attitude, we had a really good half-an-hour chat, we listened to each other’s perspective. I said: “Excuse me, I believe that we climbed down from the tree and my chest is not hairy because I didn’t climb, but slipped.” He really liked this joke! And accepted my point of view. I’ve studied microbiology, for me it’s still against belief.
What I don’t like about Korall is hypocrisy.
I go there as an honest “unbelieving pagan dog” – as a priest once called me long ago – and I don’t pretend like shouting “Amen!” and “Halleluja!”
But many people, not everyone of course, are very pious during the service, but outside they talk to one another like a bear with a sore head. This gets on my nerves, this is what I don’t like about Korall.
The other annoying thing is that during the worship or sermon, the chatter goes on and on in the back. Would you please honor the other person when he shares something at the pulpit?! Even I listen, even I pay attention. – Because you sometimes say good things too… [laughs]
I believe that Jesus existed, he probably was a naturopath. Call me narrow-minded, but I can only believe what I see, what I can grab. I would need something to touch me, calling me to go. But the whole thing is so fairy tale-like, e.g. that Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ father, but it was the Holy Spirit who came upon Mary. I just can’t get over this.
I don’t believe that God exists. If he does, I’m angry with him. I’m angry, because he allows all these things to happen in the world:
Why do so many people need to be killed? Why must he call to himself the good people and not the bad ones?! I would not get on well with him. So many good people die who should not! Why doesn’t he take better care of them? Why doesn’t he watch carefully? And he could kill his own son for my sins?! But what did I do, what was my sin?! This needs to be explained! But we will talk about it anyway…
I like Korall, because I sense no pretending in the feeling and attitude of it. I say this as an outsider: there are churches that are about acting. What did Jesus say? He doesn’t need wealth, he doesn’t need a glittery castle, he doesn’t need anything! He is everywhere in the souls of the people who accept him. But look at certain churches! They are almost collapsing under the weight of their treasures!
At other places, the pastors care about the community, just like you do.
You care about the sheep: the person himself.
“You are just too lazy to work” – people say. But I beg you to hear me out! I can’t do physical work, partly because of the strokes I had and partly because of my knee prosthesis.
Chemical industry is my place. I loved doing it, but they have been cutting the number of employees for five years now, and everyone has to do everything.
It’s not like you’re the final product person and the other person is the active ingredient person. Now I’m in the trap of the plant manager only being able to hire me if the company doctor approves, because I might be producing raw materials today, but tomorrow I have to go to the final product department.
There are people who are comfortable even in homeless shelters. It suits them perfectly, they don’t even want to break out of it. But I definitely want to leave. I’ve had enough of this. It’s really bad to be dependent on others to survive, to have somewhere to sleep, to have somewhere to live, to have food.
I don’t want a luxurious palace, just to be able to take care of myself normally on my own, without help, and then the rest can come after that.
Let’s start with renting, then after several years I could at least buy a small apartment, a basement. It would be possible if I could work where I want; I could save a lot very quickly, since I don’t drink, I don’t wander around. It’s very easy to build this in my head. But making it real – that’s the hard thing.
Then family. Children. I’ve already been given that once, and I miss it. Having a family.
Right now I don’t even want anything else: work, family, a secure livelihood. They say I’m not yet late at the age of fifty.
The problem is that this is such a sensitive topic for me. How should I put it? It hurts to start, because it’s still very much ingrained in my soul. I miss the child very much. Of course, the mother too, but the girl…
I promised myself that if I had another daughter, I would definitely call her Anna. One of my nieces was named Anna, and you could call her Panni or Panna, and I really like that name. In fact, I’m going to be the godfather of a little girl now, she’s one month old, and she was also given the name Anna. I like to brag about it… I see so many similarities between that little girl and mine. An awful lot. She’s still small, right, but the grimaces and the hand gestures – as if I were seeing my own daughter…
So if the company doctor now said, okay, you can go to work, then I think we would only see each other by the end of the year if I came here to visit the Bánya shelter. That’s what I want to happen.
Because I won’t leave you guys anyway, I’ve grown to love you. And it’s so good to just chat.
