FLEETING MEMORIES OF A SHORT-LIVED VOCATION

PART I  -  PARADISE GAINED

I grew up in the 1950s in the rural environments of Kaipuzha in Central Kerala. Our days were spent in activities revolving around the school, the church and the paddy fields. Unlike today when our lives are saturated with all things western – clothes, food, music, gadgets etc., western influence was only beginning to seep in. One of the first symbols of western lifestyle that crept into our lives in those days was ‘bread’; yes, the same bread that is sine qua non of our daily diet these days. We recited the Lord’s Prayer many times during the day in which we asked God to “give us this day our daily bread”. However, this expression’s mother-tongue translation into Malayalam referred to ‘bread’ as our ‘daily nourishment’ in the form of appam which is made of rice. In the original prayer as taught by Jesus it is bread made from wheat as in the ‘Modern Bread’ of today. Because of its rarity in my days, bread was all the more delicious.

The longing for this rare and tasty commodity was the reason I patiently awaited the arrival of the ‘breadwallah’ (rotikaran). He had a bakery in the nearby village of Neendoor. Like most travelling salesmen of the time, he would carry his stuff on his head in a wide-rimmed basket made of bamboo splinters, similar to the one used for transporting coconuts. It would contain goodies like ‘rusks’, ‘buns’, biscuits, and of course bread. As soon as he put the basket down, I would grab whatever I could lay my hands on and run off to a safe distance beyond the grasp of my mother. She would be shouting to me to bring everything back so that a proper tally could be done and the correct payment made. I would have none of it, knowing very well that some of the stuff could be confiscated and returned. The trick was to take a bite of each item so that they could not be taken back, just like today’s children who would lick the ice-cream as soon as they get it so that their brother or sister becomes repugnant to touch it. My mother would be forced to shell out more than what she would have liked.

Children then were innocently naughty unlike those of today who are more calculating. When it came to matters of Church, my friends and I took part in all its activities and functions. At some time during our lives we were altar boys. We helped the sacristan light the candles; we assisted at mass held in Syriac, (Suriani), not a word of which we understood; we used coconut shell charcoal to get the fire in the thurible going for ‘incensing’; we made sure the vestments were folded neatly and kept back in the cupboards; and so on. This closeness to Church had its side effects, one of which was that many of my contemporaries were called to the religious life. It was a time when parents prayed hard that God may bless them with a son as priest and a daughter as nun.

The vocation to dedicate oneself to the service of God is manifested in many ways. St. Peter, a fisherman, heeded on a whim Jesus’ call to be part of His messianic mission. St. Paul, who was a tormentor of Christians, converted after his fall from his horse and had visions in which Jesus called him to spread the messianic message to the gentiles. St. Francis of Assisi was the son of a rich cloth merchant who, after he had a vision, gave up all his riches and a life of debauchery to follow God’s call; he later founded the Order of Franciscans. My call to the religious life also came through a ‘vision’ I had while watching a short documentary film. After mass on a Sunday it was announced that The Salesians of Don Bosco would be screening a film at the forane church at Kaipuzha that evening. With hardly anything to do on a Sunday evening, I took a leisurely walk to the church along with some of my friends.

The documentary dealt with the average day in the life a typical Salesian. He is seen teaching, running orphanages, managing secondary schools and colleges - in general catering to the young generation. This is all done with a smile. It also showed the life of an aspirant to priesthood in the Salesian Order; how he gets up at the stroke of five, silently does his morning ablutions, silently walks in line to the church for the morning mass, silently walks in line from there to the study hall where he spends an hour after which he silently walks towards the refectory where the supervisor brother asks God’s blessings over breakfast and the bell is rung and the holy silence is broken. Breakfast is followed by 30 minutes of cleaning the entire place, again supervised by brothers. Classes follow; then lunch; more classes; games; shower; study; supper; evening walk; night prayers in chapel; good night message by a priest; back to dormitory. Other than at times of silence, the screen is filled with laughter, gaiety and carefree merriment. The aspirants also go for day long picnics and outings. Great fun is had by all and is highlighted in the documentary at every opportunity.

More than all the fun and games, what glued me to the screen was a particular scene. While taking the viewer around the campus at Thirupattur, where the Salesians have their training centre for initiates to their congregation, the camera slowly pans the mechanized bakery and lo and behold: there come out hundreds of loaves of bread on a conveyor belt! For me that scene was akin to Paul’s vision of Jesus. This is it, I said to myself. This is God’s clear sign to me. I felt something stirring within me. I felt God’s call. It was pangs of hunger which in my greed for that rare commodity ‘bread’ I (mis)took as hunger for God’s love. There and then I decided to dedicate my life to the religious life as a Salesian priest. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways!

The entire family came along with me to Pachalam, in Ernakulam where the late Fr. Francis Guezou was starting a house. After spending two days there, I was sent to the Salesian aspirantate at Thirupattur. It is a boarding school where one is slowly and subtly introduced to ways of religious life. Though I was just promoted to form IV at my home school, I was demoted to form III since my English was not good enough. There I was transported into a completely alien world – hostel life at its strictest. Mass, meditation, visits to the chapel, rosary, prayers, classes, study and games filled the day. Every moment from waking up to an hour after going to bed is supervised by a brother, lest the aspirants succumb to some impure temptation or other. Purity was an obsession with St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesian Congregation. So much so biology was banned from our matric curriculum lest the pre-teen boys learn about human reproductive system with dire consequences to their chastity. While going for walks, one is expected to cast one’s eyes downwards, so as to avoid looking at a passing woman or girl, which might lead to impure thoughts and result in loss of grace and heaven.

John Bosco’s mottos was “catch them young” and indoctrinate them, something similar to what the communists do to their young. The methods are similar; what is different is the aim. With Don Bosco it is blind love of God leading to selfless service to fellow humans. The communists on the other hand decry social class divisions and aim to instill hatred of the bourgeois in the proletariat. For one it is salvation; for the other revolution. Both brainwashing and indoctrination are very powerful tools in the wrong hands, as is seen with Tamil Tiger and Muslim suicide bombers. They do completely alter one’s mindset. Since these two are mostly used for nefarious purposes, they are condemned by one and all; however, no such condemnation is forthcoming when these same methods are used in the name of love of God and service to man! In addition how every word, motion, gesture, action, emotion is critically observed, analyzed and reported to some superior in the feudalistic hierarchy of the seminary was to dawn on me only after I took the plunge. In fact, the entire Catholic Church is entrapped in a feudalistic mindset, from which it is unable or unwilling to escape. By the time I joined the novitiate at Yercaud under Fr.Egidio Sola, a plump mild mannered Italian, I, along with most of the novices, could be canonized alive. Paradise gained.

[Post Script: Part 2 will shed light on my life in Paradise at Yercaud and how it was lost! Acknowledgement is due to John Milton whose poems inspired the subtitles. In my case I first gained paradise and then lost it. In his case he married and then wrote “Paradise Lost”; later, after his wife deserted him, he merrily penned “Paradise Regain’d”.]

[Published in the June 2009 issue of Snehasandesham]

AYYANETH’S “THIRUSESHIPPU” : AN APPRECIATION

Ayyaneth

Last week I came across the book Thiruseshippu (relic) by Pathrose Ayyaneth (1928-2008) published in 1967. A prolific writer, he has penned 40 novels, 10 short story collections, a few plays and articles. His first novel that accidently fell into my hands was Kodungattum Kochuvallavum (A small boat in the storm). While looking for a book without pages torn off at the Kottayam Public Library where most books suffer this surgery, I found Ayyaneth’s book on a damp unpolished table. I had never heard of this author. It is the story of a Catholic family’s downward journey from respectability to total disintegration, caused to a large extent by leading their lives based on the distorted values built on religious myths and blind faith in a feudalistic environment. I realized that he was exposing the rotten underbelly of the Church through this novel.

I was hooked. I read a few more of his novels: Thettu, Asurakandam, Verum Veruthe, and Drohikalude Lokam. But I was disappointed. They reminded me of cheap thrillers by Jackie Collins and Harold Robbins that you take along to pass time during a long train journey. Like Collins and Robbins, a touch of soft porn helped sell his books like hot cakes. But unlike them, Ayyaneth is able to sprinkle gems of philosophic wisdom throughout his books. He seems to have an obsession with certain parts of the female anatomy. Luckily or unluckily for me, my familiarity with Malayalam language and its literature is superficial. I was forced to stop studying Malayalam at Form III (Standard 8) because of a failed call to priesthood. Nor did I have a chance to read and study in depth Hindu mythology. Hence Ayyaneth’s references to erogenous parts using mythological terms and stories are beyond me. It is like listening to an erotic story in Chinese.

Thiruseshippu, however, brought him back into my favor. More than the book, I was very impressed by the ‘review’ written by the eminent Malayalam scholar and one time Kerala education minister, late Prof Joseph Mundasserry. For him, all major religions are run by bureaucracies with vested interests. In Europe, the influence of the Catholic bureaucracy and the evils perpetuated under its protection has been reduced drastically due to the social changes taking place there. A similar development should have followed suit in Kerala; on the contrary, the Catholic bureaucracy here is still mired deep in the feudalistic mode, and continues fearlessly in its evil ways with great vigor.

It was Ponkunnam Varkey who first raised his voice against the misdeeds of bishops and nuns through his short stories. Although his writings made waves at the time, everyone soon forgot about them. Ayyaneth is one person who is following Varkey’s footsteps and that too at a more elevated level.

Mundasserry the literary critic, however, questions the credibility of parts of the storyline. He suspects that the novel is based on real events. For me that is a pregnant statement: he seems to know more than he cares to reveal. He concludes that this novel is like a bomb thrown at the perversions in the Catholic Church; for this service alone, the Christian community of Kerala should be grateful to Ayyaneth. Thiruseshippu, he asserts, is a feather in the cap of Malayalam literature.

The novel has a simple storyline. Ponnamma comes from a rich family, while her neighbor Babu is of middle class extraction. Gopi and his family are low cast Ezhavas (Chokons) living as serfs on Ponnamma’s family property. All three attend the same village school. Everyone thinks that Ponnamma and Babu are made for each other. However, Ponnamma is in love with Gopi. This scandalous relationship is vehemently opposed by her family. They murder Gopi and make it appear as suicide. She refuses to marry the boy proposed by the family which forthwith disowns her. Rather than commit suicide she decides to join a convent; and she becomes Sr. Bernarda.

Within a short period, Sr. Bernarda is consumed by Tuberculosis. She is discarded by her community and dies a lonely and painful death. Some time after her death, the mother general is cured of her ‘gas’ problem after coming in contact with a relic kept in a box found on Sr. Bernarda’s person after her death. The news of this “miraculous” event spreads like wild fire. In time, many cures and miracles are attributed to the sister and the relic. Sister Bernarda becomes Saint Bernarda. The relic is now kept in a golden casket reverently touched and kissed by the faithful and which has become an object of great veneration by her devotees.

The veneration of relics and the belief in the power of intersection by saints so widely practiced by the Catholic Church are brought to total ridicule by the author when it is revealed that the piece of bone venerated as ‘relic’ is a piece that Ponnamma (the present St. Bernarda) surreptitiously recovered from the ashes of Gopi, her lover, after his cremation!!

The first eighty pages of the novel throw into sharp relief the following issues: life in convents; sexual exploitation therein; creation of saints, miracles and relics; the myth of “bride of Christ”.

Ayyaneth’s description of life in convents is dated. The current situation is much more liberal and democratic. Not so, 50 years ago. Feudalistic attitudes reigned supreme within the prison walls of convents. Women from rich families stayed at the top of the pyramid. Sexual exploitation of the poor but good looking inmates by the ‘confessor’ priests with the connivance of the senior nuns (who were often their concubines) was rampant. Lesbianism was common. These perversions are all still extant – Sr. Jesme’s book stands testimony to this.

What is commonly understood as miracles are physical impossibilities. Every one of them has a scientific explanation, even though it may not have been discovered as yet.

Unlike today, the early Church venerated as saints all those who led holy lives. Now-a-days many vested interests regard the millions spent on creating a saint as a wise investment. The returns are manifold. St. Alphonsa has become a cash cow for her congregation and for the diocese under whose jurisdiction it comes.

Relics are body parts and things associated with the dead saint. These are venerated under the belief that favors are received through them.

The belief that every nun becomes the bride of Christ at the time of taking vows is a myth that is perpetuated to lure immature young teens to become nuns and dedicate their lives like slaves to their ecclesiastical masters in building a bigger and richer Christian empire. In the Old Testament God is represented as the Husband. Israel, His people, is the Wife. In the New Testament Jesus is the bridegroom and husband. The individual Christian and the collective body of believers are his bride, then wife. St.Paul used this imagery in his epistles. He exhorts men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. This area is studied by seminarians as ‘bridal theology’ during their theological studies.

Every nun is married to Jesus. Krishna had 16008 wives; but Jesus has many times more. Every convent is Jesus’ virtual harem. While the church dictates strict monogamy, its authorities vie with each other to get Jesus married to more and more young women. Many of these young women, denied of their natural urges, secretly fantasize physical relationships with Jesus, their groom. After all, Jesus was a virile and handsome young man of 33 at the time of his death.

Virtual polygamists: Jesus and Krishna

Carmelite nun Teresa of Ávila had in her prayer trances the physical equivalent of orgasms. She described the soul's intense desire for Jesus in the language of erotic passion. In this, she belongs to a long tradition of mystical experience known as bridal mysticism.

The author in his introduction requests the reader to believe that whatever similarities the characters in the story might have to people living or dead is accidental. It is my belief that novelists normally do not make such defensive statements in a purely fictional work. I grew up in Kaipuzha, about 3km as the crow flies from Kudamalloor, the birth place of St. Alphonsa. As a youngster, I heard some loose talk about the early life of the saint that does have echoes in the present storyline. However, they remain hearsay without factual evidence.

Ayyaneth, whose works shocked 'custodians' of conventional morality, died in a hospital in Trivandrum of injuries suffered in a road accident. In his case, the clergy treated his death as just punishment for badmouthing the church. If a bishop, on the other hand, were to die in a plane crash, it should be understood as God calling him early to enjoy eternal life! How convenient! Even after his death, Ayyaneth continued to defy the Church he was a member of – as per his will, his was buried sans any religious rituals.

I wish more people would come forward to expose and fight the frauds perpetuated by the Catholic Church in God’s name.

PREMARITAL SHH…: IT IS TIME FOR KNANAYA REVERSE MIGRATION!

A short article “Premarital sex is fine, say 90% teens” that appeared in Bangalore Times, dated July 4, 2010 set me thinking. (Forgive me Father, for I have sinned; I used the s-word.) As part of the promotion exercise of the film Udaan, its producers conducted an online survey of 1004 urban respondents aged between 12 and 19, of which 77% were boys. The responses include the following interesting statistics: 50% have kissed someone of the opposite sex; an equal number have stolen money from their parents; 20% have got intimate in the bathroom and 90% of teens think premarital sex is fine. The last statistic is the causing me sleepless nights.

Within a fortnight another article appears in the same Bangalore Times, dated July 20, 2010 with the heading “Dating it Right”. Here we have reports of another decadent Western practice, ‘dating’, fast becoming common place in India. When we were growing up, ‘date’ was a noun; these days it has also become a verb ‘dating’, involving certain acts that in the good old days (oh, how I miss them!) would lead you to hell, unless you repented and confessed. This article contained some statements totally going against the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. Sample the following from a 24 year old girl:

“Why would I want to get married, when I can date, or get into a live-in relationship? Marriage for many is about legalized sex. I don’t have to get married to satisfy a physical urge”. (Vandana Saxena)

Last year the South Indian actress Kushboo caused a mini moral tsunami when she stated in an interview that it

“…was fine for girls to indulge in pre-marital sex after taking precautions to keep unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases at bay” and that “no educated man could expect his partner to be a virgin.”

The Indian male, highly strung by this assault on his age-old right to a virgin bride dragged her to courts through the length and breadth of the land until the Supreme Court came to her rescue.

A number of questions rush to mind. Is this the beginning of the end of ‘Indian Culture’ as we know it? Is the concept of ‘virgin bride’ becoming obsolete? Is the Indian society moving from the ‘license Raj’ to a ‘licentious’ Raj? How can religious leaders, the self-proclaimed guardians of morals, allow this slide into moral chaos and degradation? Where will all this leading to? Won’t there be hundreds, nay thousands of unwanted school/college girl pregnancies? Will schools and colleges have to make provision of maternity rooms and day-care centers and time outs for feeding and nappy changes? Won’t this emerging trend also lead to a rise in PDA (public display of affection, for those not familiar with Indian legalese acronyms) – holding hands, hugging and long smooching (God forbid!) – leading to high BP and heart attacks in desi Mother Grundys?

This viral infection is percolating fast, though subtly, even to the remotest corners of the land (that is going to the dogs), thanks to the media. What has the Catholic Church, including the spiritual leadership of our Knanaya community doing to stop the spread of the twin heretical disease of ‘dating’ and ‘premarital sex? (Oops! I forgot. We were busy organizing and leading protest marches against the unfair, unjust and politically motivated arrest of the totally and absolutely innocent accused in the Abhaya case and fundraising for the same.)

This permissive virus will not leave the Knanaya youth unaffected. The leadership of the community must act with alacrity to stem the rot. There are many unsavory things going on in the metros that the Knanaya parents living in the rural areas of central Kerala and Malabar are unaware of. They send their wards to the big bad metros – Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi etc. – for higher studies and work. These children have been protected while at home like animals in a zoo. Barely six months after their arrival in the metros there is total metamorphism in their thinking and behavior.

Some of them manage to juggle two or three partners simultaneously. This means for the girls two or three cell phones, eating Colonel’s Kentucky chicken by bucket-loads and free daily movies, not to mention the ‘unmentionables’. Others get into live-in relationships under the pretext of cost cutting. The naive parents back home continue to believe their children to be the same church going, morally upright and innocent boys and girls. It is imperative that the parents and senior members of the Knanaya Community are made aware of this dangerous development among unmarried youth.

Some parents abroad, especially in the liberal US and Europe, think of leaving those permissive societies and returning to India so that their children can grow up imbibing the Indian culture (read sexually strict culture). In the light of the survey, I am reminded of the saying pata petichu panthalathu..

There is a lesson in all this for the Knanaya community. It is time for reverse migration. In 345 AD our ancestors migrated to Kerala with the prime aim of evangelizing the Kerala heathens and to do a bit of trade on the side; it is time we in Kerala start migrating back, not necessarily to where our ancestors came from, the region in and around Iraq, as that country is in ruins now. Rather, let us go to US, Canada, countries in Europe, Singapore etc. where there is true democracy, little corruption and the icing on the cake, plenty of money. And those who are already in these countries make sure you abandon all thoughts of returning to India which is becoming permissive. Stay put. Like there, here too teens think dating and preteen sex is fine.

Of course there are many more solid reasons for leaving Kerala; inter alia: Rising religious fundamentalism; poor education system based on memorization and reproduction; leading state in India for alcoholism, road accidents and suicides; over politicization, bandhs and harthals; dog in the manger policy towards job creation; the arrogant and lazy nature of the Keralite; environmental prostitution for the benefit of the well-connected; the widening gap between the rich and the poor; rise in crime, gondaism and quotation gangs; endemic corruption - the list goes on.

There seems to be convergence of opinion by teens all over on such dangerous issues as dating and premarital sex. Hence it does not make much difference whether one raises one’s children here in India or abroad. At least in America, Europe and Singapore those problems mentioned above are minimal compared to Kerala.

The Catholic Church has always considered sex to be permissible only within legitimate marriage solely for continuing the human race. St.Paul, founder of the Catholic Church and the greatest of saints allowed sex to happen between legitimate married couples only and that too in the extreme case of hormones going berserk. So this premarital hanky-panky is totally out of line with what the church has been teaching for the past 2000 years. Our wayward youth must be reminded about this teaching of the church through all available avenues – Sunday homilies, catechism classes and our official publications.

The original migration in 345AD took place under the leadership of a layman, Saint (according to our Jacobite brethren) Knayi Thomma with the Bishop of Uruha accompanying him to take care of the spiritual needs of the migrants. Given the changed circumstances, the reverse migration is going to be led by the spiritual leadership, headed by the hierarchy of the Community, with the sycophantic lay leadership bearing the luggage and singing praise songs. (One is reminded of Livingstone exploratory journeys of Africa with the natives carrying the provisions.)

This Jubilee year is a good time to officially inaugurate the reverse migration. It can be added as an additional item on the agenda of the various committees already in existence to take care of the celebrations. E.g. the ‘transportation committee’ can investigate the ways and means of getting the cheapest air tickets for the largest number; the VIP accommodation committee can also be tasked to find ways and means to accommodate the arriving reverse immigrants temporarily until they can be settled permanently.

I have already started encouraging my son to look for a job overseas and do a reverse migration.