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.