WHEN I WAS IN AMERICA…

In the good old days, while I was growing up in the rural areas of Kuttanad near Kottayam, some priests who were lucky enough to visit United States would start their homilies or speeches with the expression “When I was in America…” Ditto for that exclusive club of laymen who felt their locus standi among their peers would improve with an anecdotal description of their American experiences at the start of every conversation. Now-a-days, when a tenth of Kerala’s population is in the U.S. at any given time, and at least a fifth has visited the country at one time or another, the expression ‘When I was in America…’ does not hold any surprises for the listeners.

I spent almost six months in U.S. from June to December 2007.This was my third visit to that country and the longest. My wife and I were there to assist with the birth of our second grand daughter Anusha or Anu as we affectionately call her. We slightly shuffled the letters of her big sister’s name Ashna, added the letter ‘u’ and presto, we have Anusha.

My daughter stays at Ashburn. It is an extremely quiet place about 50 km from the Washington D.C., the U.S. capital. It will take about 30 minutes’ drive by car on a Saturday afternoon to drop into the White House to say ‘hello’ to Barack Obama. During peak hours it is more like 45 min to 1 hour on the 12-lane highway. With the sun setting at around 9 pm in summer, there is a lot of daylight for a quick drive to Washington D.C. to visit one of the numerous museums and other tourist attractions.

In U.S. cars stay on the right. Inexpensive petrol, multiple lanes on highways and clear road signs make driving a pleasure. If you can invest around $250 on a global positioning system (GPS), even I, who tends to get lost all the time, can drive around without the aid of road maps as this device very cleverly prompts what is to be done well in advance. Drivers hardly use the hooter, a few not even aware that there is such a device. (I am not joking!) There is such competition to sell cars that buyers, particularly from the subcontinent, spend the whole day bargaining as you do in a fish market.

Unlike Indians, Americans are very polite and law abiding on the roads. In India, there is no fear of the law – everyone is either related to a politician or a policeman or at least is an acquaintance of one. In the worst case scenario, one can bribe one’s way out of most difficult situations. In America, there is fear of the law. Add to that the shoal of lawyers waiting to sue you at the slightest provocation.

One day I went with my daughter to the supermarket. In America everything is big: men and women are huge; pizzas are extra large; supermarkets are very spacious, the car park endless. I got bored of walking around inside and came out to look at the surroundings. After sitting on a bench for a while, I decided to take a stroll through the car park. I went to the pedestrian crossing and waited for a gap in the traffic as we do in India. As I put my right foot on the road, every car on either side stopped. Fearing that they would all start at any time and run over me, I decided to go back to the bench. Immediately all the cars started to move. A little later as I again put one foot on the road with the other still firmly on the pavement, all vehicles screeched to a halt. I hesitated and went back to the bench. The movement of cars started again. My daughter later told me that the cars stopped to let me cross the road. If one of the cars were to even slightly brush me that would be a golden opportunity to sue the driver and win a huge compensation! In India, drivers wait for you to cross the road so that they can run over you.

When one thinks of capitalism, the United States comes immediately to mind. But there is one area where socialism is very much evident: the domestic environment of the desi. Most of the Malayalee (+other South Indian) families in and around Ashburn come from middle and upper middle class families. Many of them have never sullied their hands back home doing manual labor. In America, they do change; in fact they are forced to change. Domestic help is at a premium. So it really amused me to see these formerly spoilt youngsters, especially the males of the species, helping in the kitchen, cleaning the house, washing the bath and toilet, doing quite a bit of gardening, and other such chores.

A couple of months into my stay at our daughter’s house, Ashna, my granddaughter was sitting beside me turning the pages of the ‘Style’ section of ‘The Washington Post’ while I was engaged in the main section. Suddenly she turned to me and asked:

“Dada, how is that my picture is not in the news?”

“Well, you must be newsworthy, or make some news.” I replied.

“One thing”, she went on, “I want to be famous and my photo should come in the newspaper.”

Then she started on one of her tantrums and insisted that her photo appears somewhere. I suddenly remembered that a couple of her photos were on my website where my blogs appear and showed them to her. She was immensely pleased. And now she wanted to know what a blog is. I spent the next twenty minutes explaining blogs. After a few minutes of deep thought, during which time I went back to reading the paper thinking that she would soon forget the whole thing, she suddenly jumps up and says:

“I also want a blog and become famous!”

The next couple of days she kept pestering me about the blog. On the third day, she brought a bundle of papers, a pencil and an eraser and made me sit at the dining table. She sat next to me and being very lazy herself, told me she would dictate and I should write down what she wanted to write on her blog!!

So I wrote, very slightly edited and typed verbatim what she dictated. I hope this is not her first and last blog. The following is the finished product.

ASHNA’S LATEST NEWS

By Ashna Maria Vayalil

Ashna wanted to be in the news for a long time. She is only six and a half years old. Ashna has a baby sister Anusha who is only 3 weeks old. She also has a cousin sister whose name is Diya. Ashna’s birthday is on October 13. When she was 4 months old she was in ‘Editor’s Choice’ and she won first prize. Sometimes she is good, at other times she is bad. She wants to have 2 sisters instead of 1. She has a nice beautiful garden. There are tomatoes, cucumbers, green chilies, strawberries, bitter gourds, curry leaves and mint leaves in the garden. We also have pine trees, jasmines, roses and other exotic plants as well in our garden.

Ashna’s house is pretty too. There are 3 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 1 library, 1 breakfast room, 1 family room, 1 living room and 1 dining room. We have 4 clocks, 1 TV, 13 windows, 25 lights, 4 closets, 3 exits, 6 sofas, 4 umbrellas – that is all in Ashna’s house.

Ashna the girl loves to dance and sing and watch TV. She also watches a program called ‘Kutties Choice’. She loves to paint and she loves to play on the computer and watch lots and lots of TV. She wish she had 56 sisters and 54 brothers and 100 cousin sisters and 1 cousin brother.

She is in grade 1. She is going to grade 2. She wishes that she is already in grade 9!! The grade 2 school is ‘Hillside Elementary’. Her old 1^st grade school was named ‘Virginia Academy’.

She really wanted to hear about herself in the news and she wanted to be famous. And now she is going to be. She has lots of pictures, almost 100 that she made. When she was already in her mommy’s tummy she wanted to be famous. She calls her mommy ‘mama’ and her dad ‘daddy’.

She loves Hindi movies and some English movies and her favorite one is ‘IQBAL’. And her favorite song in Iqbal is “Aashaye” and it goes like this:

Aashaye, hile dil ki

Ummidien hasse dil ki

Abu mushukil

Nahee Kuchbi

HoOOooOOOoooo

Aashayee………………..

Ashna will write again later.

I hope she will.

SEX, LIES AND CATHOLIC CHURCH

The basic urges of living beings are two: self-preservation and self-propagation. Hence the pleasures associated with food and sex. Plants to a lesser degree and animals to a greater degree satisfy these urges through instinct whereas man tends to temper his instincts with a rational approach. If pleasure was not associated with these two propensities, Adam and Eve would have been the first and last humans. There would have been no need for Jesus to die to save us. And the Catholic Church would not exist today. With no Catholic Church, there would be no priestly celibacy and no pedophile clergy abusing children.

I read the following somewhere on the internet:

Sex is an interesting topic. We tend to think we have free will, and that we are not animals. The reality, however, is that our character is inherited genetically and supplemented by hormones and other chemicals that drive behavior. Of course, there is free will within a small environmental envelope, but survival by reproduction seems to be the dominant instinct! “Our behavior can be altered within narrow parameters according to the social and cultural customs of where we live and how we are raised. But much of our life cycle is pre-ordained. In all major essentials, we are a reproductive skin covered bag of water, subject to instinctive controls of an organic machine, run by genes, hormones, enzymes, acids, salts, proteins and small electrical currents.”

One of the cleverest inventions of the Catholic Church is the guilt associated with sex. Credit must go mainly to St. Augustine of Hippo, the brilliant fourth century theologian. Like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny and Michael Douglas of the present era, he suffered from sex addiction in his early life. But unlike today, when these celebrities can check into a sex de-addiction centre, Augustine had to rely on his own resources. First, he chased away his concubine of seventeen years and the child they had together. Then his brilliant mind went into overdrive and he ‘invented’ the idea of original sin. All men and women (except Jesus and Mary – I am not sure about Joseph) are born in sin from the time of Adam and Eve’s honeymoon. Human nature as a result is corrupt. The ideas of the Stoics and of Plato in particular helped Augustine in this invention. The latter had developed the concept of the duality of human nature wherein the ‘soul’ is regarded as superior to the ‘body’ and the ‘spirit’ at a higher level than ‘matter’.

The ideas of life after death, heaven, hell, and devils also helped. Unlike the body that does not survive death; the soul is destined to live forever – happily in heaven or crying in hell depending on how one lived on earth. One had to save one’s soul by all means. For this, man has to overcome his corrupt nature and there is nothing more corrupting than sex. Hence celibacy and chastity are hoisted over family life as the superior ideal in life. The list of sins against the flesh is a legion: even your private thoughts and words are added to those of your acts.

However all is not lost. The Catholic Church introduced the idea of ‘confession’ to help you save your soul from eternal damnation. The moment the little lamb has entertained an ‘impure’ thought, he or she can rush to the priest, confess and be absolved so that the door to heaven is reopened. He can now have a go at another bad thought; confession is there to save him. Thus the fear of hell and God’s anger bring the little lambs back to the church again and again for salvation. The association of guilt with sex is part of a master plan towards controlling the minds of the lambs leading to the consolidation of church’s absolute power over all matters spiritual and temporal.

“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton.

Very few are aware that he was referring to papacy when he said those famous words.

Along with confession came ‘confessional solicitation’, something quite common, but not frequently talked about. Many a priest uses the confessional for the detailed cross examination of sexual sins so that the conversation sounds like the sound track of a highly erotic movie. This in itself is highly pleasurable to the ‘celibate’ priest starved of intimacy. The more adventurous opportunists of the lot use this occasion to identify the weak willed and easily available ones and propose a more private one on one physical encounter. After all, he cannot be faulted since self-propagation is a basic human urge.

Against this natural human urge the Catholic Church has declared celibacy and chastity as superior. Priestly celibacy was enforced from the early days of the church. At first the intentions were noble; later the purpose was not to let church property fall into the hands of the children of priests and bishops. Right from the outset, it was doomed to failure. Presently we are seeing this compulsion’s sad fallout – abuse of children and cover up of the abusers. The present Pope is also in a pickle with the revelation that he was aware of abuses but did little to stop them.

“Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that the Rev Peter Hullermann, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.”

Hans Küng, a highly respected theologian who was banned from teaching because of his opposition to the doctrine of infallibility, unleashed a fierce attack on the Pope demanding that the pontiff "acknowledge his share of responsibility, instead of whining about a campaign against his person".

Pope Benedict XVI has apologized to Irish Catholics for the sexual abuses of its clergy through a pastoral letter.

The following is part of an email from a good catholic commenting on Pope Benedict’s pastoral letter:

“The overwhelming feeling conveyed by the document is that the moral authority of the Church has to be upheld at any cost — even at the cost of truth itself or of finding a genuine solution to this crisis that has been like a slow cancer eating away the heart of the Church. What comes across in this document is an attempt to portray the Pope as some sort of Divine Being and Teacher himself who speaks down to everyone else in Creation, including Bishops.”

Denial of truth, inability to move with the times, disregard for the sufferings of the faithful, a permanent ‘high’ brought on by a feeling of absolute power continually reinforced by sycophants groveling and offering adulations 24/7 – these have been the recurring pattern of papacy throughout the ages. 2000 years ago, in a fit of righteous anger Jesus said:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which looks beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

His words are more relevant today. The following is one example of how ‘priestly celibacy’ is one big fat joke.

Church Head in a fix over affair with cook

Bangalore: A priest in Bangalore has found himself in a spot for ordering sex from a cook - something like what Tiger Woods did when he ordered a `plate-full' of hot and spicy sex from a waitress in the US.

The priest, Arokya Das, heads the St Peter and Paul Church in a posh locality of Bangalore. Reports said that the priest had been having a sexual relationship with the cook in the church. While this has been going on for quite some time, church-goers warned the priest to focus on the work of God and not on the assets of the cook. But Das obviously had his own preferences and continued his relationship with the cook.

When things started to spill out into the open, three youngsters thought of teaching the ‘reverend’ father a lesson. According to the police, soon after Sunday mass, the three youngsters tried to assault the father in full public view.

A shaken father managed to escape and dialed the police. But the three youths prevented the police from entering the church saying that they wanted to give the father a lesson or two in morality. Later, the three were arrested.

Soon after the arrest, hundreds of church-goers surrounded the church and wanted to know why the three youngsters were arrested and not Father Das. The police had to summon the president of the Karnataka Tamil Catholic People's Voice, John Kennedy.

Kennedy admitted that Father Das had been having an affair with the cook and despite warnings, he had continued to maintain a clandestine relationship.

Later in the evening, Vicar General Father S Jayanathan visited the church and held a meeting. He assured the agitated crowd that action would be taken.

There was no word from Father Das or the cook. They were probably cooking up something!

Random thoughts on some recent tragic/comic/tragi-comic events

 

1. Michael Jackson moonwalks to nowhere land.

Death and taxes are inevitable. Birth is sooner or later followed by death. What is tragic is the way MJ died: skin and bones; totally bald; unable or unwilling to eat proper meals; symptoms of skin cancer; signs of numerous plastic surgeries. How far are wealth and fame measures of health and happiness?

2. Mayawati’s 1000 crore elephantine inferiority complex.

Mayawati is the prime example of Paulo Freire’ assertion that the more one is oppressed the greater will be the oppression dished out by that person in turn. The whole exercise is highly comical to an outsider but very tragic to the poor of UP for whom 1000 crore is a lot of money. Remember Saddam Hussein and what came of his statues?

3. Teacher absenteeism in Indian schools.

Gurcharan Das, who often writes in Times of India on educational matters, said in an interview that 1 out of 4 primary school teachers are absent on any given day; further, 1 out of 4 do not teach! This is more tragic than MJ’s death or Mayawati’s elephantine ego. The government needs to spent money on upgrading teacher training, put in mechanisms to make teachers more professional and control the unions. Can anyone tell me which university in India allows a person, teacher or not, to do M.Ed. by dissertation without written papers, which only serve to test your skills in recall and reproduction? I hope the new education university proposed by Azim Premji will cater to all those who wants to make a contribution to educational theory and knowledge, irrespective of age and whether they are in teaching service or not.

4. Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposal to abolish standard 10 exams.

No doubt, there is merit in his proposal. However, in the Indian context, the numbers of teachers absent and not teaching on a given day will go up from 1 to 2/4. The quality of education will, most likely, come down. In many other countries, there is accountability on the part of the teacher. More internal assessment means, more abuse of the hapless pupil. If we follow Sibil’s thinking, after a 100m dash on sports day everyone who ran is given a grade and a certificate of completion. In singing competitions that dominate our TV these days, there will be no elimination; everyone will win, each given a grade – fair, average, good - as well as a prize. Competition is part of life and education is a preparation for life; the key is to keep it healthy

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND MY RIGHT TO CIVILIZED DRINKING

In Times of India dated February 8, 2007 there was an article titled "Right to drink" by Jaimini Mehta. It deals with total prohibition in Gujarat which, the author argues, infringes on his 'right to consume alcohol in moderation'.

In contrast, the Kerala Catholic hierarchy clubs the moderate and excessive users of alcohol together calling them all by the derogative Malayalam term madyapani (= drunkard) and accuses them of causing a litany of social ills from divorce to depression to suicide. It advocates total prohibition as a panacea for this plethora of diseases. January 28 is celebrated as 'anti-alcohol' day by Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC).

The first heretical reaction that crosses my mind is that henceforth Catholic priests/bishops should stop using wine during mass and instead try water. I wonder why one cannot advocate temperance as a via media between total prohibition and intemperance. Temperance is the moderate use of alcohol as opposed to its abuse. Before getting into the pros of temperance, a brief run through the history of alcohol and its varied uses might strengthen my arguments in favor of temperance as a happy medium between the moral highhandedness of the abolitionist and the excesses of the drunkard.

In the popular movie of the 70s, Beautiful People by Jamie Uys, one scene depicts a number of animals, including elephants and a troop of baboons dancing in drunken stupor a day after consuming large quantities of rotting fruits of the African marula tree. They were obviously enjoying the 'high' from their fermenting juices. It can be safely assumed that early man and woman did enjoy in a similar fashion. Many archeologists do believe that wines made from grapes have existed for the last 10000 years at least and beer even longer. Viticulture, the selective cultivation of grape vines for making wine, is thought to have originated in modern Armenia around 6000-4000 BCE. Ancient Egyptians were drinkers since it is now known that they invented the straw for drinking beer that contained wheat-husks. A 1600 BCE Egyptian text describes 100 different prescriptions calling for the use of alcohol. The Greeks had Bacchus as the god of wine, while Romans worshipped the same god as Dionysus. This worship took the form of an orgy of intoxication. In many ancient creeds, a tipple was the main means by which worshippers achieved ecstasy.

Alcohol formed and still forms an important part of Jewish rituals. Hebrews were most likely introduced to wine during their captivity in Egypt. When Moses led them to Canaan around 1200 BCE they regretted leaving behind the wines of Egypt (Numbers 20:5). Later, following their release from the Babylonian exile, the Hebrews developed Judaism as it is now known. During the next 200 years, wine became a necessary element in their life. It came to be regarded as a blessing from God and a symbol of joy (Psalms 104:15; Zachariah 10:7).

Jesus was a Jew and as a Jew he partook of wine and was falsely accused by his critics of being a drunkard (Luke 7:33). He used wine and approved of its moderate consumption (Mathew 15:11). In fact his first miracle was turning water into wine to make wedding guests happy. Apostle Paul considered wine to be a creation of God and therefore inherently good. He recommended it for medicinal purposes but condemned drunkenness. Late in the second century certain heretical sects rejected alcohol and called for total abstinence. During the forth/fifth centuries the church responded by asserting that wine is an inherently good gift of God to be used and enjoyed.

During the middle ages, monasteries made beer to nourish their monks and to sell to the people. As the consumption of liquids was not considered to break the fast, beer was always permitted. The levels of consumption reached astounding highs: 5 liters/monk/day!! The early modern period saw Luther, Calvin, leaders of the Anglican Church as well as Puritans in agreement with the teachings of the Catholic Church of the time: alcohol was a gift of God and created to be used in moderation for pleasure, enjoyment and health; drunkenness was viewed as a sin.

Alcoholism and intemperate use of alcohol has always been condemned by most social and cultural groups throughout history. Ancient Greek philosophers Xenophon and Plato both praised the moderate use of wine as beneficial to health and happiness, but both were critical of drunkenness.

The distinction between the temperate and intemperate is crucial in analyzing and understanding the evils of alcoholism, its prevention and treatment. My major criticism is directed to the lumping of the two together indiscriminately and accusing the moderate drinkers of crimes committed by those with destructive drinking behavior. This is akin to accusing every Catholic priest, nun and bishop of sexual abuse just because some among them are found to be abusive. In fact this kind of generalized criminalization causes great harm to the moderate social drinker and his family life. Moderate users, who are in the majority, are overshadowed by their more boisterous counterparts, and it is the latter who through their nefarious activities grab a disproportionate amount of attention and news coverage. Some moderate/social drinkers spend a couple of happy hours at a pub having a tote or two; others gather at a common friend's place to share a few beers; still others have a couple of drinks at home. After relaxing in this fashion, they continue with their lives without causing any harm to anyone. Current research suggests that the moderate consumption of alcohol is preferable to abstinence; it appears to reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis, among many other diseases and conditions and to increase longevity. (My late father Pralel P.C. Joseph who died at age 93 is a shining example.)

I spent part of December 2006 and most of January 2007 in Kerala, attending a number of functions: four related to my own son's marriage, two in connection with my niece's marriage and one for a cousin's son. Out of these seven occasions, alcohol was served at five of them. Many guests were teetotalers while a sizeable number of them were moderate consumers, happy with a couple of drinks. Then there were the excessive drinkers including the rather young and the very old. There are some things unique about the alcoholic Keralite: the copious amounts greedily gulped down within a short interval of time without solid intakes; the incapacity as a result to hold liquor; and the inability to hold sensible conversation.

I tried to find more about the alcoholic Keralite. I was told that there is a steep rise in their number especially among the younger generation. Kerala is already infamous as the state with the highest reported cases of suicide. Why so many alcoholics? Why so many suicides?

I have my own theory in this regard. I believe there is a paradigm shift from the value system underscored by religious precepts to one which revolves around the twin foci of wealth and power. The mad rush towards material possessions is guided by selfishness; there is no time for love. Now the question is: how did this paradigm shift come about? Why was the religious leadership, both Christian and non-Christian, unable to prevent this unholy shift?

A half century ago when my generation was growing up, our lives revolved around the church and the rituals therein. We were made to memorize the catechism in the question answer format by the good nuns, without really understanding most of it anyway. We were taught about sins which ranged from the very venial (lying to your mother about the cookie you ate without her permission) to the very mortal (thinking about a girl). The consequences of sin, both venial and mortal, were drummed into our young minds - long periods of stay in purgatory if you die not confessing and repenting a venial sin, while eternal damnation in hell awaits you for a similar situation for a mortal sin. You can escape from purgatory to heaven if you have enough friends and relatives to offer sufficient prayers - different prayers have different periods of remission. Hell down below, however, is a completely different kettle of fish (or more appropriately snakes). There is a special type of very hot non-extinguishable fire that burns you eternally without turning you to cinders; different kinds of poisonous creepy- crawly like snakes, centipedes, spiders getting into your anatomy through one opening and coming out through another. Heaven up above, on the contrary, is a place of perennial sweet music, with choirs of angels playing harps, keeping everyone entertained. The holier you are, the closer you are to God's throne. So we tried to be good so we could end up in heaven and join the angelic choirs for all eternity and we avoided being bad because we did not want to end up in Lucifer's clutches. As is very clear, our 'disciplined lifestyle' was the result of fear and terror. It was much later that I realized that the Catholic Church and Stalinist Russia have one thing in common: fear - fear of hell in the case of the former and fear of Gulag for the latter.

This type of value system based on religious speculation and rituals, systematically developed in young minds through indoctrination, cannot withstand the test of time.  As the winds of social and economic change began to sweep the country, it fell by the wayside. Materialism became the new mantra. Many thought happiness could be bought with money and power. However, as any economist would affirm, wants are infinite, means are limited. Disillusion set in. Many who tried to hold on to heaven were suddenly told that it is no longer a physical place of angels and music, but a state of mind. With nothing substantial to hold on to, man feels totally empty within. This feeling of emptiness leads to depression, drugs, drunkenness and related vices. Some find life so empty as to be meaningless and not worth living and prefer to end it. Perhaps it is time to think of a different set of values to base our lives on.

Bertrand Russell in his book 'Why I am not a Christian', talks of such a value system: The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Love and knowledge are mutually inclusive: neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life. Love, however, is more fundamental, 'since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit whom they love'. Knowledge is also important since we must know in what our happiness lie.

On an atheist website there is a set of New Ten Commandments. The first two are: 'Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you' and 'In all things strive to cause no harm'. This is simply what Christ told the Pharisees: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself' (Mathew 22:39). In today's world if a child can be brought up to love and cherish others, he will not get totally drunk and cause mayhem all around; he will think twice about the shame and sorrow he will bring on his family before he thinks of suicide. He will find happiness in loving and being loved. So what is needed is a paradigm shift from a value system based on ritualistic and literalistic traditions to one underscored by the core teaching of the New Testament: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Then there will be no need for the prohibitory edicts of the KCBC against drunkenness!

Just because people commit suicide by jumping in front of trains, we cannot stop train services. Banning the use of knives cannot be done although some have been used to kill. In fact humans, being curious by nature, would like to know why something is banned. Banning the movie 'Da Vinci Code' by overzealous Church authorities had the opposite effect: it made many more millions at the box office than otherwise! Prohibition has not worked in the past, nor will it work in future. It also brings about other evils as well. When American prohibition of the late 18th and early 19th century was withdrawn in 1933, an elaborate syndicate of organized crime built on the multimillion dollar 'bootlegging' industry survived. Even at home we read of tragedies caused by the illegal brewing of liquor, most often poisonous, in places where prohibition is extant. A very good example of how ineffective are prohibitory orders is to be seen at times of engagement and marriage receptions held in parish halls. There is a strict injunction against serving of alcohol in the parish hall or its premises by the bishop which is vigorously enforced by certain overzealous priests. But the diehard drunkards get around in various ways: setting up mini-bars in car boots; having an open bar arranged in a house nearby; pitching a tent on a vacant plot next to the parish hall etc.  So KCBC needs to look beyond prohibitory orders and channel their efforts in bringing about a change in the Faithfull’s mindset through education, a shift in core value system and above all exemplary lives devoid of the pursuit of power and mammon.

In conclusion, I would like to appeal to Church hierarchy and the anti alcohol lobby not to drown the subtle but crucial differences between drinking and drunkenness in the clamor for total prohibition.  And I agree with Jaimini and request them and other moral crusaders not to interfere with my right to ‘civilized drinking’.

POLITICS OF EDUCATION – QUALITY VERSUS QUANTITY

The number of students passing out of educational institutions in India every year is, no doubt, in their millions. We as a country are slowly but surely succeeding as far as ‘quantity’ in the field of education is concerned; it is now time to reflect on the ‘quality’ of education that is being offered. It is only reflection with action that will lead to praxis.

My reflections on the quality of education in India started a couple of years ago after I retired and returned from South Africa to settle down in Namma Bengaluru for good. I have been ruminating on the times of my own schooling as well as on certain incidences in the recent past related to academic life. Some thought provoking articles in The Times of India on education added gist to my reflections. The immediate provocation for an in depth reflection has been the famous educationist Paulo Freire becoming the villain of the piece in a standoff last year between Christian Churches in Kerala and the Marxist led government over the content of a social studies text book for standard VII. The controversy centred around parts of the content critically questioning religious belief systems and introducing the idea of atheism.

All of us remember our school days as the most carefree of our lives. In fact, it is the happenings – good and bad – of this period that we love to reminisce with our schoolmates even in our old age. In those days all teachers taught with liberal doses of the cane. Education consisted of the teachers giving us information - formulae in math, capitals of countries in geography, Emperor Asoka’s reforms in history and so on. We silently listened and memorized. We did not dare to ask questions on the subject matter out of fear of our teachers; besides, there were no doubts as all we had to do was memorize. 

Even at University level, memorization was the way to go. Just one example as illustration. Fr. Racine, a retired French Jesuit and a brilliant mathematician taught us Abstract Algebra during my M.Sc. course at Loyola College, Madras. Other than saying Mass, eating his frugal meals and teaching us a couple of times a week, he spent the entire day developing new Mathematics theories. The only problem with his teaching was that he would solve a problem in three sentences, whereas it required at least ten for the mathematically challenged. Only one out of a class of 16 barely understood what was going on. The rest of us ‘mugged’.

It was only when I started teaching that I began to think about mathematical concepts. A good grasp to the subject is a must for any teacher to make himself understood. Even then, both my students and I hovered around the ‘knowledge’ and ‘recall’ levels of Bloom’s taxonomy with infrequent forays into the next level, that of understanding. The examination system also remained at the ‘reproduction’ levels, testing students on their ability to ‘recall’ information. These days private coaching and tuitions do a roaring business reinforcing memorization of facts and mechanical application of theory. In this system, most students score in the nineties; however, John Kurien, Director, Centre for Learning, Pune, rightly says that ‘Marks Mask Incompetence’ in an article of the same title appearing in The Times of India dated July 27, 2008. The net result according to him is that “… a large proportion of our engineering and business management graduates, and a far greater percentage of general graduates, are unemployable.” My son, who was at one time in charge of interviewing and selecting candidates for the post of software engineers for his company, told me that, based purely on their potential to apply computer knowledge in implementing projects, two out of twenty would barely fit the bill. A close relative who graduated with distinction in electronics engineering could hardly identify the problem with a non-functioning T.V. set. On investigation, I found that the best student is one with the sharpest memory and that there are professionals who can do the final year project, which involves applying the theory, for you for a consideration.

This type of learning is aptly named ‘the banking concept’ of education by Paulo Freire. Just as we deposit money in a bank and withdraw the same later, bits and pieces of information are ‘deposited’ in the minds of students to be ‘withdrawn’ at the time of tests and examinations. Against this, Freire advocated ‘problem-posing’ education.

So, who is this Paulo Freire?

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) is a Brazilian educationist whose theories and praxis of education have contributed enormously in liberating oppressed masses all over the world. I have been a fan of Paulo Freire for more than a decade. It all started when I became involved in a teacher training program in Apartheid South Africa in early-nineties. The black majority was systematically being oppressed by the white minority. This was going on for a long time. A similar oppressive system prevailed in Brazil in the last century. Paulo Freire, who was born and brought up in that country, expounded his theories on liberating the oppressed masses in the book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” which became a runaway success. Realizing that his ideas were most apt and relevant for the liberation of the South African black masses, I prescribed two chapters from this book as compulsory reading for my third year B.A.Education students. If the process of liberation is through Education, then the ideal person to start on this path of liberation is the teacher who must first free himself from the oppressor’s yoke before he can liberate his students.

What is the core of his educational philosophy?

Freire starts with the premise that man’s ontological vocation is ‘humanization’ – becoming more fully human. This is thwarted by acts of dehumanization – injustice, exploitation, oppression and the violence of the oppressors. When a person is brought up in an environment of oppression, he internalizes the methods of the oppressors and in turn becomes an oppressor. He is unable to express love and compassion since he himself has not been shown love and compassion.

To surmount oppression, man must first critically recognize its causes, so that through transforming action, he can create a new situation in the pursuit of a fuller humanity. The oppressed should engage in reflection of their situation leading to action – praxis.

Banking education is one very effective method employed by the oppressors to continue the consciousness of oppression in the oppressed. The more students work at storing information, the less time they have to develop the critical consciousness needed to transform the world around them. The more passive they are made, the more easily they tend to accept their state of oppression. The oppressors use banking education to change the consciousness of the oppressed and not the situation which oppresses them. The educator’s role is to regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the student. Education becomes an act of domination and domestication, indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression.

Against this, Freire proposes ‘problem-posing’ education. It is based on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thus helping man to achieve his ontological vocation of becoming more fully human. The students become critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. They come face to face with real problems in the real world and develop the power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world.

The Indian context.

After more than six decades of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, the Indian mindset is still feudalistic. Geriatric dynastic rule is still the norm. Men and women of dubious character and criminal bend are foisted as leaders riding the crest of the cast and creed bandwagon. Corruption is endemic. The sheepish mentality developed through indoctrination using banking methods of education is the root cause of religious fundamentalism leading to suicide bombings and terror attacks. Religion, unable to withstand the scrutiny of the critical mind, relies on blind faith. What better technique than ‘banking education’ is there to keep the sheep in the fold! When students are insulated from engaging in problems of the social reality around them, many take the suicide route when confronted with easily solvable situations

Why is Freire’s name dragged into the recent Class VII Social Science text-book controversy in Kerala?

The main allegations against the Social Studies text-book of Class VII are that it

“... is trying to teach children atheism, materialism, anti-religious sentiments and wrong perspectives on the Indian history.” and that “… the book’s effort was to finish off religious beliefs and to propagate atheism.”

Members of the text-book reform panel countered saying:

“… the effort was to enliven the academic curriculum through critical interaction of the students with society.”

Added a member of the panel:

“The book is asking the students to understand social reality themselves and to approach it critically, which is the only way to develop their intellect, thinking faculty and sense of social responsibility.”

He said the model was based on the theories of Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire, who had shown

“… the right path to right education in the social model like ours.”

I believe it is high time for us to transform ourselves from our feudalistic and paternalistic mode to a democratic, participatory and critical mode of thinking and acting. Old habits die hard; but bad habits must surely die.

A critical and transformatory mindset is essential for us to become more fully human and to help others in this vocation of humanization. For this to happen, the next best place after home is the school. That is why it is imperative that we as a nation impart to our children an education of quality. This calls for a change from the traditional ‘banking method’ of education to the ‘problem solving’ model leading to awareness and critical engagement in the student with personal and social reality.

[Note: Action with reflection leads to praxis; action without reflection is activism; reflection without action is verbalism.]

DRIVING IN BENGALURU AND THE RULE OF LAW

Once upon a time (long ago) Bangalore used to be known as pensioners' paradise. When I first arrived in Bangalore in the early 70s it was a city of tree-lined roads, leisurely drives, clean air and inexpensive restaurants. Flyovers, one-way streets and underpasses were unknown. These days the former pensioners' paradise has changed its name to Bengaluru. With a concentration of information technology companies it is known world over as 'the Silicon Valley of India' . Along with information technology came a host of problems: congestion, pollution and chaotic traffic, to name a few.

Infrastructure development never kept pace with Bengaluru's rapid IT development. Endemic corruption acts as the perennial spoke in the wheels of progress. This is particularly evident on the roads. Driving in Bengaluru has become a nightmare so much so people are socializing less and less. What I do to amuse myself, sitting in never-ending traffic jams, is to observe and smile at the strange behaviors unique to India. Here is a sample.

· Arrival/Departure of a so-called VIP (Very Injurious Parasite, according to Jug Suraiya) forces all motorists to be stranded in the middle of nowhere until 'his majesty's' motorcade passes. No one is bothered about the man-hours lost or the sick that need urgent medical care. (We may be a democracy in name, but in practice we are still feudalistic in our attitude!)

· Motor-cyclists overtaking on the left in defiance of your left indicator flashing. When he is knocked down, you are the guilty party!

· Autos cruising looking for passengers. Imagine you are stuck behind with a running tummy!

· Those driving straight keeping to the extreme left at a traffic junction blocking traffic from using the free left.

· Vehicles (autos in particular) keeping to the extreme left and then trying to make a U-turn at a junction while the traffic is moving forward.

· Parking almost in the center of the road and going about your business, as though this person has inherited the road.

· Cyclist on the extreme right in the fast lane (as understood internationally). He needs almost the entire lane as he swings his hips from side to side.

· Ditto for bullock/horse carts minus the swagger.

· Ditto for fruit vendors; in addition they are always crossing the road as though the fruits are sold faster on the other side.

· Drivers on a two-way street, while turning to the right onto a one-way street, cutting corners preventing the smooth flow of oncoming traffic.

· Vehicles, particularly autos and motor-cyclists, coming and stopping more and more to the right of a narrow two-way street at a traffic light to a main road, blocking those from the main road from turning left.

· Government vehicle parking smack below the 'no parking' sign on the right of narrow one way street (parting is allowed on the left) and the madam/sir coolly going about his business, while ordinary mortals have to go round this VIP car.

· Cows/buffalos helping to create traffic circles.

· Jumping traffic lights.

There was an interesting article titled "Short Arm Of The Law" by Ronojoy Sen in The Times Of India dated February28, 2008. In it the question 'Why do Indians jump traffic lights?' is asked. The answer according to Sen is that there is no rule of law in India. The citizen easily flouts the law because the enforcing agencies are ineffective. Endemic corruption, lack of equipment and insufficient personnel are flaunted as the usual culprits. But what should worry one more is the attitude of the common man towards law. One reason for breaking the law with impunity is the low cost of doing so. Sen goes on to say that many law-abiding people wish for another dose of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule or some kind of dictatorship so that the stick can be wielded ruthlessly and force people to fall in line.

This means that the average Indian only responds to 'fear' - fear of punishment whether human or divine. He will not urinate against the compound wall if the picture of a god/goddess is painted thereon; not because his action will cause health problems. He will not follow traffic rules out of civic duty.  The same is true in most areas of life. A minister can steal crores but nothing will happen to him if his party is needed to prop up the government. Add to this the feudalistic mentality of the Indian. The spectacle of senior IAS offices feeding cake to CM Mayawathi and MLAs prostrating before Jayalalitha come to mind. The question to ask is: are we Indians truly free? Are our minds free of oppression? What kind of education are we are imparting to our children in India, if at the end of the day when they become IAS officials and MLAs they are so servile and act so slavishly? [Do you think I am in Utopia?]

HISTORY OF GOD (Contd from where I left off on Friday, 22 May 2009)

Let us now briefly examine the God/gods of the different religions.

Judaism ‘evolved’ the idea of a monotheistic God, Yahweh. This happened after long periods of worshipping three types of gods: worship of the family gods (teraphim), worship of the sacred stones and worship of the great gods, some native, others foreign (Baal, Molech etc).

Zoroastrianism introduced gods as abstract concepts. Zarathustra taught a challenging view of the world as a struggle between good and evil. He is said to have received a direct revelation from the one true god Ahura Mazda. Soul, life after death, resurrection, judgment, paradise, hell, and devil were all Zoroastrian ideas first, later borrowed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Buddhism may be thought more as way of life than as a religion in its narrow sense. It developed as a reaction to the greed and materialism of the newly emerging merchant class at the time of Siddhartha Gauthama who left the comforts of a life of luxury as well as his family and wandered the world as a mendicant in search of enlightenment. One night he put himself in a trance and when he awoke he became the Buddha, the enlightened one. He believed in the gods of the time but for him the ultimate reality was beyond the gods. All life, for him, was suffering; only dharma, the truth about right living brought one to nirvana (the ultimate reality, freedom from pain). The state of nirvana has nothing to do with the gods; in fact it is beyond them. By living a life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving gently, kindly and correctly and by refraining from drugs and intoxicants that cloud the mind, one can attain nirvana. The same universal secular message is given by Jesus as response to the question by the Pharisees about the greatest commandment: love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself. (Mathew 22:34-40). Perhaps the rumor that Jesus traveled to India could be true, as he seemed to have imbibed some Buddhist principles.

Hinduism has many parallels to Greek religious practices. Both are steeped in myths with numerous gods and goddesses who have many human characteristics. However, traditional Hinduism is a way of living than a way of thinking.

Islam has borrowed heavily from both Judaism and Christianity. Mohammed, considered God’s prophet by the faithful, was resting in a cave outside Mecca, called Hira, in 620 C.E. when he heard voices which he wrote down and collected into the book Qur’an. The message was clear: God is one and there is no other. There is a Judgment day with eternal paradise for the good and everlasting hell for those who go against His will.

Christianity. Chapter 4 of Karen Armstrong’s book ‘A History of God’ is titled ‘Trinity: The Christian God’. There is a reason for this. Though Christians claim they believe in monotheism, their God is not exactly one; He is three in One or One in Three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 3=1. 1=3. For ordinary mortals, this is a mystery and that is how the Christian Church wants it to be regarded. Do not try to understand it, rather, just believe it! Jesus was a Jew and his initial followers were all Jews who believed in the one God Yahweh. How and why did the later followers of Christ change to a ‘kind’ of polytheist mode of thinking?

St. Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, who became a follower of Christ after he fell from his horse and who claimed to hear disembodied ‘voices’ that he identified as the words of Jesus, could come to our aid here. He was instrumental in spreading the gospel to the gentiles who were used to a variety of gods. It was he who realized that the good news of the gospel would have greater acceptance if Christ, the messiah, was projected as divine rather than human. Hence he claimed that Jesus was a preexistent ‘heavenly’ being; that he was created as the ‘first born’ of all creation; that he existed in the form of God and that he was equal to God.