The legacy of Mary Peter Claver

She was an American nun with a big voice and a bigger heart, working in Bihar .. one of the most underdeveloped areas in India.

I met Sister Mary Peter Claver entrirely by chance. I was in Patna, on a holiday from Kalimpong (Darjeeling district) when an aquaintence of mine asked me whether I'd like to be interviewed in a televeison studio for a project of his.
Now, I had never seen the inside of a TV studio, and those were the days (the early 1980's) when television was a licensed ornate box in a pretty well-off person's living room.
Anyway, I was really amazed to see this television studio inside a girl's school.
It was really cool.
The next thing I knew I was helping out another guy, a Dalit boy, with his final project: a drama.
Well, that's a long story. But let's say I wrote the script based on an idea I had.
Anand Lal acted as Jesus Christ, and at the last minute when the lead actress who acted Mary Magdalene fell sick, I the playwright was left with no option but to get the the studio in drag!
I was a very pretty Mary, may I add, acting opposite an absolute hunk of a guy from Loyola School.
Anyway, after that show, Sister PC said that I should take the TV production course. Of course, I was already hooked looking at all those cameras and lights, and the idea that I coud actually create something.
That started a long association with PC and several adventures, with my dear friends Sammy, Sudhir, Billu, Sarojini, and Suzy Bhengra and Rajesh - the antics we were ip to all abetted by Sister PC.
She helped us experiment, allowed ius to make mistakes, and most of all trusted us.
there were no locked doors and keys and stuff.
We youngsters took charge, and responsibility, and had access to the studio even when PC was away for long periods.
Today, there are locks, and rules, and permissions, and no young people frolicking about Notre Dame Communication Centre.
No wonder it is dying slowly.
the only way to revive NDCC would be to tear down the walls and let the youngsters in!
To let in rock music, and wierd hairstyles, and problems that start with pimples and acne.
But sadly, there are no nuns of PC's stature left to put parents in their place and to let Love blossom.
There are a sad bunch of missionary sisters in charge who want to control everything
who will not stand up for teenagers in love
who will not advocate for mixed marriages
and who certainly don't have the guts to stage another 'The King and I"
PC died of Alzhiemer's on Saturday night.

Tribute to my Guru

Sister Mary Peter Claver was a person with an unshaken belief in the goodness within young people.
When she opened Notre Dame Communication Centre, she threw open the doors of the television training studio to the privileged and poor alike. She allowed us to experiment, to make mistakes, and if by chance anything broke in the studio, no matter how expensive it was, there would be no fines or punishment if the culprit owned up immediately and honestly.
I learnt a lot about people management by observing Sister Peter Claver. I learnt how to be non-judgemental, to listen carefully, and to always look for the positive and to see the good in a person. There was a time when I consumed an overdose of sleeping pills thinking of ‘ending it all’ - the reason being various things that occur in what is now known as a ‘dysfunctional family”. Sister PC counselled me through this very traumatic period of my life and helped me recognise my inner strength.
The various young people, many who came from difficult circumstances, whose lives PC touched and who were guided towards unconventional careers and unchartered fields are now doing their bit in spreading the Good News in India and abroad.
PC will always live on in our hearts and minds.

Unforgettable Lesson

TRUE STORIES of the KOSI FLOOD

It is seven thirty in the morning as we turn into the iron gates of the BDVS [ Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti] compound in Saharsa.

It is Vishwakarma Puja day, when Hindus pay homage to the Divine Architect, and the neighbouring temple has religious chants on at full blast, so we have to shout above the din. Thankfully, the rituals stop after a few minutes and the temple turns off its public address system.
Preparations for the relief distribution are under way.

Father Jose, who is sipping his morning tea while going through a sheaf of papers in a makeshift shelter in the yard, informs us that a relief truck is due to arrive in a few hours.

In the tent, younger men are working on a couple of laptops, checking data, writing reports and generally being busy. On a couple of camp cots, some volunteers are still sleeping. They have been working throughout the night.

Sheela Devi, BDVS district in-charge, extends us hospitality – a simple breakfast of buns and ‘ghugni’ – a spicy chickpea preparation – and black tea.

She will arrange for our camera team to accompany BDVS personnel on a survey of some villages in a cut-off area. These villages are marooned and have to be reached by boat.

“We are very particular to ensure that the relief supplies reach the genuine people,” explains Jose. “Many villages are still cut off and it takes a couple of hours to reach them by boat. Relief reaches the people along the roadside easily, but our aim is to make sure that we are able to reach much needed food to those who are far away and who may be in starving conditions.”
Volunteers thus accompany local Panchayat members to the source villages, verifying the Panchayat lists at the location and ensuring that they note down all the details of the families. “This is a very useful process and helps us identify the genuine families, because powerful people sometimes snatch away the coupons and send in their own men to misappropriate relief materials,” says Sheela Devi.

At the verification point, a man may be asked the name of his mother-in-law, or how many children he has, thus making it difficult for imposters to take benefit of materials meant for the dispossessed communities.

It is an important religious festival today, one that will kick-start rituals that lead up to the mammoth Durga Puja.

Vishwakarma Puja is a time when most workers show respect to their tools, honour them and generally give them a holiday. I wonder whether we would be able to actually avail of a boat. We are to visit the Pattarghat block.

The organisational skills of the BDVS team soon come into play, when, after a few phone calls, it was clear that a Mukhiya from one of the Panchayats will be accompanying us and the verification team to a couple of marooned villages.

The cooperation of the local self government functionaries is a valuable asset.
Generous Hearts

By eleven o’clock we are near Purvi Kamp, a Panchayat with several inundated villages. We wait for a while and spot two boats coming towards the road from a distance. They take about ten minutes to arrive.

These are old wooden boats with leaky bottoms, which need constant bailing.

The Mukhiya, it turned out, is terrified of deep water, but this had not deterred him from going out to the villages, even though he was in trepidation every time he boarded a boat.

This fear works to our advantage, because he insists that not more than six people should get on a boat, so scared is he of its capsizing!

The boat journey over windy water is no joy ride.

There is fear visible on the face of the Mukhiya, but one cannot but admire the sense of purpose this man has, even though he has a sharp tongue and belongs to a ‘dominant’ caste, his genuineness and generosity shines through.

There are undercurrents, and the boatman has to be alert or the craft may get entangled in bamboo thickets, dash against tree tops, or overturn.

We come dangerously close to a clump of submerged bamboo...

We draw alongside a half submerged village, the atmosphere is humid, emanating an odour which is a strange mix of the fetid and the fresh.

A couple of men wade through the waist deep water to grab our boat and bring it alongside, so we can disembark in relative comfort.
We trek through a cluster of about thirty houses, mainly Dalit hutments, that are a couple of feet above the water level.

Towards the north, the fields and most of the pucca houses of the higher castes are in over six feet of water. These huts are empty.

There are a few men and boys in the village, and some older women who have stayed behind to keep watch over their homes. The men say that looters roam about entering deserted villages and taking away whatever they find.

There is not much food.

A family has a sack of maize which they are subsisting on. Fortunately there is a single hand-pump which is working, three feet above the water.

The BDVS team gets down to work, surveying the village, taking down information. The people say that ours is the first team to have arrived at the village....

As we take our leave and get into the boats for the next destination, a man wades out to us, his hand holding aloft a steel dish over the water.

In the dish is roasted corn from the precious stock of maize. “You are our visitors, he says, we cannot let you go without offering you hospitality.”

I am reminded of the Gospels, of a woman giving all from whatever little she has, and am deeply humbled. This lesson in generosity is something that will remain with me as long as I live.

Anniversary

Hearty Congratulations

to two wonderful people

on your first commitment anniversary.

One year of being together is reason to celebrate.

You make a really cute couple.

Wishing you many more such occassions.

The more committed couples like you start posting photos on cyberspace celebrating your love, the closer will we get to attaining that ideal country where a rainbow of colours and communities can live in simple harmony and acceptance.

Flavour of the month

One has so many thoughts about so many things at any given point of time, that writing consistently in a blog of this nature becomes an onerous task.
No doubt, there are several issues to write about.
The favour of the month for me, is not the IPL [I wouldn’t touch cricket with a bargepole if it were not for the people I love who love cricket!]. Neither is it the Elections, though like other sane people, I am apprehensive about what sort of government will finally be voted into power.

The flavour of the month for me is iced TEA.

Refreshing, delicious, cooling, and so easy to make.

Lemon, tea, water, and ice are the base ingredients.

Then you can become as innovative as you want to.

Tea is good for you, especially if you keep off the milk and use just a little sugar.

Cricket?

A cricket is an annoying little creature that chirps long into the night.

T-20 is something else and no less annoying.

For the next fortnight or so, all we're ever going to see on Indian TV

will be T-20 interspersed with the other great Indian Tamasha

If one has dogs messing up the pitch

The other has its own infinite variety of distractions

there was Varun Gandhi whose foot-in-mouth disease has not been cured

then there's Laloo the lantern man who is trying to derail the Indo-Italian express

then there's Sanju Baba who's replaces hardware with hugs, and is being gunned for by Mayawati who thinks mentions of public displays of affection are obscene...

By the way

the picture

has nothing to do with Mayawati or madness

It's there to keep me cool.

I'm hot under the collar

because I was stood up on Saturday

My date was watching the South African safari!

I agree with this

I'm tired of all this mollycoddling of kids

and female fascists trying to get governments

to condemn time tested motivational practices

A belt had its uses when we were kids

and if it were still used

the world would be rid of a lot of teenage 'problems'

thank heavens in india parents still have control over kids

but that's going to be watered down

and the next thing is even more anarchy

My vote is for the person who says

that parents have the right to smack their kids!

BUT NOT TO MURDER them

Jai Ho!

Well, the Great Indian Elections are here, and there is the usual amount of hype and hoopla.
Government schools closed for a month, teachers shanghaied into manning election booths, rural banks shut down.
Murder, mayhem, hate speeches, community polarisation along lines of caste and religion.
Sorry, I won’t be voting.
Why? My name mysteriously disappeared from voting the list during the last general election, and in spite of ‘intimations to the concerned authorities’ it hasn’t materialised on the rolls yet.
This is probably because one hasn’t the inclination to lubricate a couple of palms to expedite things.
So much for transparency, democracy and all that jazz.
Jai Ho!

Letter from Italy

My friend, Jacob Srampical , a Jesuit priest, wrote this letter on Easter

Dear friend,

Easter days were sidelined here by the earthquake. On the 6th early morning the main quake took place.
In fact at 3.32 am that day I was already at my computer (a rare thing!) and instantly, being shook, I wrapped myself in a bed sheet and ran down from my fifth floor room, but seeing none of the 75 or so inhabitants in my house agitated, I went back only to listen half hour later on my radio, about the gravity and the centre of the quake. A number of quakes continued for several days and although 86 kms away we could sense the tremors very well in our rooms here in Rome. .

Statistics say about 308 died, 30 thousands (one third of those affected) evacuated and about 100 still in the hospitals.

The funeral of 205 people on Good Friday morning was a touching liturgical service, presided over by the Secretary of State, Salesian Cardinal Bertone.
Rai (Radiotelevisione Italia) did a great job of telecasting it with touching commentaries and well chosen visuals.
Later in the evening the traditional Way of the Cross presided by the Pope from the Collosseum was overshadowed again as Rai did an excellent programme called “The Calvary at L’Aquila” just before it. It was a pity that the Way of the Cross with text by Indian Archbishop Menamparampil and pictures from Indian artist Jyoti Sahi in spite of narrating all sufferings from India did not strike a chord, as it did not include, obviously, some images from L’Aquila. Perhaps that is why Rai called their programme “the Calvari at L’Aquila”.
In fact Rai’s religious programmes are top class (may be the best of their programmes, as a lot of others are entertainment based) and yet the Church here has 3 or 4 channels here all doing mundane work which hardly anyone watches, which make me wonder, whether the Church has understood at all what media are all about. (TV is a MASS medium, no?)


How does Italy cope with the earthquake?.
Earthquakes are nothing new here. Italy is much on the seismic range zone, as it lies on top of two geological fault lines, and the country had earthquakes as recently as 2001 and 1984. and many others in the past. And help comes in very fast from Europe and others parts of the world.
What struck me was every little village in the country is making a contribution, every association worth its name is planning schemes to raise funds. And many families are inviting evacuated families to come and live with them freely until their homes are rebuilt, which Premier Berlusconi (who was almost camping on site for days) says might be 2 years . In fact with one third of L’Aquila city and the rest of Abbruzzo region destroyed, 2 years is not a long time.

Houses will be rebuilt strong and sturdy but lost lives will ever remind them of the killer earthquake of April 6th,2009 for many years to come.

Too tired to blog

Too tired to blog

after slog.. slog... slog

so goodnight

do sleep tight

don't let the mosquitoes bite

and don't you finish off my Sprite

MY BlogBaby

Okay
so I'm

shamelessly

promoting

this

baby

blogger

and I know

he's gonna be wild with me for posting these pix I took of him on a recent trip to Dilli,

but

he's become a real Dilli Billi

his blog

http://cuttersandgooglies.blogspot.com

Rhyme Crime 1

Anypone can blog

Anyone can slog

Or get stuck in a bog

In the middle of a fog

Or eat like a hog

or sleep like a log

Go, take a morning jog

but beware of the dog

who appears from the smog

looking like a golliwog

Happy Easter

A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question.
The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up onthe footpath, and stopped centimeters from a shop window.
For a second everything went quiet in the cab, and then the driver said:"Look mate, don't ever do that again. You scared me!".
The passenger apologized and said, "I didn't realize that a little tap wouldscare you so much."
The driver replied, "Sorry, it's not really your fault. Today is my 1st day as a cab driver - I've been driving a van carrying DEAD BODIES for the last25 years.

Over the moon

Blog

and slog

It's all a fog

this recession

Car smog

Eat like a hog

you're heading for

indigestion

every rung you climb

like the beanstalk's vine

but no matter how you beseech

the roti's always just out of reach......

ALLENBHAI

Allen Bhai
don't ask me why
But I pawned your pitcher
from de facebook
all it took
was a minute to snitch -'er
so here's Allen with the misus
Donna Angela, no less
and in the middle
Siddhant Jo-hann-ess

CUTTERS AND GOOGLIES

I'm really happy that

my one and only 'Manoj'

has decided to write a blog, following his CBSE exams.

I'm really interested to read what he has to say about things, and the name of his blog is really fantastic.

Visit the blog HERE

while you are here, just click this link for an intersting QUIZ on eating out... and table manners!