Temple of Understanding

Yesterday, the third of January, went I to a "Christmas Gathering" of the Bihar Chapter of the Temple of Understanding. I was invited by a well-meaning senior citizen, and being interested in efforts that keep India rich, diverse, and multicultural, I decided to give it a try.

The result:

A truly Dickension experience - such as in 'What the Dickens am I doing here?'

The venue was the Ursuline Convent hall, next door to a little Catholic Church in a quiet neighbourhood in mid-town Patna.

The temple of Understanding looked like a collective of old guys about to fall off the perch, if you get my drift, many of whom were rather dressed as undertakers.

A rather dry afternoon, with a lot of hot air about how profound the Christian religion was, and how much it had contributed and is yet to contribute to the multicultural fabric of India.

One chap, a Muslim gent, spoke of Christians in such superlatives, that one wondered whether he was back from a trip to Utopia. Christian nuns and priests were supposed to be the most selfless beings on God's own earth, according to him. One wondered whether the old boy hadn't read about the child abuse trials and other stuff that's been on the news in the past decade or so. Of course, with the small hall filled with a genreous amount of clery and religious, [mostly in their autumn years], this sort of talk was expected. After all it was a Christmas gathering!

One does not however want to dismiss the work that The Temple of Understanding is doing. these old chaps would be wise to induct a lot of youngsters into their fold and give them the reins of administration.

The Temple builds bridges between people of all faiths and supposedly fights discrimination. Unfortunately, with the currrent leadership being over threescore and ten years of age, and nobody [except a Muslim cleric of about thirty-five summers old], being of a reasonably young age in its membership, it looks like a species facing extinction.