Rejecting God's Order

Chapter 7

When I look back upon all these years that have gone by, Irealize that the bhakti and belief I had in God has changed in a curious way. Iam myself surprised by this.

There were catechism classes every evening at church. Afterschool was done, within a short while, we would cover our heads with a piece ofcloth and set off to the church. Sometimes we'd be ravenously hungry. We'dlong for something to munch as we walked along our way. Sometimes we would soaka little broken rice and carry that in our clothes or shirt pockets, and munchon that. On our way we'd see all sorts of things being sold at the bazaar bythe oil-press. But we never had any money. So we'd stand and watch a while andthen move on.

In the morning, dew or rain, we had to rise at dawn and go tomorning Pusai. We'd clean our teeth in a haphazard way, fling a piece of clothover our heads, and run. It was at cock crow, somehow, that you were most deeplyasleep. Yet it was at that hour we had to wake up and run. It used to be atorment just to get up. We'd scarcely wash our faces and make haste. When thelake was swollen with water, it was near impossible to go. It was usually verycold then. However much you were shaken awake, all you wanted to do was to turnover and go to sleep, you just couldn't bear to get up. But really there wasnothing else for it; however hard you resisted, you just had to go. If you didn'tgo, the next day at assembly you were beaten by the priest or by a teacher. Norwere these ordinary blows. The cane fell on us with the sharpness of a whip. Itleft great weals. Enough to be reminded of those blows. Then we'd spring outof our beds at last.

From the time I was a child, I found it easy to learn byrote. I also found I had a good memory. So I was always in good form in thecatechism class. Whenever there was a test on the Scriptures, I always won thefirst prize.

When I was studying in the second class, a priest who was awhite man came to visit our school. He was of a good height, and had a long,brilliantly white beard. All of us were curious just to touch him. The Sisterasked each of us to repeat various prayers. She asked us to repeat the SixPerfections of God, the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Creed. I was theonly one there who could say all of them correctly. The priest lifted me up andkissed me and gave me a five paisa piece. I was pleased first of all that thepriest touched me and lifted me up. That he should have kissed me and even givenme the money filled me with an incomparable joy. I took the coin and tucked itaway carefully in my skirt. I wanted to show them at home. That's why.

I made my First Communion while I was still in the secondclass. When I was in the third, the Bishop of Madurai came to our village. I wasconfirmed then.

When I went to study at the primary school run by nuns, theSisters entrusted me to lock up and to open the parish church. I would do allsuch jobs as going to the church and bringing the vases over at school time,polishing them, and then putting them back after the Sisters had arranged themwith flowers. I always took one of the other children with me. Because I wasfrightened to go inside the church by myself. I felt a bit braver if there wassomeone with me.

If ever I had to stay alone in the church, my insides wouldquake. Because just at those times I would remember the stories that the Sistershad told us in Scripture lessons about the Devil.

They had told us that if we kept on committing sins, theDevil would put them all down in a long list written into a big notebook, whichhe would show to God. Sister said, in the Scripture lesson, that if we committedso many sins that the notebook actually filled up, then he would peel the skinoff our backs and write our sins there. I would recall this always at theprecise moment when I was alone in the church. I imagined the Devil busilywriting down my sins, and when the notebook was completely full, coming towardsme to rip the skin off my back. I would see very clearly and within my vision,the dark Devil that I had been shown in pictures, with a long tail, and withsharp horns, nails and teeth, coming towards me to show me the notebook in whichmy sins were written down. I would die of fear then. But usually I forgot aboutit when I left the church and came outside.

The nuns never seemed to tell us any cheerful stories. It wasalways stories of the Devil. They told us about the Devil wandering about with apair of balances, with the sins we had committed in one pan, weighed against themerit we had earned in the other. Every time I went near the church, I would bestupefied with terror, imagining the Devil with his balance, yelling above myhead. I could actually see my load of sins pulling the pan downwards.

In order bring down my pan of good deeds, I did everythingthat the Sisters told me to do. I obeyed them in them all things. I repeated myprayers very often. But in spite of all this, my pan of sins continued to be theheavier one. They said you could actually see the Devil with your own eyes. Thatis what really scared me. We used to imagine the Devil to be exactly like thecreature in the advertisement of Onida TV. Only the real Devil would be evenmore terrifying to look at, we thought, black as the night. I'd be shaken tothe core at the very thought.

The Sisters told us that if we sinned greatly, it delightedthe Devil and made our guardian angel very sad. So if ever I told a small lie,if I pinched a stick or pencil, if at home I didn't obey my parents or elders,if I wasn't good at school, I'd see in front of my eyes the Devil wanderingabout with his balances, laughing happily, and my guardian angel wretched andweeping. I too would want to weep then. However much I wanted to forget thisscene or to wipe it out, I could not. It just appeared before my eyes the moreintensely.

Before I made my First Communion, they taught me mostcarefully about making my confession. For many days I simply repeated what theytaught me to confess. Every week I went to the confession box, knelt down andreeled off the formula I had learnt by heart.

"I praise the Lord Omnipotent. Bless me saami, for I havesinned. It is a week since I made my last confession. I lied four times; I stolefive times; I have not obeyed my elders; I was daydreaming in church. I repentthese and those sins that I have forgotten, saami." This was always theformula.

The priest would tell me to say three Hail Marys as mypunishment, and give me a blessing out loud. We had to get up from our knees, gointo the church and complete our penances immediately. It was always scary toleave the priest's bungalow and enter the darkness of the church. Every time Ifinished my confession, I would set off for the church, trembling, and at ahalf-run. We'd repeat the prayers that the priest had asked us to say, endwith an Act of Contrition, and then run home.

When we received the host at Communion, we were not supposedto touch it either with our teeth or our fingers. The Sisters had warned us thateven if it stuck to our palates, we should only move it gently with our tonguesand swallow it. The Sisters had told us over and over again that Jesus wasinside that host, we should not bite Him, nor should we touch the host with oursinful hands. For some time I did as they told me. It was very embarrassing whenit got stuck to my palate. Often it was difficult to shift it gently with mytongue. It also took an age to do this. I always worried about how I wouldmanage to say the appropriate prayers after Holy Communion. So I always triedvery hard to swallow it down somehow.

It was very funny, actually. I would have to hide my mouthbehind my head-cloth and then scrape my tongue against my palate pushing my headto one side with the effort, and somehow manage to shift it in that way. At thesame time I had to keep watching from the corner of my eye in case anyoneobserved my antics; particularly, of course, the Sisters.

For a long time I had a perverse wish to try touching thehost with my finger. So one day, hiding myself well behind my head-cloth, Imanaged it at last. And it didn't happen at all as the nuns had threatened.They had said that if I touched it, blood would flow down my hand. I removed myfinger and examined it. Nothing. I told myself that the Sisters had spoken emptywords. But I couldn't say that to anyone else. I did want to. But I was afraidthat if I did so, it would be common knowledge that I had touched the hostwillfully. So I didn't say anything then.

It seems that in some village or the other, one lad hadbitten into the host with his teeth. From that very moment that morning, bloodstreamed from his mouth. It didn't stop throughout the day... the Sisters toldus this story too. I wanted to test that out too, so another time I put myheadcloth against my mouth, and terrified by what I was doing, bit, chewed andswallowed. I wiped my mouth with my cloth and looked at it. No blood at all.Then I knew that this too had been an empty threat by the Sisters. I couldn'ttell anyone about this either. So it was in this way that I grew up in devotionand belief.

When I was in the third class, I was confirmed. They had toldme that during the confirmation service, the Bishop would slap my cheek. Theysaid that it was at that moment that the Spiritus Sanctus would descend upon me.As the Bishop neared me, I kept opening and shutting my eyes in expectation ofthe slap, so when he caught me a blow upon my cheek I wasn't aware of anySpiritus Sanctus descending. Still, I kept my head bowed in devotion. I stillwant to laugh when I remember this.

When I started going to the convent school, I belonged to theBaalar Sabai, the Holy Childhood Movement. On Sundays, we pinned on our BaalarSabai badges before attending Pusai. We were hugely proud of these badges. Thenafter Pusai, there was a special service for the Baalar Sabai. There used to bea Baalar Sabai day once a year. Then you had to contribute money every now andthen for something or the other. That's the thing I remember most.

There was usually a catechism class on Sunday evenings. Whenthat was over, there was the Blessing in the church. This Blessing wouldseemingly go on for hours and hours. The priest would come, give his sermon, andask any number of questions as time went on and on. We small children would beso sleepy, we could scarcely keep our eyes open. If your eyes drooped even inthe slightest, the Sister sitting nearby would land a stinging blow on yourback. Though we tried to keep our eyes open in fear of that blow, in a shortwhile it would be impossible. One by one we'd drop on to the floor.

As we grew a little older, the Sisters stopped beating us.But they'd give us a sharp pinch. That hurt even more. They seemed to growtheir nails for the sole purpose of pinching us. The trouble was that just alittle after we had been given a sharp nip, our heads would start nodding again.Sometimes when the priest saw this happening, he would ask the Sisters to slapus. Who should we have feared the most? It seemed impossible to control our urgeto sleep. Once when I was dozing off like this and the Sister slapped me, I wasso startled that I wet myself: She gave me a few extra blows for that. Iscreamed out so loudly that my mother came, cleaned me up and carried me away.

Because I was good at reciting the litany, the Sisters mademe teach the appropriate prayers to the girls who were preparing to get married.A catechist gave lessons to the prospective grooms at the church. After I hadtaught them for two or three weeks, the Sister would come and test the girls. Ifthey could not say the prayers properly, it was I who got the scolding.

One day, when I was repeating the prayers, Sister turned upsuddenly. I was so startled by this, and became so nervous that I made a mistakeand changed a line that I was saying out loud. Almost the first thing that shedid when she came right inside was to give me a knock on my forehead. I happento have a big, wide forehead. And I nearly died of the pain. My forehead beganto swell up where she struck it. But she wouldn't let me off even after that.I continued to repeat the prayers, weeping as I did so. On that day, I thoughtto myself secretly, that when I grew up I would pick up a stone and fling it atthis Sister. I also thought to myself that I would never attend a catechismclass or go to a church service ever again. My anger abated a little with thisthought. But before I grew up, that Sister left our village and was transferredelsewhere.

In this way, we went to Pusai every day in the morning, andto catechism and prayers in the evening. And in school, there were Scripturelessons for the Christian children and Moral Education for the Hindu children. Ialways gained good marks at Scripture. I even won prizes.

When we went to school or to church we had to walk somedistance, past several streets. The church, the school, the convent and thepriests' bungalow were all in places where the upper-caste communities lived.Most of the children attending the school were from our streets. All the same,all these children had to walk the distance there in order to study. There werefew Christians among the upper-castes. For them, the church, the school, theconvent and the priests' house were all close at hand. There was no necessityfor them to walk any distance. It was we who had to do that, through pouringrain and beating sun. What's more, often it was just the lights in our streetthat wouldn't work. Nobody would take any notice of this fact. In the darknessand the mire, you had to watch out for shit as you came and went. Perhaps thepriests and the Sisters chose to live elsewhere because of the filthy conditionshere; I don't know.

When I was studying in the school which the priests ran, fromthe sixth to the eighth class, they pulled down the old church and began work ona new one. So they began to dig the ground behind the old church in order to laythe new foundations. Some of us used to go there from our handwork class inorder to shovel out the earth from the pits. One day when I was there, I couldmake out a skeleton against the walls of the pit. Two or three others saw italong with me, and we were all stunned with terror. Then another girl came alongand told us a fascinating string of stories: that this was the skeleton of aformer priest who had been burled here; he had been canonized and was now asaint and in heaven.

And not just that, either. She added that because this wasthe skeleton of a priest, if we took it and kept it as a relic, it would enableus to study well. We'd be granted anything we prayed for, she said. And as shewas telling us all this, she helped herself to two or three of the teeth. Atonce the rest of us helped ourselves to whatever we could take from theskeleton. Of course we left the bigger bones alone. Anyway we couldn't carrythose away. But we picked up all the little bones and teeth and put themcarefully into our geometry boxes. Every day we prayed to the teeth: I don'twant to be beaten by Teacher; I want to study well; I want to be clever. Weprayed for all sorts of things like that.

A few days went by. One evening all of us in my family weresitting together at home, studying and reading. The science teacher had asked usto make a couple of diagrams. As I was drawing them, my elder sister saw theteeth in my box and asked, "How did you get all these teeth, di? From wheredid you pick them up?" Immediately, my elder brother, my younger sister, mymother and Paatti, all began asking me one question after another. So I toldthem all about it.

They all laughed heartily. My mother and Paatti told meemphatically that those were no priest's teeth, that the priests were neverburied there, but that sometime ago, a man who had worked in the priests'kitchen had died and was known to have been buried there. They said that in alllikelihood those teeth were his and that I must throw them out. But I didn'thave the heart to do it. I had placed such devotion on those teeth. I even hadsome fear that it might be a sin if I threw them out. And in the end I didn'tdo it. It was Annan, my older brother, who took the lot and flung them on therubbish heap. The next day when I went to school, I told the others all aboutit. And they too decided, fearfully, to fling their bones away. We took them andcast them away with a feeling of repulsion, exactly the opposite of the respectand devotion in which we had held them, and we ran home without once lookingback. I have been caught up in blind belief such as this, and come away from it.

In those days, every evening there would be family prayers athome. As soon as we came home from church in the evening, there would be prayersat home. Hunger would tear at our insides. But my mother would say sternly thatthere would be food only after prayers. If there was something like fish or meatwaiting, we could never concentrate on the prayer, anyway. And sometimes wewould insist obstinately that we had to eat first. If we said our prayers afterdinner, though, everyone would fall asleep. Hence the rule that dinner alwayscame after prayers.

Even if the rest of us said our prayers only out of a senseof duty, my mother always covered her head properly and prayed in the most raptand tender-hearted fashion. Whenever I think of my mother, it is this image ofher, so often seen in my childhood, that appears before my eyes. After prayers,we sang hymns out of the hymn-book. But whatever we sang or did not, my mothernever forgot to sing, "My heart, come, let us worship; the Lord is everlastingbliss."

When I was in the sixth class, our house was electrified.Until then, we only used kerosene-oil lamps. When we first got electricity, weused to love switching the lights on and off. There were even quarrels about itat home. Even Paatti would keep switching the lights on and off unnecessarilyand then laughing like a child. She would keep repeating, in wonder, "Just seewhat a magical thing this current is, which they've gone and discovered. Assoon as I tap this thing, the current catches in a trice and lights the lamps."She was overjoyed because the current never ran out the way that oil did.