“I’m Joseph in the nativity play, Father.”
I dipped my hand into the bowl, pulled out a few wafers, and began munching on them. They were tasteless, but since they seemed to be there for the taking, I placed a few in my pocket and continued wandering around the church, looking at the paintings and statues, enjoying those snacks as well as the sound of my echoing steps.
Then Father John appeared out of the vestry, straight into my path.
I’m sure I had crumbs all over my face. He stopped me on the spot and angrily demanded, “What are you doing?”
“I’m Joseph in the nativity play, Father.”
He pointed to my hand and asked, “What are those?”
“Biscuits.”
He stared at me for a moment. Then abruptly he turned heel and commanded, “Come with me.”
He led me to the vestry in the back of the church, where he let me have it. It was one of the worst tongue-lashings I had ever experienced. Yet, I still had no idea what I had done wrong. He kept using the word “sacrilege” again and again, but I didn’t know what it meant. The torrent of words was so vehement I was convinced he was going to call the police.
Finally he sent me home trembling, frightened by that word “sacrilege.” I desperately wanted to ask my mother what it meant, so I could better know my offense and the retribution that was surely in store for me. But I was afraid to ask her, because she would want to know why.
Years later, as I was preparing a sermon, I was reading G. Campbell Morgan, the famed preacher. He made an observation that took me back to that day. He said, in essence, “Sacrilege is often defined as taking something that belongs to God and using it profanely. But there is a bigger sacrilege we commit all the time. That is to take something and give it to God when it means absolutely nothing to us.”
I believe both of these definitions describe what happened in the vestry that day. I know the episode typified my attitude toward Christianity: it was a grim rap on the knuckles for me. I gave God nothing and took what He intended for honor and treated it tritely. I just didn’t know any better. With a life full in many different family pursuits, I drew my fulfillment from knowing my friends, feasting every now and then on some treats somewhere, and, most of all, enjoying sports.
As my chums and I grew in our friendship, we ventured farther from our neighborhood and its nearby environs. We grew to love the taste of roasted corn ears offered by the street vendors. Those vendors gave their wares an incredible flavor by taking half a lime, dipping it into a mixture of dry spices, then rubbing the lime on the roasted corn.
We learned to jump onto buses on the fly, catching them at mid-speed, and to jump off just as intrepidly. This sounds dangerous, but it was no more so than the daring feats we performed on our bicycles. If I was running late, I would pedal up to a slow-moving bus before it picked up speed and, with one hand clinging to the bar at the doorway and a life-risking negligence, get the benefit of the bus’s speed as it went from stop to stop. These kinds of foolish antics we would do on a dare, sometimes taking nasty spills, with our limbs and at times our heads banging against the concrete or into the gutter. But we learned to just get up and keep going. I remember my head often being in a daze as I would struggle to my feet. Medical care was not exactly given priority, and you only went to the doctor if you couldn’t get up. I took my fair share of spills, as did my friends. Of course, having no brakes on my bike made every biking trip a hazard.
I had my first real bout with guilt on those streets. My mother had given me a five-rupee note with which to buy ice cream when I was at school, and I was to bring back the change. When I bought the ice cream and proudly paid with my five-rupee note, the vendor handed me the change, and I noticed he’d given me change for ten rupees, not five. As I gazed down at my palm, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I thought, “Wow! I just made five rupees.”
That felt good the first day. But every day thereafter, when I had to pass this ice cream vendor at school, there was a strange feeling of wrongdoing inside me. He was a big, rather rotund Sikh man, with a somewhat scraggly beard and a cheerful countenance, and he was friendly to all who walked by. Each time I saw him, I struggled inside, saying to myself, “I cheated that man.” Then I began to see him in other places, happily pedaling along on his bike with his ice cream cart in front of him.
Finally, I could take no more. I saved up every coin I could, from here and there, for several months, and I finally went back to the man. Very respectfully, I said, “Sir, I have to ask you to forgive me for something. I made a big mistake. You gave me more change for an ice cream some time ago than you should have.”
He eyed me for a moment, as if trying to remember the previous exchange. As he did, I stood there quaking. I thought he was going to clobber me or, at the very least, soundly berate me. I waited to hear him say, “You scoundrel. You stole from me, and here you’ve passed by me every day!”
As he continued to say nothing, I swallowed hard and offered, “I would be willing to give you more than what you gave me back because,” I stammered, “I’ve had your money all this while.”
When I raised my eyes, I saw that he didn’t know what to do. He was profoundly moved, and, almost in a state of shock, he took the money that I held out to him. He may have offered me a free ice cream in return; I don’t remember. All I know is, as I turned to go home, a huge burden had rolled off my shoulders.
The sad day came in our lives when my grandmother, Agnes Manickam, passed away. It is fitting that she was at our home, because she particularly loved my mom. I remember the day with a beclouded memory, for I was only nine at the time. It was a sunny day for the funeral, and Father John presided. The most riveting memory was the hymn they sang at the service: “Abide with me — fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens — Lord, with me abide.” I remember those words so well. They spelled death and farewell.
Years later, I would study the words of that hymn in church. That second verse is powerful: “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” Even today, whenever I hear that hymn, the memory of my family standing at the gravesite comes flooding back.
As we drove home afterward, my brothers and sisters all talked about the fact that our dear Ammah was gone. None of us knew what her death meant, exactly. I just knew that I had lost someone who had been very good to me and whose memory was dear to me for that reason. That awakened me to the stark realization of life’s end that awaited each one. I thought of it often and wished I could push back the veil of death.
Sports again provided the escape. Every once in a while, my father brought home a warped or broken tennis racquet or some other piece of sports equipment that had been thrown out at the YMCA, of which he was president. There are buildings standing there today that he was instrumental in having built, and he often hosted well-known dignitaries there. It was at the Y where I met the famed Jesse Owens and heard E. Stanley Jones, one of the most notable missionaries India has known. He was in his eighties at that time. I had no clue of the greatness of the man I was listening to, unaware, for example, that Mahatma Gandhi held him in the highest esteem.
Occasionally, I approached the sports coach at the Y to see if he had any old cricket bats, tennis nets, or other equipment he might be ready to throw into the garbage. Even though the stuff he gave us was well-worn, it made all the difference to us in our street games, and the Y became a sort of reliable supplier for us in that regard.
Even as we buddies grew closer in friendship, however, something was beginning to happen in me. There were nights I lay in bed wondering if I was going to make it. I began to feel a loneliness I couldn’t explain. If you had asked any of my friends, they wouldn’t have been able to explain it either. We were together for everything, going in and out of each other’s homes regularly, having lunch or dinner with one another’s families. It was as if we were all one big family.
But over time, I began to suffer from a sense of purposelessness and inferiority. My loneliness stemmed from the fact that all my friends were either rich or brilliant, and I was neither. While they were always at the top of the class, I never did well in studies. And because I never had any pocket money, I couldn’t go anywhere unless I was with them and benefiting from their generosity. Of course, they always wanted me to be with them, no matter what we were doing. That’s why they always paid my way, even to the point of buying me things.
Still, I knew I wasn’t in their ranks on either level. So it helped that in sports, I was the best of the group. Whatever sport I played, I generally came out near the top. And because I excelled there, sports became my escape from the loneliness I otherwise faced. In fact, it became my primary motivation.
I used to be in the sporting field for over four hours every evening, from four o’clock or so till around eight thirty, when my mother served dinner. I loved tennis especially, because I could get out into the open air for match after match. And I did very well in the sport, playing in clubs and competing at a high level. In table tennis I eventually reached the city semifinals, the top four, which wasn’t a small thing in Delhi, a city of millions.
Yet, I had no encouragement and no equipment. I never owned a new or even a decent racquet. I always had to play with borrowed or half-broken ones. My buddies usually came to my aid, loaning me theirs. And I never owned a set of pads for cricket, which became my favorite sport. I always had to borrow those too, because you can’t play without pads (a little similar to a baseball catcher’s wearing shin guards) — not at the level we were playing. My buddies’ fathers were very fond of me, and occasionally one of them would step in on my behalf, encouraging me or giving me a piece of equipment. To some of my friends, it must have looked as though I had everything going for me. I was very outgoing, with an abundance of athletic talent, humor, and a great social life. Any one of them would have told you I was the most popular guy in the group; even my closest friends, Sunder and Ashok, never guessed how desperately lonely I was. Indeed, they were stunned once the depth of that desperation was revealed.
I was a sportsman, made for the field, and I loved cricket especially, so that excelling in the sport became my life’s dream, my one goal. I ended up playing competitively at a community level and later at the university level, which was no small feat. To this day, when I lay my head down on my pillow, I daydream of cricket. I’m coming to bat or winding up to bowl, when I finally begin to drift off —
There was something else about cricket’s appeal to which I gravitated: it is known as the gentleman’s game. You play it fair, and you play it for the thrill of the game. There is style, brilliance, strategy — all of which makes for a young man’s hard-fought efforts. I used to watch great matches between the world’s best; these lasted five days, and what a thrill! Even now, I light up when anybody asks me to explain the game. To an American, I must concede explaining it is an almost impossible task without watching the game at the same time, and even at that, it would take a few games. They marvel that a match could take five days, and when I respond by mentioning the length of golf tournaments, there is a fanciful linguistic footwork that takes place. A great thrill to me is that my son, Nathan, has taken so well to the sport.
It did bother me a bit at the time that my father never came to watch a single game in which I competed. I know that in his later years my dad came to deeply regret his indifference of those days. I have no doubt whatsoever now that if he could do it all over again, he would do it differently.
And so as dismal as things seemed at times, cricket became the love of my life and kept me from losing all heart. The struggle of my soul was building, but God in the shadows gave me this success to remind me that all was not lost and that there were gifts and skills not to be taken lightly. But life could not be lived on the cricket pitch. There was a home to return to and an inner life to be faced. If only I could play it professionally, maybe the game would change the home. That was my dream. Toward that I labored.