5. The Cricket Field
My mother once brought an astrologer to our house to read our palms and tell us our future. Actually, he was a sari seller who came once every few months, with a big trunk saddled on the back of his bicycle. He would customarily spread out a sheet on the floor, unload the trunk, and display his beautiful saris for sale. Often it became a neighborhood Tupperware-style gathering, only with saris instead of containers. Life in India is delivered at the door daily.
This man also claimed to be a palmist. He put on his old-fashioned, thick glasses, which dropped down halfway over a nose that was constantly sniffling, and in turn held our palms in his hand with total concentration. The “hmm’s” and “oh’s” and “ah’s” that issued from him kept each of us riveted on what he was doing as we awaited his final pronouncement. One after the other, we took our turn, and the futures he read for each of the others were all positive. But then he came to me, and the first note of uncertainty was sounded as he kept shaking his head with bad news about to spill out. “Looking at your future, Ravi Baba (Ravi, little boy), you will not travel far or very much in your life,” he declared. “That’s what the lines on your hand tell me. There is no future for you abroad.”
To say that I was deeply disappointed is putting it mildly. The one goal everybody had at that time in India’s fledgling economy since Independence was to go abroad. Of course, I had no reason to disbelieve this man, or for that matter to believe him. But it did plant another seed of uncertainty, however small.
Why an astrologer? It was just the done thing. As far as this one was concerned, I sincerely hope his sari sales did better than his astrological avocation. Today, travel is the hazard of my existence; I would love to cut it short a little. But the very fact that our family had such a reading reveals the cultural mix of religion, superstition, and “cover all bases” mentality with regard to the supernatural. From palmists, to Saint Philomena, to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to attending festive celebrations at the local temple, to Anglicanism — ours was an eclectic faith and typical of an Indian Christian family, nominally Christian and nothing more than that. It never bothered my parents that I went to temple ceremonies with my buddies’ families. I thrived on going to all those annual festivals, and I did it unabashedly for the food. I couldn’t wait for festival times to come around so I could feast on all the goodies in the name of religion. I can’t tell you the number of times I ate food that I am sure had been offered to temple idols. Whether I knew it or not would not have made any difference to me.
And I never took any of my friends’ religions seriously. I respected them, yes. But believed what they did? No. It strained credulity to think some of my friends actually believed all that. Sometimes I wonder if they even gave it any critical thought. To me, their religion was nothing more than a combination of fear and culture. Gods who were half animal and half human, posing with their consorts in rather sensual poses; castes that doomed one to certain stations in life; priests who chanted all kinds of mantras at weddings to ward off the evil eye — I never bought into that worldview. Not because I was a Christian, but because I was a true skeptic. So nothing about it ever affected my life with any degree of persuasion. Its value lay in that it was their belief, and so I must at least respect it. You just accepted it as part of the culture, a historical legacy you were cloned into. And my parents never asked me a thing about it.
Once we moved to Delhi, my family became involved in the Cathedral Church of the Redemption. If I’m not mistaken, my brother Ramesh was christened there. But I can tell you almost certainly that my family never once heard the gospel message there, at least not to the recollection of any of us. The rector for years was a very ostentatious man, sprinkling ceremonial fear as he walked and, with his glares, frightening you into listening. His affected reading of the Prayer Book was always in the tones and inflections of which comedic representations are made. In a mixture of a “wannabe” English accent and Indian pronunciation he would deliver his sermons from a pulpit high over the congregation. For me it was the best time of the week to mentally check out of everything and just think cricket in the midst of sacred surroundings.
The Cathedral Church was not only very High Church in its liturgy; it also held a very prominent profile in the city. Father John made sure everyone knew this. He had a stern demeanor, including a nasty practice of humiliating anyone who came into the service late. He would simply stop his sermon and stare at the offender until he or she was seated. In that high-domed cathedral, to hear someone tiptoeing into the full congregation did make for some smothered chuckles and embarrassed looks. He also possessed a penchant for reprimanding people on the spot, no matter what the offense, because they weren’t measuring up to what he expected of them. He was revered not because he was a minister but because of his power. Not surprisingly, all kinds of unkind nicknames for him floated around.
Because my father held such a prestigious position in government, he was a prominent member of the congregation. Nothing ever came of that role insofar as it affected our family, although the rector did come to our home a few times to visit my dad. No matter what the occasion, Father John’s countenance was invariably stern and forbidding. In the words of the famous popular writer P. G. Wodehouse about one of his characters, “While not exactly disgruntled he was very far from being gruntled.”
He did receive a kind of comeuppance once when a particular visitor walked into a church service late. The visitor was a friend of my father’s and a very powerful man in government. As the man strolled in casually during the sermon, Father John stopped preaching to glare at him, as was his custom. The visitor stopped and stared back until he continued his sermon. Father John had clearly picked the wrong man. I’m not sure of the exact exchange that followed the service that day, but according to my dad’s version of the conversation, which he gave us much later, this man went to the vestry in the back following the service and promised the rector that if he ever did that to him again, there would be serious consequences for the rector himself. I’m not sure what that meant, and I didn’t care to find out, as the church didn’t seem an appropriate place for such altercations. But, as the old adage goes, he who throws the first punch loses the right to determine when the fight is over.
I couldn’t help detecting a barely discernible grin in my dad’s expression as he told us about this. And, as I recall, for a while we did not see an instance such as that repeated.
There was a certain couple at the Cathedral Church who were very special friends of ours. Arthur Mahinder was the organist, a great musician, and his wife’s name was Blossom. Yes, these names we owe to the British Raj and to our propensity for clinging to the English touch in our Christian distinctive to the Hindu mainstream. That is why in India you can often tell a person’s religious background just by their name. The Mahinders invited us over for dinner every Christmas Eve, and they really laid out the goodies for us. That was one of the highlights of the year for me. I remember the cold winter nights as we would huddle in our small car and head over to their home just after what was called “Midnight Mass.” In their home there would be music in the background, beautiful decorations, and food decoratively presented all over the room, which, with nobody watching me too closely, I could enjoy until it was time to leave.
There was always something wonderfully warm to me about the couple. I realize only in retrospect that they were just lovely people without their own children, who loved having us in their home. In spite of the atmosphere established by Father John at the church, Mr. Mahinder was a jovial man and a master organist. He could make those pipes bellow the great hymns and fill that cathedral. I was so surprised on a recent visit to see a stone in the wall memorializing Arthur Mahinder’s contribution to the church through his gifted music.
In fact, that may have been one of the reasons for the Mahinders’ relationship with my family. You see, my father had a wonderful singing voice, one of the most striking baritone voices I can ever recall hearing. It had such a timbre that when people in the next flat heard him singing, they stopped what they were doing and listened.
I always loved to hear my father sing, and eventually he helped to organize the Delhi Choral Society. When his brother-in-law, our uncle, Percy Shastri, came to visit our home, he joined his dramatic tenor to my dad’s baritone. The two would sit on the front veranda and sing arias, including some of the great pieces from Handel’s Messiah. I came to know every one of the songs they sang, from “Comfort ye, my people” to “Thus saith the Lord”; from “But who may abide the day of His coming” to “The people that walked in darkness.” Or they would sing the works of Mendelssohn and Bach that were often performed in the church, or Maunder’s Bethlehem or Stainer’s The Crucifixion. What magnificent pieces they were!
Once a year, during a choral celebration, my father would sing, “Lead me, Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness; make Thy way plain before my face. For it is Thou, Lord, Thou, Lord only, that makest me dwell in safety.” This song, based on Psalm 4, has such a beautiful melody, and I would think as I heard it, “This is so foreign to me, yet it seems like home should be.” Although I knew nothing of the meaning of the lyrics, I recognized in the music and in the words an exquisite beauty that lifted me to an unfamiliar realm I wished would linger. It was very different from Indian worship music, which is very nasal, tinny, and repetitive, like a form of chanting. With this music, however, I became lost in the song. And the words became indelibly imprinted on my memory. There was clearly a plea within me rising to the surface when I heard that. Even now when I sing these words to myself, the floodgates of the past are opened with a fond memory for hearing my father sing.
I have to say that I never had any contrition over sin as I sat in church. The closest I came was whenever my father sang some lines from a hymn that portrayed grief over wrong. I was stirred as well every year at Christmastime, when my dad took the part of the third king in the annual cantata. He sang his part with such poignancy: “Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom: sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb” (from “We Three Kings of Orient Are”).
My siblings and I attended Sunday school classes, but it was never to my liking. For the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of the lessons. Even so, when it was time for the nativity play, I was tapped to play Joseph. Naturally, I resisted — until I saw the girl who was going to play Mary. She was lovely, and instantly I decided I would be Joseph after all.
One afternoon, I arrived early for practice. As I waited for the rest of the cast to show up, I satisfied my curiosity, wandering around the vast church sanctuary. Suddenly, I came upon a bowl of what I thought were biscuits (or cookies, in American parlance). They were actually Communion wafers, but because I’d never taken the Lord’s Supper, I had no idea what they were. I thought some kind person had left them there for a treat.