A Saint for the Middle Classes

-- By Tom Phillips

Mother Teresa shrine, Kochi

Forty years ago, when I first went to India, it was a poor country -- full of homeless beggars, subsistence farmers at the mercy of rains and floods, and enormous shantytowns on the edges of cities. Children died in the streets and the general attitude was -- there's nothing to be done, it's their karma. That was mainstream religious thought in India, but in this desperate environment appeared a saint, a high-powered woman who believed differently, and convinced India and the world to follow her. Mother Teresa from Albania brought her radical Christian mission of blessing the poor to a poor nation that actually takes religion seriously.  It took her in and made her a national hero, a symbol of India's dynamism, creativity, and potential for miracles.

Forty years later, this fall, I went back to India and saw miracles. That wretchedly poor country has become a middle-class economic powerhouse, leaping ahead in communications and technology, catching up fast in infrastructure and amenities.  In three weeks in India, I saw fewer beggars than I would have on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And I saw things undreamt of in 1978:  Toyota  cars, movie stars, 5-star hotels, Pepsi vs. Coke, subways, and a state-of-the art airport (Cochin) run entirely on solar power.

Material success hasn't killed religion, though. Here there is practically no separation between church and state, and very little between heaven and earth. Every morning before the rooster crows, temples, mosques and churches are broadcasting their calls to worship.  Hindu gods are household icons, media celebrities, cult figures with chanting fans. And in this vibrant spiritual environment India has a new saint: for the poor, and for the middle classes too.

Amma on Tour 

The world knows her as Amma. She was born in a poor fishing village in India's western coastal state of Kerala, the site of her international ashram today. At the age of nine, it's said, she began giving hugs to strangers, prompting her father to throw her out of the house. To date she has hugged nearly 35 million people around the world, including me. Like Mother Teresa she runs a world-wide organization providing food, shelter, health care, and disaster relief to the poor.  But her ministry of hugs also has a special appeal to the middle class.

India Ink #3: Merry Christians

-- by Tom Phillips

Syrian cross in lotus

In a "A Passage to India," E.M. Forster describes a Hindu festival re-enacting the birth of Lord Krishna.  This includes a game in which the nobles of the state slide pats of butter down their noses, only to have them stolen and eaten by each other.  "By sacrificing good taste," he writes, Hindu worship "has achieved what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of merriment."

Forster never mentions Indian Christianity, but here in the south Indian state of Kerala it is a prominent faith. Tradition holds that the Apostle Thomas sailed to Kerala in 51 CE and converted Hindus to the Way.  And to this day, many of these Christians have kept up their Hindu customs.

 This was the procession after Sunday's feast day  at St. Joseph's Syrian Catholic Church in Allapuzha -- even more colorful and noisy than the local Hindu festival.

Those umbrellas are not a sign or symbol, they're just for beauty and fun. Hindu tradition is full of these, and so is its Christian offshoot in India.

Praise God and pass the butter!

-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips

India Ink: Jaipur Comes in Color

-- By Tom Phillips

Street sweeper, Jaipur

Everyone in Jaipur is either buying or selling, bargaining or begging. This capital of Rajastan's jewelry, textile and clothing industries is the most commercial city I've ever seen.  At this point, words like "crass" may occur to the American reader -- but Jaipur is anything but crass.

My Passage to India

-- by Tom Phillips

Just last year on the Road to Dotage, I began a Tour of Fear -- to places I've always  been too scared to visit.  My road to Germany was a revelation -- seeing how a great civilization can renew itself, even after a descent into Hell.

My next planned destination was Texas, the land of big hats, big hair, big boots and big shots. When I worked as a TV newswriter, many of the network anchormen were Texans, and I've always been afraid to go to a place where such personalities are the norm.

Once I was working with a well-known Texan anchorman in New York, when he came across an AP  story about the "hippest cities" in America. "NEW YORK!" he cried in disbelief. "New York is not the hippest city in America!"

Timidly, I inquired what city he thought was most hip.  He looked at me as if I ought to know.
"Why, FORT WORTH!"

I'm probably not hip enough to appreciate Fort Worth. So this year, in a detour, I'm going back to a place I've been, but one where a westerner always carries a frisson of fear.

In 1978 I spent two months in India, traveling with a fellow seeker after truth and adventure -- Arnold "Rusty" Glicksman.  Each of us has written a memoir in which that trip plays a life-changing part.  (Rusty's is still unpublished -- watch for it.)  In a few days, right after Labor Day, we're going back.

Rusty's red hair is white now, and he is winding down the jewelry-making business he's had since the 1980s, with gold and stones he buys in Rajasthan.  I'll spend a few days with him in Jaipur, and then head out for adventures in new places.  First to the Caves of Ellura and Ajanta, ancient temples carved out of moutainsides, with some of the finest and best-preserved religious sculpture in the world.  My must-see deity is a reclining Buddha carved in a wall.

According to legend, the Buddha didn't sleep -- his mind was so clear that he had no need to knit up "the ravel'd sleave of care."  He would just lie down and rest for a few hours.

My other most-desired deity is this sexy female in Ellura. Though present-day India suffers from a hangover of Victorian prudery -- kissing in public is still a crime -- its gods and goddesses cavort freely with one another and love every kind of sexual pleasure.

How I wish I could rest like the Buddha, and romp like Lord Krishna with his consort Radha!

That was back in the Axial Age, when human wisdom and vision reached its zenith.  I'm touring today's troubled world, and India is no exception.  Still, with God all things are possible.

More later, God willing.

-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips

(Originally published on my other blog, The Road to Dotage.)