Skip to main content

Holy Love



“You are what your profession is. Your primary duty is what your profession demands.”

Joseph was stunned. His principal, Rev Fr Lawrence D’Souza, bluntly refused to grant him leave from job for a couple of days. Okay, more than a couple by three days. Round off and fuck off. Five days. And a Sunday in between. He was entitled to that much by all the laws in the world. A week. A week, man, is gonna make no difference to anyone in the college or anywhere.

Except to God. God can make a whole world in a week.

“This is the examinations time and how does your conscience permit you to take leave now when you should be preparing your students in their final moments?” Rev Fr Lawrence was relentless, indomitable… Joseph wished he knew more adjectives. In spite of being a lecturer in English in the premier institute of higher education in the city.  Town, not city, man. He reminded himself.

His wife’s pregnancy had gone into the eighth month and doctors suggested some rest and much care for her. It was her first pregnancy and Joseph was evidently not experienced with pregnancies and their demands. In his home state women took three months of precaution before the delivery. It was a tradition as old as Noah’s Ark. The tribal women of the hills around his workplace had no problem with their pregnancies and the deliveries. They got pregnant and they delivered without medical interventions and without too many leaves. Work till the evening, deliver the baby in the night, take a couple of days’ leave, and return to work with folded arms. “Jai Jeesu.” And all reverend fathers would reciprocate the greeting in the same words and with the same emotional warmth.

Joseph had the heat of passion. Not just some warmth. “I have to go,” he told his principal, Rev Fr Lawrence D’Souza. “I have to take her to her home. I’ll bring the medical certificate required.”

“Anybody can take her home, na?” Rev Fr asked. “Anybody cannot prepare your students for the exams.”

“I booked flight tickets, Father, so that I can come back as early as possible. I’ll manage the students and their exam preparations, I assure you.” Joseph’s brow wiped his sweat-drenched brow. He looked at the air-conditioner in the Reverend’s office. It showed 17 degrees Celsius.

“I’m sorry we won’t discuss this any further. Your choice is between your profession and your domestic affairs.” Rev Fr D’Souza went into the adjoining washroom.

Pilates have a way of washing off their hands, Joseph thought.

“Every child is a divine gift,” Rev Fr D’Souza preached from the parish church’s pulpit the next morning, a pleasant Sunday morning. “The Church is ashamed of those parents who decide to have only one child or two. Children are the greatest blessings of God. The Church is ready to reduce the school fees of those children who are the third or fourth of their parents. Have children, dear parents. Have God’s blessings in abundance and the Church is with you…”

Joseph’s stomach churned. He walked out of the church. And he vomited. Into the flower pot of Rev Fr D’Souza’s most beloved plant. He did not want to vomit on the sacred ground.


Comments

  1. Irony!

    A satire which will be hated by all holy men, of all religions! Hinduism loves Hindus, but not their troubles and Islam needs kids, but doesn't want to pay for them. All are hypocrites, Sir!

    Thank God for some people, who have ththeir heads in the right place!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Religion makes life a farce. I long to be away away from gods N god's men.

      Delete
  2. Church like any other religious institutions run by people who have no human mind are made to run educational institution the double curse. The believers are good vomiters. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have often wondered why people refuse to open their eyes. The exploitation is blatant, too conspicuous to be unnoticed.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Good Friday and Some Arithmetic

Two and two is not always equal to four, my young friend Tony says. 2 + 2 ≠ 4, he reasserts. Tony doesn’t think linearly though his thinking has the precision of mathematical logic. See these two, Tony offers an illustration, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Then add another 2 to them, Ambani and Adani. What do you get? I smile in answer. It’s dangerous to answer Tony verbally. Now, Tony continues, let’s take two beggars from the street. And then add you and me, another two, to them. What do you get? Tony goes on with more arithmetic because he thinks I didn’t get it. (Modi + Shah) + (Ambani + Adani) = 4 persons (Beggar 1 + Beggar 2) + (You + I) = 4 persons Is the first 4 equal to the second 4? T oday is Good Friday. Good Fridays are sad because they are about the victory of vicious political power over simple goodness. Just a few days back, on what’s known as Palm Sunday among Christians, Jesus was led like a hero to Jerusalem, a political fulcrum in those days, by a hu