Skip to main content

Lizard in the Church


What does religion mean? This is the fundamental question raised by Manu Joseph in his story (in Malayalam) titled Lizard in the Sanctuary.

A lizard is driven out of a library in a cleaning drive initiated by the new librarian. It takes shelter in the nearby church. After all, churches are meant for everyone, aren’t they? The lizard sits in the sanctuary right behind the inscription of INRI on the main cross. It observes everything, listens to all the prayers and sermons, and even attends a few catechism classes after the Sunday Mass. The lizard is fascinated by such a wonderful religion which teaches the faithful to love even their enemies. The lizard finds the melodious prayers and hymns soothing and moving. The lessons preached in the sermons are all so noble. The lizard naturally wants to become a Christian.

How to become a Christian?

The lizard carefully observes all the Christians who attend the church service. There is Mathew who takes a seat near to the women’s side and watches some beautiful woman most of the time. When the woman, conscious of the gaze, turns back to catch the staring eyes, Mathew will raise his hands up and utter devoutly, “My Lord, My God!” There’s Varkey who pats his big belly and asks his wife through a gesture whether breakfast is ready at home.

Someone has offered a fat cock to Saint George and it is being auctioned after the Mass. The auction seems to be a place where the rich members of the parish try to show off their capacity to spend money for the church. The cock goes for Rs3000 in the end and the successful bidder is Yohan with a thick gold chain on his neck and a very thick gold ring on his finger.

Eventually the lizard learns that Christianity is not exactly what Mathew and Varkey and Yohan do. There’s certainly more to it. It is about the Son of God who condescended to become a human being and then die on a cross painfully in order to wash away the sins of the world. How are the sins washed away by that crucifixion? The lizard is not sure. But it is impressed by Jesus’ sacrifice.

The lizard is even more impressed by the catechism classes in which Sister Lucia teaches the children about the infinite love of God as seen in Jesus’ act of consoling the women of Jerusalem while he carries his cross to Golgotha. “Weep for yourselves and your children,” Jesus tells the women. Such a selfless and considerate man! The lizard wants to become his follower. What kind of existence is it just clambering walls and eating insects?

How to become a Christian and make life meaningful?

The lizard eventually learns that one becomes a Christian through baptism. Varkey’s grandchild’s baptism is coming. All arrangements are made by the sacristan who has kept the baptismal font ready with water. The parish priest has to bless that water before it gets the power convert one into a Christian. The lizard waits eagerly for the priest to do that.   

As soon as Father Benjamin blesses the water, before the little infant gets its rightful chance to become a Christian, the lizard jumps into the font, eager to become a Christian.

“A lizard!” Father Benjamin points out to the sacristan who opens the valve at the bottom of the font. The water swishes out rapidly and the lizard is washed away with it: towards eternity. 


I have taken quite much liberty with my presentation of Joseph’s story here though I haven’t tampered with its spirit. I don’t intend to offer interpretations as I would like readers to interpret the story for themselves. All I’d like to point out is: this story is not just about Christianity. 

PS. The second illustration is taken from Madhyamam weekly in which Joseph's story appears. The first is created by Microsoft's Copilot Designer. 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Liz A.May 28, 2024 at 4:03 AM

    I think the lizard could do better. (But I have my own issues with organized religion, so...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. magiceyeMay 28, 2024 at 6:28 PM

    Blind faith does strange things to people and lizards seeking succour.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 28, 2024 at 7:22 PM

      The library was better but unfortunately the lizard was driven out...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Chitrakoot: Antithesis of Ayodhya

Illustration by MS Copilot Designer Chitrakoot is all that Ayodhya is not. It is the land of serenity and spiritual bliss. Here there is no hankering after luxury and worldly delights. Memory and desire don’t intertwine here producing sorrow after sorrow. Situated in a dense forest, Chitrakoot is an abode of simplicity and austerity. Ayodhya’s composite hungers have no place here. Let Ayodhya keep its opulence and splendour, its ambitions and dreams. And its sorrows as well. Chitrakoot is a place for saints like Atri and Anasuya. Atri is one of the Saptarishis and a Manasputra of Brahma. Brahma created the Saptarishis through his mind to help maintain cosmic order and spread wisdom. Anasuya is his wife, one of the most chaste and virtuous women in Hindu mythology. Her virtues were so powerful that she could transmute the great Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva into infants when they came to test her chastity. Chitrakoot is the place where asceticism towers above even divinit...
22 comments
Read more