Month: March 2007

Queasy like a Sunday morning…

I find a lot of Sunday services a bit flat. That’s ok. I should make more of an effort, anyways things are never perfect, and of course I’m not going to church to be entertained. And the fellowship afterwards does have a certain holiness and spirituality of its own.

A few services are really good. All of us seem connected and God seems so real and good.

Today’s service was queasy.

First I led worship. Quite flat. I hadn’t really prepared for the enormity of the subject we were singing about. Of course my pride got in the way. And then usual sound problems and irritating powerpoints. All blessings on the choir who made it in the middle of their study? hols, though.

But the ultimate Queasy moment came from the preach. It meandered through various bits and verses and anecdotes and what took the sickening cake was an article that was read out to us that appeared in a newspaper.

A retired IAS man had written an article with a title like “assault on the soul of a nation” The article said about how a ‘cross’ has appeared on the new 2 rupee coin. The writer asked whether it was an Italian government plot to convert the whole country to Christianity!!! Obviously the Sonia Gandhi connection blah blah blah. Is this a Catholic country the writer asked to have this ‘cross’ on our 2 rupee coin.

I found this enormously funny. almost burst out laughing. This writer and the fundamentalists who were so worried about backmasking in rock music should sit together and write more conspiracy theories.

But the preacher said. ‘Praise God! He’s scared of the cross!’

WHAT?!

Had a very depressed Sunday

Voodoo

Voodoo. No my grandfather never practised it. He just fed it. And it was very faithful, living to a ripe old age of 14. Silly names for a dog. Sillier names for his grandchildren. I was ‘chuni chuni.’ (Pronounce the ‘chu’ with ‘oo’) I forgot what the others were called. The precocious grandson that I was, I once deemed it unfit to be called such an uncouth name and requested he call me Sunil. Grandpa half upset, half mischievous refused and merely did the very Malayalee act of saying ‘shu’ to catch my attention.

He was a lovable man. Tall and handsome and very self assured. Not in an arrogant way though it could’ve been misconstrued to be that. I spent many hours on his hospitable lap whether it was listening to his stories or reading comics especially reading the little mandrake cartoons in the manorama. More about mandrake later.

In his lap jokes about bishops and Chinese men abounded. Sports exploits entwined themselves with funnier ones on stage. Once grandpa had acted as a woman in a play after which a man propositioned ‘her’. ‘I was soooo good, you see!’ Grandpa said without a trace of improper pride. I was very privileged one day to hear a really long story from Grandpa. It must’ve taken 4 or 5 days. It was about this boy who grew up in a village and went to college and so on. On the 3rd day I achieved enlightenment. It was Grandpa’s own life story. This realization was quite exciting but in my excitement I wanted him to hurry to the bit where I came into his life. It was a great story. And I enjoyed being part of it.

My grandpa was a nice bishop. Yes, I know that their existence is disputed. But guess what? He traveled 2nd class. Yes he did. Promise. I saw it myself. We dropped him at the railway station and all his ‘friends’ were up ahead in 1st class coach while grandpa said it was a waste of the church’s money and boarded the normal coach. Yes he was nice. He didn’t have the airs of many of the other bishops and he didn’t crack little children’s hands when he shook hands like one Marthoma bishop did mine. Yes I’m a biased grandchild but if you knew grandpa you would be too.

Being a bishop means a lot of different things. It means responsibility, power, money, spirituality and whole mixed bag savory and unsavory items. Most of these didn’t affect grandpa but he had one weakness. He was naïve. He trusted people too much. He was innocent as a dove. But he didn’t have the full measure of the serpent’s wisdom. As a child I could see it. When politics flew around him he would very unusually flounder. Maybe the particular times were evil in the church and Grandpa belonged elsewhere.

I was the last person to be with Grandpa. I reached my customary place in his lap and we read our daily dose of Mandrake comics. As I was late for school I finished and went to have breakfast. After a few minutes the maid who was sweeping the garden rushed in. Grandpa was gone. Gone. As he would’ve wanted. A simple life. A simple death. A simple man.

Jesus said something about Nathaniel in John 2. I think he might’ve said the same of M. M. John. Maybe they’re joking about it right now.

the stray middle class

Most people protesting for the protection of stray dogs seem to be middle class and urban. It is interesting that such protests aren’t so easily forthcoming about how we treat other people. Especially the people who keep a middle class home running. The househelp.

A dog is a dog is a dog.
A human being is different.
Both are to be given DUE respect.
Then we might retrieve the lost balance.
But we can’t. That’s the simple honest fact.

dearth of mad ads

it’s a bad pun. but it’s true.

someone asked me what i thought of the banning of mad ads in the Christ college campus. those not completely in the picture will be interested to know that mad ads is a simple skit parody of well known adverts and various colleges put more emphasis on the mad while other emphasize on the ad.

Christ college had an extremely illustrious history of mad ads with the a name being created in south india for wacky humour, slapstick acting and great co-ordination. There was a time when mad ads had the atmostphere of a rock show where the quadrangle was filled to the brim and hearing a thousand people laugh is no joke.

then the jokes started to repeat themselves. there was nothing new. it became less clever. less polished. the vulgarity which was always contained in clever inuendo ocassionally became frontal nudity. the spoof weren’t all that new. even the ads that were spoofed weren’t all that new.

deep analysis of why and how and tv habits etc. can be done but bottom line it wasn’t really that funny anymore. which is why i never opposed it’s willful demise. mad ads should’ve evolved into something as funny but with more punch. it never did. I picked the brains of brightest and best in college but there was no answer.

The point is that humour and satire need to be expressed but what is the new way to do this? no one seems to know. formulas are simple to follow but difficult to concieve.

so now that mad ads has died i’m still hopeful and waiting that there exists its long lost mirthful child that will tickle a 1000 people again… and again.