New Zealand Persimmons

I had my first persimmon this week. It reminded me of several things–of kumara (sweet potatoes), lichies, and papayas. But if I were blind folded, and asked to guess what I was eating, I would have sworn that it was the Nongu, the fruit of the Palmyra tree. (In fact, as I dug into my persimmon for my second mouthful, I was transported back to childhood and summer nights in Bangalore when hawkers came selling the Nongu fruit calling out “kaatinongu.”)

The fruit is very filling and rich in vitamin C.

I am told that persimmons are astringent and become edible only when they are really soft and ripe. The one I had was mushy ripe.

Madurai’s wall of shame

I find it hard to believe that such a wall exists. But it’s true. The city of Madurai is tense because police broke a portion of this wall yesterday. It is a 100-meter wall that was built 20 years ago to keep “low caste” people from entering the “upper caste” area of a village.

Caste is a very complex matter in India, a monster that clings so closely to us even 60 years after Independence. I worry for the children who are caught in the crossfire, those growing with the wrong notion that they are in some way superior, and those growing up believing that they are inferior.

My great grandfather’s father converted to Christianity from one of these very same castes that built this wall. So I am a pure-blooded one-of-these-castes person. I am in no way inherently superior to any one else—not superior to a Dalit or any other Indian or Asian or European or anyone else.

What does the Bible say about such divisions among human beings?

Seeraga Chicken Fry

Seeraga chicken fry uses garlic and cumin seeds for flavour. Seeragam is Tamil for cumin.

Pineapple Kesari

Kesari is a South Indian sweet that might start off a full meal. Traditional South Indian meals start with a sweet! Kesari also goes with a tiffin-type meal consisting of items such as idly, dosai, and vadai. The tiffin meals are usually had for breakfast or dinner.

Sometimes kesari is served as a scoop on a plate. Other times, the hot kesari is allowed to set in a tray and is cut into pieces.

For our founders

For our founders we would thank Thee,
Their loving gracious plan,
Their many deeds of kindness,
Since first our school began. . .

We thank Thee O Father, for these and all Thy care
Bestowed upon Thy children both here and everywhere.

This is from the school hymn of Clarence High School, Bangalore. I remember Mr. Flack urging our Std 8 class in 1978 to memorize the school hymn and telling us that a good way to do this was to think about the meaning, and then he spoke to us about the founders of the school, the Redwood brothers.

I had not realised the role the Brethren Assemblies in New Zealand had played in the founding of the school until I went through the following book:
In His Name
A record of Assembly Missionary Outreach from New Zealand
By L.A.Marsh

Here are some excerpts from this book that have to do with Clarence and Bethesda Church.

Speaking of trunks

Meeting a temple elephant on a quiet Madurai road in Jan 2008

Trunk for storage

A trunk is used to store clothes and other items. This is a picture that I took during our trip to India in January. Here you can see a trunk of another kind being used for storage.

This is the home of a family that lives on the pavement along a busy road in Chennai. The cloth that the yellow arrow is pointing to is a hammock-like cradle with a baby in it. The members of this family have probably come here from another village for work as labourers in a building project of some sort.

A little later, not far from this “home”, on the same pavement, we saw a little child playing with a piece of concrete. I could see no one in the immediate vicinity of this child. As an outsider who was just passing by, I did not do anything beyond taking a photograph.

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Matt 10:29-31

Biking in Bangalore

On 26 June 1978, my father and my cousin Pradan annan bought a cycle for me. It was a Hero ladies cycle. In those days, it was a very common kind of cycle, but one rarely sees it on the road these days.

It was a tall cycle and I could not reach the ground if I was sitting on the seat. To get on, I used the technique of giving the cycle a push, with my left foot on the left pedal and my right foot on the road behind me and then jumping on. The ample space in front between the seat and the handle bars allowed me to swing my right leg over to the pedal on the other side even when wearing a pavadai, which is a long skirt. The bike did not have gears, and this made negotiating long stretches of uphill roads rather difficult. For three years in school and two years in college, I took the bike wherever I went. It became so much like a part of me, that I found it awkward to walk on the road without it, as if I did not know what to do with my hands.

Most high school kids in my school had bikes. I remember one time when almost the whole school biked over to Lalbagh for the annual flower show. It was a long distance from Richards Town but was good fun. We had asked for a holiday saying, “How could we ever get to see the flower show if we kept having school?” Mr. Flack, knowing that we were actually fishing for a holiday, told us to cycle up to Lalbagh and return to school. We had hoped that we would have the day off, and now, the only way we could avoid school was by actually biking the distance. I think we had some teachers biking with us as well.

After five yeas of cycling, I stopped almost completely because two of my friends lost their mothers in road accidents, and I found that I could not cope with the traffic. Cycles of this type have all but disappeared from the roads these days, but not from the memories of many young women of bygone years.

I can see myself whizzing down hill from Clarence High School towards Tannery road on my way home . . . in the rain . . . against the wind . . . soaked to the bone . . . shivering . . . but free . . .

India and superficial religious tolerance

Yesterday was Gandhi Jeyanthi, the day Gandhiji was born. He is known as Mahatma Gandhi, and this great man’s name is synonymous with ‘nonviolence’. Not just him, but his state of Gujarat itself was known for nonviolence. That is until the Sabarmati Express was set on fire at the Godhra Railway Station, following an altercation between some local muslims and the karsevaks in the train. Fifty eight lives were lost in that incident.

If this carnage was tragic, what followed was a horrendous affront against the Muslim community who were hunted down with unbelievable hatred–pregnant women were cut open, women raped, and families killed. The nation was shaken, not just because of the violence but because it seemed to have been supported by the state, headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

To her credit, India’s thinking people were horrified by the shame of it all.

Something Tamil got here 500 years before us

Before you can appreciate the Tamil object that got here so many years ago, I must tell you something about the person who discovered it.