Susanna Vas

A Feast for the Saint and the Senses at St. Sebastian’s Church

During the last dregs of Palm Sunday, a technicolor pamphlet goes up on Facebook, tempered by a sober caption: “70th Feast of St. Sebastian. Madhavaram, Chennai. Welcome.” Awfully restrained for a platinum jubilee celebration sprawling eight consecutive days, but then Fr. Simon was never given to frills and frippery. He knows a simple, well-timed “Welcome” is as momentous as an “Open” sign blazing outside a superstore on Black Friday.

Lift ye up a banner (Isaiah 13:2)

Day 1: 17 April (Easter Sunday)

After a marathon of Easter masses, you’d expect the friars to be frazzled and fazed, but no. In a matter of hours, they roll out a red carpet, erect an LED effigy of St. Sebastian, and string chaser lights on trees and posts like neon garlands.

As for the parishioners, they are refreshed by the Easter felicity in the air. The austerities of Lent behind them, they’ve turned out in festive finery. Young hands clutch balloons and older hands thumb rosaries as they traverse the kilometer between St. Anne’s Generalate and the parish church.

At the head of the procession, a cassocked contingent bears a scarlet standard emblazoned with the image of the patron saint. As this solemn march past enters the church, the rumble of drums crescendoes, the bell peals, fireworks crackle.

A tuneful hymn to the saint plays on a loop and segues into fanfare as the flag rises skyward with everyone’s prayers.

Inside, sprays of fresh flowers hug the altar cloth as the Paschal candle burns deferentially.

The pews fill rapidly. The standees unstack plastic armchairs in the side aisles and unfurl mats before the altar. What follows is a two-hour mass with custom-made gold chasubles, nosefuls of frankincense, shimmering altar bells, and a stentorian sermon.

When mass concludes and darkness settles, the congregants bask in the ethereal glow of the frontage in amoebic clusters.

This is only the beginning.

With perfect heart they offered willingly (1 Chronicles 29:9)

Days 2-5: 18-21 April (Monday-Thursday)

During the intervening weekdays, in that fugitive mellow eventide, the rosary soundtracks abbreviated processions. Discordant pitches strangely mingle to yield a harmonious chant.

Cardboard boxes, bulging cloth bags, bloated plastic bags, and steel storage containers multiply at the foot of the altar till the space becomes narrowly distinguishable from my kitchen floor after the groceries arrive.

Outside, St. Sebastian is sheltered in a chariot, framed by lights, and laden with a rose garland. Devotees come—some in clutches, some in lines, some solo—to pray or simply touch his feet. Why he is revered and beloved you’ll soon see.

Culture and religion can co-opt Locard’s idea that “Every contact leaves a trace” to appreciate the syncretism that characterizes the feast. Vestiges of the Hindu practice of prasad are evident in the post-mass distribution of beverages, chana sundal, buns, and sweetmeats. The hymns to St. Sebastian feature Carnatic instrumentation.

In the true spirit of Indian hospitality, some folks leave St. Sebastian snack platters and cups of soda. Sadly, his hands are tied.

With the multitude… to the house of God (Psalms 42:4)

Day 6: 22 April (Friday)

Honeycomb cobblestones, intervaled palm trees, and clean-cut architecture make St. Anne’s Generalate a prime exemplar of symmetry and geometry.

The moment I walk in, I feel like someone fashioned a prism out of Fr. Simon’s pamphlet and shone a light through it. Leo Band, in their red-and-gold ensemble, rehearses snippets from their setlist; cops in khaki keep vigilance; the Legion of Mary, in sky blue and white, busy themselves with pretty flower girls in unicorn pastels; religious sisters in saffron and coral pink lead prayers; the Franciscans, in fifty shades of brown, perform their religious and organizational duties.

After the Eucharistic adoration and a litany of succession, Fr. Simon gives the ready-set-go. The sporadic masses fall into a pair of crooked, uneven lines behind the young flag bearers. For ethical, practical, and cultural reasons, we choose mini-trucks over donkeys to convey the monstrance and the sound system to the parish.

Traffic compromises, construction work halts, storekeepers stop and stare in between customers.

The mini-truck rolls past the church gate and into the midst of expectant Palm-Sunday-style crowds. Some experience the event with their eyes, and others through their phone screens, zealously capturing it for family, friends, Facebook, posterity, and unknown blogs. Those who hurry inside get the pews and the choicest views. Those who tarry outside watch the mass through panes of glass in the narthex.

Order and chaos never looked so good together.

A spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men (1 Corinthians 4:9)

Day 7: 23 April (Saturday)

St. Sebastian’s Church is the crown jewel of this otherwise standard slice of suburbia. Its magnificent makeover increased its visibility and photogenicity, but the whys and wherefores of its popularity have more to do with its early history than its recent past.

In the afternoon, when he could be catching his breath and a lunch break, Fr. Simon chooses to chat with an inquisitive wallflower. If being Parish Priest weren’t a full-time commitment, he could take up a side gig as a history teacher.

The story, a happy union of fact and folklore, begins in the church’s mango grove. The Salesians served the church in its dwarf days (1942–1953) before ceding it to the Franciscans (1953–present). Madha Koil became St. Sebastian’s Church.

The Franciscans reckoned a procession would give Sebastian the lay of the land and introduce him to the locals behind the grove, but they didn’t want the Roman youth with a mouthful of a name in their streets. An outbreak of chickenpox ensued which they promptly tied to their inhospitality. Whether the disease was coincidental or consequential, we’ll never know, but the locals desired to appease the saint. They requested the priests to bring his statue through the grove into their streets where they paid obeisance during a prayer service. After three days, they reported a series of miraculous healings. From then onward, Sebastian became a local hero.

In times when posts, likes, and shares had fewer dictionary definitions, all you needed for tales to grow legs were a handful of willing mouths and eager ears. The miracle worker from Madhavaram began to lure crowds—Christian, Hindu, Muslim, gypsy, rich, bourgeois, poor—from other postcodes. One-time visits turned into regular pilgrimages around which unique and inspired traditions formed and evolved.

Garlands and candles are standard offerings in most religions and St. Sebastian receives them aplenty. The more curious of his tokens are arrows and rock salt.

What’s the point of arrows? Well, Sebastian (255–288 AD) was a Roman soldier and a Christian. During the Diocletian Persecution, these were irreconcilable differences punishable by death. When Sebastian was outed for his faith and evangelization, he was bound to a tree and shot with arrows. He survived. When he presented himself, very much alive, before the powers-that-be, he was clubbed to death and his corpse was tossed into a sewer. (Devotees conveniently ignore or remain blissfully unaware of this last part.)

But why offer him miniatures of the weapons that were intended to kill him? Joke in bad taste? Not really. Offering literal arrows to St. Sebastian is like laying our metaphorical crosses at the feet of Christ. Headless golden arrows with jeweled nocks embody our aches, ailments, wounds, and worries. Presented in a plastic dish on a bed of rose petals, they are a concrete expression of uniting our sufferings with his.

Hindu devotees do not find arrows strange or threatening because deities and figures like Rama, Arjuna, Abhimanyu, Dronacharya, Kamadeva, etc. are depicted heroically with bows and arrows. This attributive mutuality and Sebastian’s remarkable survival story became ample grounds for deification.

To delineate the realms of sainthood and godhood, and because Christian hamartiology, soteriology, and thanatology would be lost on those unacquainted with the synopsis of the gospels, the parish pitches information booths whose volunteers explain that Sebastian isn’t god, but someone who lived and died for the love of God.

That the Christian God died is a hard pill to swallow because gods and superheroes aren’t supposed to die, the Parish Priest says. In case you haven’t noticed, ours is a movable feast that doesn’t coincide with the ecclesiastical feast of St. Sebastian on 20 January, the date of his death.

Sucking on salt crystals, cracking peppercorns, and chewing kadala paruppu were popular childhood pastimes on the church campus. St. Sebastian’s pedestal always had a generous heap of salt with a smattering of peppercorns and Bengal gram for the serious consumption of adults and the amusement of children. As a sacramental, salt is used in the sprinkling rite. In the Old Testament, it was cast into sacrificial fires. It is also considered a magic bullet for skin conditions. For one, more, all, or none of these reasons—the last of which is especially compelling, given the origin story—salt became a customary offering to St. Sebastian.

As a reward for their patience in a line that never seems to end or move, the givers of arrows, salt, garlands, and shawls receive complimentary buns and roses.

Metal sheets embossed with body parts as well as metal miniatures of body parts or cradles are offered in thanksgiving or expectation—by people cured of skin diseases, injuries, and disabilities or hoping for a cure from the same, as well as parents blessed with children and spouses longing for a child. This practice also prevails in the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Nagapattinam where such offerings are displayed in a museum where they bear silent witness.

Speaking of which, St. Sebastian’s Church maintains scrupulous records of testimonies. Witness files account for miracles, both little and big: relief from daily difficulties, resolution of existential crises, job placements, VISA approvals, and many more.

Far from being wary and disillusioned in the aftermath of the pandemic during which India ranked third in total deaths and second in total cases, the crowds are hopeful. According to Fr. Simon, there are two groups of post-pandemic pilgrims: those grateful for surviving death, and those seeking protection from it.

After two years, pilgrims can finally approach the concave façade that gives one the distinct feeling of walking into an open embrace. Seeing a demolished, then an unfinished, structure transform into a magnificent house of worship redoubles our hope, particularly after the devastations of the pandemic.

You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept. (Isaiah 30:29)

Days 7-8: 23-24 April (Saturday-Sunday)

Every day I check the pamphlet for the agenda. It’s crowded and colorful—just like the pageantry of faith and festivity on the church campus and Madhavaram High Road.

This is an exceptional weekend when vehicles are at the mercy of pedestrians, when vacant plots wake up as fairgrounds, when the middle of nowhere feels like the center of the world.

Stalls stand cheek by jowl on both sides of the road. The tantalizing aromas of boiled corn, tandoori, shawarma, and poppadoms travel in all four cardinal directions. Dreadlocked gypsies sell catapults; nursing mothers with jeweled noses and ears sit among plastic guns, binoculars, and choppu saman their children might never play with; a turbaned man waves palm-leaf fans in the air while balancing a stack of them on his head. There’s colorful ceramic tableware with spartan kitchen steel, Catholic pictures with puja paraphernalia, halwa and pumpkin petha with salted and spiced potato chips.

The inauguration of the procession brings the church campus to a fever pitch so high the air flexes. Crowds swell around the three chariots. When he’s not hunting demons or unwinding in the friary, Michael the Archangel is a special guest at annual processions. Next in line is Mary, graceful and silent, smiling down on her clamorous children. Lastly, Sebastian, the saint behind the sensation.

This long-legged, quick-footed human gets the hang of patience when what is otherwise a ten-minute walk stretches into a four-hour waddle.

When the engine of St. Sebastian’s chariot blows its diesel breath on my face and neck, I wonder how the woman beside me isn’t stewing in her silk sari.

There are frequent showers of salt, rose petals, and rice. Out of anger, humor, or for lack of a better tribute, someone hurls a plastic water bottle.

As the streets get narrower, the crowds get bigger, as do the displays of devotion. People rush out of their houses like ardent fans eager to meet their favorite celebrity. There are folks who, like Zacchaeus, choose rooftops and water tanks as their vantage points. They drape a great many ponnadai and garlands—rose, marigold, currency notes (yes, you read that right)—around Sebastian’s neck. Luckily, he’s a statue because no mortal neck could withstand the weight or heat of silk shawls in our boiler-room temperatures.

Hunger and thirst are no concern because handouts are in continuous supply: a bottle of water from here, a soda from there, fruit juice from a Christian family, and chocolate bars from a Hindu family. (What did I tell you about Indian hospitality?)

Firework extravaganzas punctuate the monotony, shooting up sparks that rival the stars. Some sparks descend like misrouted comets and fizzle out in neem branches or amid the crowd. We make pit stops at public altars and devotional displays such as the paper-and-cardboard miniature of the parish church.

Though it’s way past their bedtime, sprightly children shout, “Mariye vazhga!” Though it’s been four hours, the aged band plays jaunty tunes and twirls tasseled umbrellas. Meanwhile, geriatrics in their early twenties shuffle from one foot to another, stifle yawns, and squat on the streets or strangers’ bike seats.

For everything there is a season. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

The Day After: 25 April (Monday)

When the clock strikes twelve, Madhavaram shakes off her festoons and finery. Tired, she falls asleep. At dawn, she rises, graced with the ordinary.

Written by Susanna Vas

Acknowledgments

Fr. Simon A. OFM, Parish Priest, St. Sebastian’s Church, Madhavaram, Chennai

Fr. Jamesmon P. C. OFM, Assistant Parish Priest, St. Anthony’s Friary Church, Bangalore

The Pondicherry Photojournal

OPENING CREDITS

Tell me your password and I’ll tell you who you are. My brother-in-law’s old computer password was “riskinlife123”.

Dennis Gabriel Amon, 42, is Executive Secretary to a she-devil by day, and a tech maven, automobile aficionado, and culinary connoisseur by night.

Trust him to convince his wife, kids, and sister-in-law to throw reason to the fishy twilight winds of Kovalam Beach, cobble together their travel bags, and road-trip from Chennai to Pondicherry just 30 minutes shy of midnight; and score a connecting room at Signature Inn at 5 a.m. after 2 hours of wandering in streetlight and shadows.

From afar, Mariette and I wouldn’t appear to have much in common. She’s 5’2, I’m 5’8”. She married at 22, I’m single at 22. She has two human children, I have two cats. She was born in the mid-80s, I was born in the late 90s. She’s the second oldest grandchild, I’m the second youngest. She thinks Pondicherry is all booze and beaches, I think it’s a cultural utopia.

Zoom in, and you might see the resemblances. Both of us have big dreams and small bank accounts. Both of us dream of Canadian grass under Indian skies.

She knows the Francophile in me has been pining for Pondicherry ever since I discovered a certain park on Google Maps.

Here’s to the older cousins who take the not-so-little younger ones to parks 161 km from home just to see them smile.

I’m not as old as their parents and not as young as them, which puts me in an interesting position. They were horrified to learn that I am biologically their aunt because I am their preferred playmate/sleepover buddy, and possibly their favorite home cook.

When they learned of my Pondicherry dreams, Daniel and Philip egged their their parents on until they caved. They keenly listened to the litany of my packing list, maneuvered themselves till akimbo when our backsides deflated, and found humor in being stranded under a streetlight without a hotel at 3 a.m.

I believe—as you will soon—that they have a good shot at a photography career.

SIGNATURE INN

When outsiders and first-timers think “Chennai”, their minds latch on to the Nungambakkam-Adyar belt. Similarly, when you think “Pondicherry”, you picture White Town and Heritage Town and streets with exotic nomenclature. You probably don’t know where Kottakuppam is. This was where we halted, in the middle of a majestic thunderstorm, for my nephews to take a leak. Little did we know that they were ceremonially marking a spot to which we would desperately and gratefully return.

Signature Inn is the dark horse of hotels. Located in a labyrinthine neighborhood, it overlooks a swamp, a nondescript street, and some roofs. But don’t let the outside fool you.

The reception seemed to be undergoing a color palette identity crisis with its maroon seats and purple throw pillows. The wall featured a hand-drawn gallery of tourist attractions.

At 5 in the morning, our masks served to contain our halitosis rather than filter the virus.

Philip’s inaugural gesture in Room 112 was a resounding fart in the closet. Daniel miraculously forfeited his phone to ask me why the colonizers sailed to India. In the minty air of the bedroom, warmed by the gentle light of clay sconces, we told stories, watched YouTube videos, and drifted off to sleep.

OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS CATHEDRAL

Our Lady of the Angels defies the blue-and-white chromatic identity of most Marian churches, at least on the outside.

With its cantaloupe and cornsilk exterior, it could pass for a Sacred Heart church. The interior is blue and white with gold highlights. The seemingly disparate colors actually lend themselves to a lovely interpretation: the intimacy between Jesus and Mary. Two color schemes, same wall; two persons, same flesh.

Blue, white, and gold are also the colors of French heraldry, possibly inspired by the Marian esthetic. Color speaks volumes in Pondicherry, and here it seems to say, “Protégé of Mary, property of France.”

P.S. No points for guessing what Stella Maris College’s colors are and why.

JOAN OF ARC PARK

The whole reason I was pining for a Pondicherry trip was a certain park with a certain statue. I couldn’t get in, but I just stood at the gate looking at her with a mixture of awe and sorrow. Awe because of her life, sorrow because of her death.

How do we go from heretic to heroine, from sorceress to saint, from stake to statue?

Dear Joan,

There are women like me because there were women like you.

You’re not just France’s heroine. You’re mine too.

PONDICHERRY MUSEUM

As someone who loves history and culture, my lukewarm disposition towards museums surprises me. There’s just too much to see—quantitatively and psychologically. Coins we exchanged with one another, pistols and swords with which we killed one another, urns in which we buried one another.

In the vitrine, you see yourself, a thing of the present, and behind it, the relics of the past, and wonder for a moment which of you is out of place.

P.S. Everyone gangsta until yo’ nephews ask why the statues ain’t wearin’ no clothes.

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.

BHARATHI PARK

The cannons lie asleep on the grass. Cannonblast and fanfare have segued into rustling and birdsong. Where the roads were darkened red with blood, they are now brightened red with gulmohar petals. Imagine standing before a cannon, and not being afraid to die.

WHITE TOWN

White Town is colorful. You’d think the sun shines through a prism on this place.

Villas are yellow like mango flesh, pink like snapper skin, grey like pigeon wing.

SACRED HEART BASILICA

There’s a belief of uncertain widespreadness that, upon entering a church for the first time, you can pray three Our Father’s, three Hail Mary’s, and three Glory Be’s, and make three wishes. When Mariette told Philip this in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he was crushed. “But I don’t know the words to the prayers!” he lamented.

Oh dear child, if only you heard the sweet sound of two hearts in love, you would abandon words forever.

PONDICHERRY BEACH

Two lighthouses watched as the sky dyed the bay blue and freckled her with gold. The lacy hem of the bay’s garment tickled the land that turned several shades darker. They watched as twilight turned people into silhouettes who, like the wicks of dying candles, or lumps of live coal, were occasionally luminous.

Vignettes of T. Nagar: A Pantheistic Pilgrimage

GURUDWARA SAHIB

When you’re early to meet a friend at the gates of Stella Maris College, counting crows and timing 29Cs for two hours are not ideal pastimes.

After 20 minutes of footpath following and a chancy crossing, I found myself at an arch with a shell-edge trim on the underside. The place identifies itself through language (Punjabi, Tamil, English) and symbol: ੴ (ek onkar) enclosed within twin sunbursts, and khandas.

Beyond the arch is a nondescript street animated by faint classroom rumblings, tabby cats, and poor housewives with time to spare.

Through a matte silver gate, I stepped into Chennai’s foremost gurdwara, pulled a translucent dupatta over my head, and mounted the stairs. A waddling lady with an austere face told me I could enter.

I did. Now what?

(1) The arch at the lip of the road leading to the Gurudwara; (2) The staircase leading to the temple proper; (3) The palki sahib; (4) An image of the Golden Temple in Amritsar; (5) A believer praying before the veiled Guru Granth Sahib; (6) A view of the campus

Partly out of respect, and partly out of cluelessness, I approached the palki sahib and prayed. What I supposed would be a ten-minute in-and-out visit turned out to be an hour-long experience.

In the far corner at a sitting desk, a squat turbaned man ladled prasad out of a portable food warmer and held it out to me. Generally indisposed to non-Christian prasad, I surprised myself by accepting it.

Mohan Singh (born Moni Rathore) comes from a Haridwari Hindu family, but wound up a Sikh priest. We redid my prayers with his help. Between nibblings of the sweet, I barraged him with questions.

He tells me there are ten priests in the on-premises monastery who work in shifts, shows me pictures of his visit to Canada that were published in a Punjabi newspaper, and vouches for the langar.

Outside the monastery, on the cobblestones, was a bangled beggar. Ramkaur’s gig is fortune-telling. I let her amuse both of us after a round of exercise accompanied by naam japo. (“Waheguru, waheguru, waheguru…”)

Studying my palm, she declares, “Ek ladki, saath ladke! Gori ladka se shaadi karogi.” No way I’m marrying the Easter Bunny.

With a thick regional dialect, she mentioned her son, also a priest at the gurdwara, and emphasized his kirpan. There’s no telling if the “kirpan” in question was literal or metaphorical.

BAHA’I CENTER

Questioning my choice of footwear, I zigzagged T Nagar’s streets to avoid slush and brown puddles, every step a reminding me that my feet were blistering.

The Baha’i House seamlessly blends with its neighbors. I hopped, skipped and jumped in to be greeted by a pleasant young man called Subramanian who invited me in.

This was a place that felt spiritual without any architectural pretensions. Its modest furnishings and disheveled knickknacks immediately endeared it to me.

Subramanian and his friend Prakash sat with me and, over bottled water, explained the principles and practice of their faith.

In the Persian mid-1800s, the Báb foretold the coming of a prophet. In 1863, that prophet came in the person of Bahá’u’llah and asserted the value of all religions while advocating for unity.

In Tamil, Prakash told me that Baha’i adherents are devoted to individual and social reform. Their local council is elected through spiritual politics: aspirants are chosen by example, not by popularity or persuasion.

While Prakash was born to Baha’i converts, Subramanian was influenced by youth evangelists who visited his college. Both have visited the Lotus Temple in Delhi, the most prominent Baha’i landmark in India. Subramanian made a pilgrimage to the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel, where, for 15 minutes, he gazed at the only existing portrait of Bahá’u’llah, calling it a surreal experience.

Before my departure, they gifted me a picture of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’llah’s son and successor with a sheaf of pamphlets hot off the press. Until I find a translator, I shall gaze at them like Subramanian at Bahá’u’llah’s picture in the hopes they will reveal their meaning to me.

(1) View from the outside; (2) View from the inside; (3) Image of ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’llah’s son; (4) Image of the Lotus Temple in Delhi; (5) Prakash, his father, and Subramanian; (6) A souvenir; (7) Baha’i pamphlets

Vignettes of Royapuram: A Pantheistic Pilgrimage

SRI ANGALA PARAMESHWARI TEMPLE

Inadequacy wormed its way into my consciousness after a disappointing Indian Literature seminar. What was meant to be an evaluation of my performance segued into a discussion of my passion for Chennai. Dr. Padma V. McKertich made her case for Royapuram the way my classmates made theirs for Kailaash’s momos. Let’s just say I’ll be going back to Royapuram for seconds.

I was tingling with excitement in 27D and 1B because I was en route to a forbidden rendezvous, not with a scorned lover, but a temple.

My ultra-Catholic kinsfolk roll their eyes, turn up their noses, and grimace so much at temples, it’s a wonder these haven’t become their default expressions.

Catholic Christian is my religious identity, too, but my mind is less stuffy because I air it out on every street, allowing it to absorb all the pigments and fragrances of the city.

Sri Angala Parameshwari Amman Temple was the first temple I visited alone, and of my own accord. Crossing the arch was like entering a parallel reality. Vendors fanned religious paraphernalia—lamps, flowers, fruits, japa mala, incense—on tarpaulin-covered crates. Women in heavy silk saris were preoccupied with their tots, purses, and prasad. I slipped out of my footwear and when my feet contacted the cool stone floor, I was overwhelmed with the sensation of novelty.

Vegetarian BBQ and fanmail for the goddess.

Stepping inside was only the first part—and the easiest one. Where are Sowmya, Gayathri, and the Telugu Keerthanas when I need them most? I mused. There was no route map, no signposts, but I walked, passing various deities on the walls and feeling vaguely comforted by the familiar ones. They were all at home, unlike me, the square peg in a round hole. Spigot and basin, lingam, mysterious narrow pathway punctuated by tiny niches, and look—there’s that guardrail again, the one that leads to the sanctum. Pride settled over me when I realized I had inadvertently completed parikrama.

The susurrus crescendoed into regular speech. Snatches of conversation became discernible. The crowd was swelling on either side of the guardrail. The colors multiplied, the smells perked. It was time to glimpse her royal highness, Sri Angala Parameshwari.

The priest, with streaked forehead and starched garb, stepped forward. Together with his assistants, he dispatched the feast of coconuts, bananas, and jasmine to her majesty’s chambers. Maybe my eyes were open a mile too wide, or I had too many giveaway tics, because I felt the heat of the priest’s glowering. I spy with my priestly eye… a newbie. Or perhaps it was the effect of being in a huddle of silk-cocooned bodies.

The ladies of Royapuram flock at the guardrails for a glimpse of the goddess.

Souvenirs were unthinkable, but I left with a smirk. How was this for defiance, family?

ST. PETER’S CHURCH

Upon visiting a new area, I locate the nearest church and pay it a visit. This is my travel ritual, the only one I’ve steadfastly kept, regardless of the weather of my soul.

Squat St. Peter’s Church sits like a ship in the middle of a desert. The overlap in ecclesiastical and naval architecture in coastal cities is owing to the patronage of sailors from foreign seas, local boatmen, and fisherfolk. Marian miracles at sea are usually the impetus to build churches. St. Peter’s pays homage to the Mother in color, but not in name. The etymology is lost on me, but Royapuram’s namesake is believed to be St. Peter.

Parikrama turned into pilgrimage because I chose to walk from the temple to the church. The campus was reminiscent of a seashore. A cricket team was in the middle of an intense game when I entered. Out of courtesy for the nervous newcomer who had blended into the boundary wall, they halted their game. I scuttled to the entrance and was greeted by familiar smells and faces.

A regal ciborium sheltered the crucifix and pointed to the dome of heaven where the Father, the Spirit, and the angelic host perched on delicate clouds.

Heaven looking down on Earth, Earth looking up to Heaven.

The finest detail on the altar was the background to the crucifix, depicting a faithful Mary Magdalene. She’s always relegated to the background, because Peter lived to shove her out of the limelight. Still, it’s a giant leap in the direction of progress to include her on the altar. Knowing Peter, he’s probably gonna deny that too.

ROYAPURAM JAMA MASJID

Calligraphic outlines, windows that strain light into mesmerizing henna on the skin of the floor, speakers like confounded weather vanes.

It saddens me to think I might never know a mosque from the inside. I can only imagine skullcaps being centered, headscarves being wrapped, prayer mats being unfurled. At least the adhan reaches me every day.

PARSI ANJUMAN BAUG DHARAMSHALA

“Zoro-what?” is people’s most common response upon hearing “Zoroastrian” for the first time. Quite a mouthful, I agree, but the subdued Persian contours of the word refresh the mouth, like a sip of faloodeh.

My fascination with Zoroastrianism was born when I was seven, and my mother gifted me a Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism had dedicated articles spanning a minimum of two pages. A petite paragraph on Zoroastrianism, with a picture of a navjot, was tucked into a corner of one of the pages on Religion.

Tucked away is still how I would describe Chennai’s Zoroastrian community, and its places of interest.

The Parsi Anjuman Baug Dharamshala is a complex that serves as an inn to travelers, and a cemetery to those who have completed their journeys.

As the non-Zoroastrian groundskeepers could not get me an audience with the deputy, I couldn’t stir the deceased or the living. I threw a courteous-curious glance over the low cemetery wall, read the inscription on the pillar, and spied into half-open windows and doors to discern aged Zoroastrians in sudreh and kusti with their heads tipped back in chairs.

MATER DOLOROSA CHURCH

This church sure looks happy for one named after Our Lady of Sorrows. The discovery of this church was a happy accident while en route to my final destination.

Originally a convent for Presentation nuns, and eventually a school, the plot found its ultimate purpose as a church.

Royapuram has a sizable Anglo-Indian demographic that suggested and sponsored Mater Dolorosa Church.

If only the Jews didn’t cluster in Mint, and the Sikhs and Baha’is in T Nagar, Royapuram would have been a one-stop shop for religious tourism.

DAR-E-MEH’R AGIARY

Praying before the chalice of flames in the Dar-e-Meh’r Agiary was an unvoiced desire of mine. The exclusive admittance policy “Parsis and Zoroastrian Iranis only” stands in my way.

Outside the wrought-iron gates I stood like an expectant prisoner, my mind fumbling for the words to the Ashem Vohu. Accepting that Avestan was out of reach, I whispered an English Our Father.

Carefully, I maneuvered my hands and my phone through the gaps between the bars, and took some pictures. Would it be trespassing if I let myself in? I wondered.

No Goblet of Fire moment for me, but I did have a moment.

To stay on the safe side of the law, I sought the advice—and the influence—of Dr. Nazneen Marshall, who has the unrivaled honor of being the first Zoroastrian to grace my life’s path. “Say you’re a student of Nazneen Marshall, wife of Bomi Gazder,” she told me.

When a lady with a pleasant face and a cautious demeanor appeared from the outhouse, I impulsively switched to Hindi, a language I’d abandoned for seven years, and asked to be let in. Maybe that was the icebreaker.

Mrs. and Mr. Zarir Daruwalla engaged me in a half-hour conversation about the general and local history of Zoroastrianism. We spoke of feminism, food, festivals, and fire, and when I had exhausted them and my vocabulary, they asked me not to quote them in newspapers and magazines.

The fire chalice, the fravahar, and a plaque that reads: “Admittance to Parsis and Zoroastrian Iranis only.”

They asked me the final question: “What are you? You don’t look like you’re from these parts.”

“Anglo-Indian,” I said, as neutrally as possible.

Smiles blossomed on their faces.

“There are lots here. Many of them are our friends!” Mrs. Daruwalla said.

The next day in Children’s Literature, everyone was assigned a reading task while I regaled Dr. Nazneen Marshall with my narrative and my Hindi.

Personal Recollections of St. Sebastian’s Church

If Madhavaram sounds unfamiliar in 2019, it was literally obscure when Mr. and Mrs. Vas installed themselves there in a sizable house on a sizable piece of land with their brood of seven back in 1974.

This little suburb, carefully tucked away in the north of Madras, had charmed a good number of Anglo-Indian, Malayali and Mangalorean families into moving in.

Now all of these families had Roman Catholicism in common which meant you’d have found them in their Sunday best at St. Sebastian’s Church.

The grounds of the church captured on a rainy Sunday evening. The stage served as the altar and the paved area in front of it functioned as the nave during the construction period.

If not for the cross that crowned the roof, this little church, an infant among its elderly ecclesiastical cousins like St. Mary’s (Parrys), Santhome and Our Lady of Light (Mylapore), and St. Andrew’s (Vepery), could have passed for a cottage.

The dwarf-church was not structurally imposing. With its bone-white walls, red-tiled roof, three blue doors and 15 brown pews, it couldn’t hold a candle to St. Mary’s with its lifelike paintings, Santhome with its neo-gothic architecture, Our Lady of Light with its miraculous history or St. Andrew’s which had already mothered three churches. Its only luxury was a circular lawn that was quartered by a cruciform footpath leading to the main entrance. Three Indian mast trees stood sentinel at the periphery of each quadrant of the lawn, shadowing four cement benches.

The Vas septet would stroll in almost daily through a revolving side-gate—the public convenience and the church’s technical institute hadn’t been erected yet—and meet the D’Montes, the Raphaels and the Binnys. While the adults made acquaintance and conversation with one another, the children gaily romped around the many Malabar plum trees or played jump rope with Fr. Paul’s girdle.

The first people to alter the demographic makeup of Madhavaram were the Burmese, most of whom occupied a sector called the Burma Camp. Linguistic preference (or proficiency) prompted some to fall under the Tamil-speaking community and others to fall under the English-speaking community. There emerged from the latter from a family of longtime residents a faithful choirmaster, Andrew David, who presented himself daily at mass where he sang and played the harmonium.

The friary housed three to five Franciscan priests, among them Fr. Fidelis D’Lima, a classy intellectual who groomed ordinands for priesthood. One of his protégés, Fr. Lawrence Simon, would give the church a facelift in due time.

The seating arrangement was such that nuns did not scatter themselves among the laity. The former, with the choir, occupied the left column of pews while the latter occupied the right.

By 1985, when the Catholic population had expanded significantly, Fr. Lawrence Simon was tasked with remodeling the church. The area was enlarged to accommodate 80 pews; a belfry topped with a red cross was constructed; the exterior walls were painted coral, cream and cantaloupe orange; the front wall featured a mosaic of Christ, the floor was lined with mosaic tiles; and the windows were barred with rows of iron arrows and a central bow to commemorate the manner of St. Sebastian’s execution.

I was the penultimate addition to the third generation of the Vas family—born when the world was on the cusp of a new millennium—and the last of said generation to be baptized in St. Sebastian’s. By the time of my birth, the population had burgeoned. A parish council had been established as had Basic Christian Communities. The number of choirs had multiplied. On the far end of the campus stood a technical institute.

The pathway leading to the technical institute.

At around this time, it became customary for each parish priest to execute a project that would enhance the religious or the overall experience of the parishioners. During his maiden stint, Fr. John Chrysostom laid a footpath and installed lampposts at the flanks; Fr. Amal Das shaded two strips immediately outside the wings of the church to provide a sitting area for surplus attendees that doubled as a waiting area for those expecting transport. Fr. Felix John Gassam erected the grotto, a staple feature of every Catholic church. When Fr. John Chrysostom returned a second time, he constructed a stage and cemented the external sitting areas. Fr. Singarayar built the much-needed adoration chapel (which, I feel, resembles a miniature Hallgrímskirkja), planted a flagpole and replaced the traditional crucifix with a mosaic of the San Damiano cross.

Now God had seen all of this and He was pleased. But all that while, He had something bigger in mind. He was just waiting for a young basketballer and law student to come along. And when he did, God decided, “He’s not a Peter but I can certainly make him one. He is Simon, and upon this rock I shall build my church.”

The grotto as seen from the unfinished interior.

And in five years, Matthew 16:18 was fulfilled.

St. Sebastian’s Church 3.0 cannot be decisively categorized because it’s a medley of architectural styles: Classical Roman pillars, Gothic arches, Renaissance stained-glass windows, a gold-painted hemispherical dome that bears a faint likeness to Russian Orthodox onion domes, and an imitation of Brazil’s Art Deco Christ the Redeemer that will take your breath away.

St. Sebastian’s Church (unlit) on Inauguration Day.

Lights on! The church all lit up and surrounded.

Heavenly radiance: There was an excellent play of light followed by a display of fireworks.

Allow me to completely suspend my objectivity and tell you how proud my family and I feel to have watched our little church grow up with us.

A Polish Grave in Madras

It was curiosity that prompted my excursion from the family graves at St. Roque’s Cemetery. I stumbled upon the tomb of a Frenchman and a plaque dedicated “by their sorrowing parents” to pair of siblings, one of whom died at nine months and the other at 15.

Amidst familiar colonial names like Williams, D’Souza and McKertich I spotted, on a simple Gothic-style tablet, the unusual name of Kazimierz Czarnecki, a Varsovian merchant and navy seaman.

According to his headstone, Czarnecki “died while serving his country”. This made me eager to investigate the historical ties between India and Poland.

Turns out that during WWII, when Hitler was enforcing his eugenic ideologies through genocidal operations, 640 Jewish and Catholic children were shipped from Poland to India where they were given asylum by Maharaja Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja of Nawanagar. However, Czarnecki was 39 when he died in 1945, thus eliminating the possibility that he was one of the young refugees.

My best guess is that he was part of a naval convoy that was en route to Japan. According to The Polish Review and Eastern European Affairs, Volume 4, (published in 1944), “Even in the Far East, on the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Polish ships are doing their share in the struggle against Japan.” Poland allied with Japan during the 1905-1907 Russo-Japanese War, but declared war on them in 1941 due to pressure from the UK (where the Polish government was in exile) and the US post the Pearl Harbor attack. Japan’s Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō’s response to Poland was as follows: “We don’t accept the Polish declaration of war. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, declared war under the British pressure.”