Enlightenment: This is my parish...! Rather my mums parish.. Around 20 years ago when the 2nd generation Bombay Malayalee catholic kids were forced to concede to the Syro-Malabar rite, when we were bought up on the Latin rite since childhood, I wasnt very comfortable with it. I looked at it as very clannish, but having no choice in it, went along with the flow, learnt all the prayers and hymns in malayalam, even led the choir for a bit. Did the whole altar boy routine and as time passed moved on to more passionate things in life and kept my sabbath day routine to whenever & wherever convenient. Today after what seemed like forever I decided to go to a Onam celebration mass (a week late cos it was easier for the parish members) of this church which my mum has kinda spearheaded in its making sometime 5 years ago. There was Onasadhya (lunch) and some festivities organised and my mum requested me to come along and see some changes. I was zapped at the 3rd generation take over with a facelift even from the preachers side, kids jumping around, men and women looking zany in traditional wear & met a lot of people from my past who interestingly were very cued into my life & knew what was I doing probably a lil better than my calendar.. Moving on we had an absolute blast with some designer rangolis, played the traditional tug of war (needless to say my team won!) and had a scrumptious lunch complete with the leaf and all. Came back to mums and we were chilling with a beer when our kids started playing tug of war with a cord they dug up from somewhere and thats when it hit me..! Ive been staying away from all this communal fun & everything traditional about being a Malayalee cos I was a cosmopolitan Bombay rogue pseudo who wasnt very proud of his roots as their ways were archaic and seemed regressive. In the process, I failed to look at the good there is and now that same community gives me a lot more respect than what the rest of the country did during my Indi-pop era.. I am humbled and thank everyone whos shown me love, & respect continuously. To my family, my wife & my son I look forward to being this mix cultured cross-stitch bridge & on that note I wish everyone a belated Happy #Onam.. #FeelingBlessed da....!
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 11:30:33 +0000
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