meeting people

Occasionally out here I attend a prayer cum dinner get together…Well not the typical prayer meetings as done in India…Here its conducted by 10-11 Malayalee families themselves, independent of the church scheme of things….The prayer sessions are lively with songs…interlaced with short prayers…and some lively debates or rather discussions interpreting the Bible and deliberating how we can improve our lives in a realistic way…not deep logic or mumbo-jumbo but talking from the heart…

I have been attending it over the past two years albeit occasionally….But the Malayalee families out here have been doing it for the past 33 years every single month…Its usually conducted at someone’s home which they voluntarily decide…The attendees cook something at their individual homes and all share it at the host place…often it’s a grand feast with everyone bringing something or the other…we even had uniappam yesterday! :-) ….

But well the point I want to make …I found the whole scheme a very healthy self-improvement session…It was a chance for me to hear from older people about their lives…about difficulties they face…their concerns…their interpretations…the happy news in their families…I feel so happy that I was taken in their fold and treated like one of em even though I was outsider considering rest of the group knew each other for 33 years…We sometimes read a Bible passage and try to interpret the good ideals and discuss how we can imbibe them into our daily lives…The way the male point of view differs from the female point of view and finally how they agree to a point is equally interesting…

I can see genuine fellowship among the families the way they talk and discuss…the men and the woman….Unlike in India the men do as much cooking as the woman…the woman do have the beer in our company…everything feels so equal unlike the prejudiced settings back home… When I talk to them I can feel the discontent they have for how the church works back home where everything has turned into money minting machines….There is a little fund collection during the prayer which is used to support really needful back in Kerala…and again this is done independent of the church…. Sometimes we do have an occasional priest from kerala attending the gathering…and often he concedes to us in private that the politics within the religious establishment has degraded the whole essence of what Jesus stood for…

There is one aunt called Leelamma aunty who apparently has difficulty in walking...I was told by others that this aunty was a beautiful tall athletic lady 3 decades ago…She used to be the liveliest outdoor person ..the kind of person whom you identify as a bubbly girl…the Malayalee girl who was the most popular…Several years ago, she suffered some kind of food poisoning which left her paralyzed…Doctors said she wouldn’t survives since the poisoning had affected her nervous system…But she lived…but as a completely different person…the once athletic person became so frail and her hand so thin…she couldn’t walk without someone holding her…

I have read inspiring stories about how a husband takes care of her wife or vice versa…but this was something I was seeing in real…The uncle apparently was taking care of her for past 33 years…managing the house…cooking food…taking care of her…infact she couldn’t even take a bath herself!!!…Kariachen uncle as we call him is one of the most jovial men I have ever met…Its hard to believe that he is someone whose life was way different from us…Well I don’t think he was actually sad how his life turned out to be...infact he gladly accepted and I can see he is still in love with Leelamma aunty…and mutually…the way they fight together….Thinking about it, uncle could have left Leelamma aunty at the state-run Medicare centers or migrated to kerala and settle there where Leelamma aunty could be take care by relatives or nurses….But he never did that!!!

At least in this blog I want to say…”Uncle and Aunty…you are one of the most beautiful pair I have ever seen…!” Today I attended the get together after a long time…Great sensible and mature talks…lot of jokes from uncles and aunties…little funny criticisms of each other...great beer….lip smacking food…

I rarely enjoy spending time with people of older generation back in India…But here I was relishing it…I was feeling like being part of a family…When I shook the frail hands of Leelamma aunty while bidding good bye…and I look her eyes...I don’t see a tinge of sadness…her palms had a warmth which sort of spread to me…I am truly humbled meeting such people….amongst fake…revengeful…self-important…arrogant people whom you meet across in your life!!! There are indeed nice people in the world…believe me and that’s a heartening feeling!!