An apostle returns: Bringing St. Thomas back to Chennai
St. Thomas is largely credited with bringing Christianity to India
When Reverend Father P.J. Lawrence Raj was an assistant priest in Chennai, he wrote many letters to the bishops of the Catholic world. When he didn’t get a response, he wrote to Christian magazines.
His letters were an attempt to solve a new-age problem afflicting a historical icon: in a saturated religious marketplace, he was seeking brand recognition for St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus and the man largely credited with bringing Christianity to India through the Malabar coast in 52 AD.
Fr. Raj composed these letters over 30 years ago, on St. Thomas Mount, a hillock overlooking Chennai’s airport. Two thousand years ago, when there was no airport, no flights roaring overhead, and when most of the surrounding land was dense forest, it is believed that the apostle Thomas was murdered by a group of Hindus who did not fancy his proselytising.
“I have a special attachment to him,” says Fr. Raj. “He was a great witness for faith. We are all Doubting Thomases — we don’t believe easily.”
Fr. Raj, who was ordained 36 years ago, has served at some of the Ivy League institutions of Chennai’s Catholic world — Santhome Basilica, where Thomas is buried; Velankanni Church, dedicated to Mother Mary, and now Little Mount, where the apostle is believed to have hidden from his murderers inside a grotto.
Thomas is believed to have lived, and preached, in the Chennai region for over 13 years. As one of the original Twelve, he has built-in brand recognition. There are churches, roads and even hospitals named after him. But of late, he is no longer the draw he once was; festivals dedicated to his memory are in the shadow of others, notably the Velankanni festival, which draws the faithful in their thousands.
Neglected saint
“Two thousand years is a long time,” Fr. Raj muses. “What happened after St. Thomas was martyred and till the Portuguese came, we don’t know. The Portuguese gave more importance to Our Lady. To be very frank with you, it is the people of Kerala who are more attached to St. Thomas; they call themselves St. Thomas Christians. In Tamil Nadu, we have more of an attachment towards St. Francis Xavier, or recent saints like Mother Teresa. And when Velankanni Church came up in Besant Nagar in the 1970s, our devotion to Our Lady became stronger. Perhaps priests didn’t take the initiative, but I think we have neglected St. Thomas.”
Fr. Raj’s efforts to bring Thomas back to the mainstream narrative of Chennai’s Roman Catholic world reads like a marketing campaign: High-level initiatives include a renovation, in the early 2000s, of the Santhome Basilica where the remains of the apostle were buried in a crypt below surface level. Members of his parish nicknamed him ‘Father Renovation’ as he orchestrated a slew of beautification and restoration projects in his parish churches, including St. Teresa’s Church in Nungambakkam, even as he faced allegations of corruption and misappropriation of funds. “I tell people that ‘that this tomb of Thomas is the womb of Christianity in India’ — without Thomas, Christianity would not have come to India so early, and here at Little Mount, I am trying to do the same work I did at Santhome.”
Outside, on the sloping grounds of Little Mount Church, a short-statured, elderly man dressed all in white with a black belt takes up the story. D’Cruz knows four languages, and claims to have a connection with Thomas “that nobody else has”.
The church’s local guide steers you in the direction of the grotto, pausing to point out the spots where Thomas placed his hand, his foot, his knee. Gesturing at a narrow opening in the cave, he says, “This was not an open space, but when Thomas prayed and needed to escape, it opened up.”
Reviving Thomiyar
He ticks all the boxes: the bleeding cross, the holy fountain where Thomas quenched his thirst during those last hours (whose water is now sold in plastic bottles for a nominal fee), and even tells me a slice of his own personal story. “For me, it is 100% Jesus,” D’Cruz says. “He and the Mother have brought me to Thomiyar.”
He sees a group of Korean tourists approaching, and breaks off our conversation. “Excuse me, over here!” he calls out, in suddenly accented English. “Do you want to know about Thomas?”
D’Cruz is a grassroots ambassador for Thomas, and fits in with Fr. Raj’s plan to make the apostle relevant again. His compatriot Aubrey Laulman, an Anglo-Indian who started working at the church eight years ago, after settling his daughters in marriage, performs a similar function at St. Thomas Mount. He says he was hesitating on the steps leading up to the mount when he felt a gentle but irresistible push on his shoulder. “It was a miracle,” he says, drawing my attention to the cross believed to have been hand-carved on the rock by Thomas himself.
“Look at it from different angles, you will see how intricate the work is,” Laulman points out. “Those days, people prayed a lot. That’s why Thomas was able to do so many miracles. They prayed a lot because there was no Tata Sky,” he says, laughing at his own punchline, the sound of his delight bouncing off the empty walls of his church. “Don’t mind me, I am very frank.”
D’Cruz and Laulman are spreading the story of St. Thomas among those who visit the two churches, but Fr. Raj’s focus is on those who don’t even make it as far. “After I took over the parish two years ago, we have made The Feast of St. Thomas an 11-day affair, not three,” he says, as we pick our way gingerly across the debris of building work. “We are renovating the entire church; we will make the festival as popular as The Feast of Our Lady, which is celebrated after Easter. It is time to focus our attention on St. Thomas, to give him publicity, and get the parishioners and the public involved in the story.”
This essay is from a National Geographic Society and Out of Eden Walk journalism workshop.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Field Notes> Sunday Magazine / October 27th, 2018
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Boys from Vepery: A fascinating story about the Irish migration to India
A documentary, titled Boys from Vepery by Fokiya Akhtar, explores the migration of members of the Irish community to India during the Great Famine of Ireland during 1840-50.
Ian Michael, professor of marketing at Zayed University, Dubai, has vivid memories of listening to stories told by his great-grandmother, Agnes Footman, when he was 12 years old. Sipping grog in an old-style British home at Hyderabad’s Sarojini Devi Road, Agnes would tell of her great grandfather’s family of fighters and revolutionaries who migrated to India during the Great Famine of the 1840s and ’50s. She would go on for hours, talking about the valour and lineage of these Irishmen. As a child, the thing that stood out most for Ian was his family’s accent — an unusual mix of Irish and Indian.
About 40 years later, when he mentioned his Irish connection to Fokiya Akhtar, a fellow professor at the university, she said the story had the potential for a documentary. In the next few months, Michael and Akhtar had multiple sittings and locked the script for the documentary, Boys from Vepery, which they plan to release in mid-2018.
“The protagonist of the documentary is John Footman. He was my great-grandmother’s grandad. Footman was a famine migrant who travelled by ship from Ireland to Vepery, Madras, in 1847 as enlisted Irish fusiliers with the British East India Company. My mum’s mother also came from Irish stock. Her grandfather, William Curran, sailed as a 10-year-old boy from Ireland with his father Patrick and his three sisters,” Michael told HT, via email.
The documentary traces John Footman’s family to Clonakilty, a town in County Cork, Ireland.
Most of the Footmans served in the Army and Railways. After the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the British East India Company was disbanded and John Footman joined the British Army. He married a woman called Matilda, who was most likely Mangalorean. Their eldest son, Patrick, joined the British Railways in Madras. Patrick’s daughter Agnes (Michael’s great-grandmother) left Madras with three of her brothers to settle in Secunderabad. She married Lewis Francis, a senior railway line inspector with the then British railways.
“My grandmother Joyce Curran was the Station Master of Nampally (a Hyderabad suburb) station in the 1960sand ’70s. Her brothers, the Currans, were divers at the Mazagaon docks in Bombay. They migrated to the UK a few years after India got independence,” says Michael.
In India, the Footmans kept to themselves, mostly interacting with members of the Irish-Indian and Anglo-Indian communities. The only Indians they interacted with were the people they worked with. Nor did they imbibe the Indian culture. The women of the family never wore Indian clothes.
All their weddings were held at two Parsi community centres – the Zoroastrian Club and Percy’s hotel in Secunderabad. And their dances, especially at Christmas and New Year’s Eve, would involve lots of dancing and drinking, just like they would have back home in Ireland.
Picnics centred on fishing and shooting. Michael remembers going with his uncles and grand uncles, fishing and shooting in the forests of Andhra Pradesh, including Nizamabad.
For research, Michael made multiple visits to Ireland to obtain baptism and death certificates; went through the records of the British Indian Army and the Chelsea Hospital. He began investigating the Curran side of the family, but ended up getting more details about the Footmans. “I met relatives. We were several generations apart during filming and this feeling was nostalgic, filled with unique emotions,” Michael says.
Michael uncovered during his research a fascinating connection with General Michael Collins, a politician and soldier who spearheaded the struggle for Irish independence in the early 20th century and became the leader of the provisional government of the Irish Free State. “I discovered that John Footman’s mother was one Joan Collins, who came from the same village as General Collins,” says Michael.
He also stumbled upon the information that the ancestors of the late US President John F Kennedy, Margaret Field and James Hickey, came from Clonakilty and surrounding villages too. “So while John Footman chose to use the Indian Ocean route and came to India in 1847, his probable mates, the Fields and Hickeys, chose the Atlantic-to -Newfoundland route and went to Boston,” Michael says.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Art & Culture / by Danish Raza, Hindustan Times / May 21st, 2017
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Velu Nachiyar: The Tamil Queen Who Fought Away the British | #IndianWomenInHistory
Velu Nachiyar, the little-known queen from Tamil Nadu, was the first Indian ruler to fight and triumph against the British. She did this in 1780, 77 years before the First War of Independence. Popularly known as ‘veeramangai’ (brave woman), she also devised the first recorded suicide bombing in history, with her Dalit commander-in-chief Kuyili.
Early Life
Born in 1730 to Raja Chellamuthu Vijayaragunatha Sethupathy and Rani Sakandimuthal, she was an only child. The royal couple thus raised her as they would have raised a male heir. She was trained in horse-riding, archery, and martial arts such as valari (throwing sickle) and silambam (fighting with a stick). She was also well-versed in several languages, including English, French, and Urdu.
SHE DEVISED THE FIRST RECORDED SUICIDE BOMBING IN HISTORY, WITH HER DALIT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF KUYILI.
When she was 16, Velu Nachiyar was married to Muthuvadugananthur Udaiyathevar, the prince of Sivagangai. They had a daughter together called Vellachi, and ruled over the kingdom for over two decades – from 1750 to 1772, until the year that Mathuvadugananthur Udaiyathevar was killed by the British.
Years Of Stay In Dindigul
After the British invaded Sivagangai with the son of the Nawab of Arcot and killed Velu Nachiyar’s husband in what is known as the ‘Kalaiyar Koil War’, she was forced to flee her kingdom with her daughter. She found safe haven at Virupachi in Dindigul, and lived there for eight years under the sanctuary of Gopala Nayaker.
During her stay in Dindigul, Velu Nachiyar met Haider Ali, the Sultan and the then ruler of Mysore. She conversed with him in Urdu and highly impressed him with her courage and perseverance. This led to her garnering unwavering support not just from Gopala Nayaker, but also from Haider Ali, who pledged to be her ally in her fight against the British. He even built a temple inside his palace as a sign of their friendship.
She was invited by the Sultan to stay at the Dindigul fort where she was respected like the queen that she was. Haider Ali also provided her with a monthly financial support of 400 Pounds and 5000 infantry and cavalry troops each. All of that combined with the weapons provided by the Sultan, helped Velu Nachiyar assemble a powerful army to drive away the British.
The conquest Over The British
1780 was the year Velu Nachiyar bravely defeated the British in a brilliantly formulated coup. Her intelligence gathering agents found out where the British had stored their ammunition. A suicide attack was then devised to destroy all of it.
1780 WAS THE YEAR VELU NACHIYAR BRAVELY DEFEATED THE BRITISH IN A BRILLIANTLY FORMULATED COUP.
Kuyili, the commander-in-chief, gallantly volunteered to carry out the suicide mission. She doused herself in ghee and set herself on fire before jumping into the ammunition store, destroying every last bit of it. Kuyili is considered by many to be Velu Nachiyar’s adopted daughter, and is the first recorded suicide bomber in history.
Udaiyaal was also an adopted daughter of Velu Nachiyar. She too died in the battle against the British while blowing up their arsenal in another suicide attack. In her memory, the queen built an all-women army and named it after Udaiyaal.
Post War
After her victory over the British, Velu Nachiyar reigned over the Sivangangai kingdom for a decade. She made her daughter Vellachi heir to the throne. The Marudhu brothers, her fellow escapees from the Kalaiyar Koil War, were given administrative positions in the kingdom. To express her gratitude to Haider Ali for his immense and timely help, Velu Nachiyar constructed a mosque and church at Saragani. She further maintained friendly relations with Tipu Sultan, Haider Ali’s son, and loved him like a brother.
Vellachi, Velu Nachiyar’s daughter, succeeded her to the throne and ruled from 1790 to 1793.
The 66-year-old valiant queen passed away in 1796 in Sivagangai, her beloved kingdom. She had been suffering from heart problems and had been treated even in France.
Appreciation And Depictions In Popular Culture
As part of his album ‘Tamilmatic’, Tamil-American hip-hop artist Professor A.L.I. dedicated to Velu Nachiyar a song titled ‘Our Queen’.
On December 31, 2008, a stamp was released in her remembrance.
A grand ballet performance was presented by OVM Dance Academy of Chennai. It narrated the life story of the lionhearted queen. Another grand ballet performance was held in Naradha Gana Sabha in Chennai. The director of the performance, Sriram Sharma, researched on her for about a decade.
The late J. Jayalalitha, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, inaugurated the Veeramangai Velu Nachiyar Memorial in Sivagangai on 18th July, 2014. A six-feet bronze statue of the queen was also erected and it was announced that January 3 would be celebrated as the birth anniversary of the undaunted queen who shattered gender roles as early as the 18th century.
References
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism In India – FII / Home> History> Velu Nachiyar / by Hamsadhwani Alagarsamy / October 17th, 2018
Breathing life into the Madurai Sungudi
A group of mentally challenged individuals are breathing life into Madurai Sungudi
Inside the vocational training centre of M S Chellamuthu Trust & Research Foundation, eight women and a man sit at tables working intently on white pieces of cloth. They tie small knots on the fabric with concentration and are a picture of patience. Mentally-challenged, they are part of an innovative project designed to facilitate their rehabilitation.
“When we started teaching them to tie the sungudi knots in September last year, their hands quivered and they could barely hold the cloth to tie the threads,” says Hema Arun Amarnath, a key resource person from local NGO Tharagai. However, recently, three of them were acknowledged as artisans as they received their first payment and also saw their end product, sungudi dupattas, go for sale.
A year ago, Nancy, Vimala and Soundarya wouldn’t have imagined that they would be able to do this. It was the decision of the Trust’s Executive Director R Rajkumari to create a win-win opportunity, where the patients could heal themselves while reviving a dying art.
“People with mental illness are mostly taught candle, agarbatti or papadmaking as vocational skills. But, to involve them in a highly-skilled work to keep the traditional craft of Madurai alive, makes them warriors of art,” she says.
“Nine people were identified for the project based on their clinical status, interest and functional capacity,” points out K S P Janardhan Babu, Director (Projects). “The achievement is big, not only for them, but also their trainers, mentors and caretakers,” he adds.
“For these artisans, art is now central to their being, feeling and thinking,” says Sridevi Suresh, who was instrumental in associating her friends and like-minded individuals in this journey to save a dying art.
“They surprise us,” says volunteer Sumathi Rajan, “by giving us a product that qualifies for sale through Crafts Council of India (CCI). “Sungudi has lent itself well as a therapy for their minds,” adds Babu.
The vocational training centre at Shenoy Nagar is a place without stigma where Anitha, Rajeshwari, Somasundaram, Gayathri, Ramya and Nandhini come from the different rehab centres of the Trust and share camaraderie for three hours every day. “I complete 11 rows every day and each row has 25 knots,” says Rajeshwari, who came for treatment of schizophrenia four years ago. “I am under medication now,” she says, “Tying the knots calm me.”
Says Somasundaram, “I belong to a family of tailors and tying sungudi knots makes me happy,” he says. Nancy says with pride that she completes 72 knots in 30 minutes and has mastered the technique. That is why after a strict quality check, her piece was cleared for sales.
Once the handcrafted piece is approved for the market, the women are paid 10 paise per knot. Every blouse piece contains 800 to 1,000 knots and a sari has a minimum of 5,000 knots.
In the initial weeks of learning, Tharagai provided them small handkerchiefs to practice on. Later, they moved to one metre blouse pieces. Those who improved their knot tying skill are working on saris now. Their work is not time-bound and there is no pressure on them.
“This is a socially-engaging experience for us. We get a deeper understanding of mental health and they are able to reshape their lives,” says Sridevi.
The Tharagai volunteers visit the centre every fortnight to take stock of the progress made by the group.
In the initial days, they came every day with a trainer from Gandhigram and once the members got the basics right, they practised under the supervision of the centre head Bhavana.
Each piece they work on is tagged with their details such as starting date and the number of knots tied and a record is maintained to assess their progress.
The next time you go to Kamala — The Craft Shop of Crafts Council of India in Egmore, check out the authentic sungudi fabrics and saris. This small group has fought many battles to reach there.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style / by Soma Basu / October 22nd, 2018
Music Academy honours Vikku
Given lifetime achievement award
Veteran percussionist Vikku Vinayakram was presented with the Special Lifetime Achievement award at a function held here on Wednesday.
Organised by The Music Academy, the event had veteran artists coming together to honour Mr. Vinayakram.
Presenting the award certificate and medal to Mr. Vinayakram, renowned flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia said, “It felt like I was getting the award as I gave the award to Mr. Vinayakram. He is a great musician and has inspired me. We have played together in several concerts.”
Recalling his long association with Mr. Vinayakram’s family, veteran violinist T.N. Krishnan said he exhibited his music talent when he was quite young.
Highlighting the achievements of the awardee, N. Murali, president, The Music Academy, said Mr.Vinayakram personified Indian percussion to global audience and accompanied several stalwarts. His music’s underlying themes were devotion and reverence to art.
Mr. Vinayakram is the third musician to receive special lifetime achievement award from the Music Academy.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Special Correspondent / Chennai – October 11th, 2018