Genesis: On being a Tamizh Christian.
Originally published sometime in 2007 on a blog that no longer exists. Talks about faith, the Indian Tamizh Christian culture, and a few other things.
I can say that my faith journey began when I was a kid. I was, and still am, born into a traditional protestant Indian Tamizh Christian family. The kinds one can spot on the front pews of the church, every Sunday. Every Sunday. The ones who believe that being on time for the church is like being on time for heaven’s summon of the saved. And by now, it is more than just a habit!
We pride ourselves of the two Reverends in our mom’s family and of the seemingly eternal connection we have with the diocese. My dad’s family of course does not have reverends to its credit but has had more than enough connection + influence with the local church, that the effect is pretty much similar.
The traditions of our family should be similar to other Tamil Christian families. Idli and chicken curry for that special Christmas breakfast, white clothes for Maundy Thursday, rigorous training for Sunday school diocesan exams, family prayer complete with singing both hymns and Carnatic songs, memorizing bible verses in ways not different from that of physics and biology, maintaining of pin-drop silence during church, and hush-hush answers for embarrassing questions.
Oh and biriyani! Every time the family and the extended family met or even when a wedding/house-warming/engagement/manjal-niratu vizha/christening ceremony took place, it was biriyani. Tender pieces of mutton cooked with subtly spiced raw rice and pickled with moderate amounts of raitha.
Good Fridays need special mention. The way of the cross, a prominent part of the church service was tear-jerking. One cries. Only always does. And Christmas carol services. Our family had the tradition of singing at the church for this meek evening service usually held on the Sunday before Christmas. After days of practice, (our mom was usually the one who found the song) we would sing it at church almost as a performance.
There was also this time of the year when we celebrated the Harvest Festival. A tradition that Tamizh CSI churches follow from the early days when newly converted Christians brought in agricultural/livestock produce as thanks offering to God. The stuff would later be bid by the members of the congregation, and the money would go to the church. Now, of course, goats or chickens or any kind of remotely village-ish entities aren’t bid anymore. What does get bid are wet grinders, barbie dolls, gold ornaments, bedspreads, cell phones, pink-colored pencil box sets, exotically designed flower vases, living room water fountain sets, churidar material, and the like. Once when I was a little girl, two apples were bid for 100 rupees.
The harvest festival is generally quite fun. There’ll be numerous stalls lined up before the bidding begins. And one can get anything from fried fish to ice creams to lucky draw prizes.
Attendance to Sunday school, vacation bible school (VBS), and youth/teen fellowships had never been an option in our family. Very early in life, we had the enlightenment that the aftermath of irregular attendance or breach of any Sunday school discipline wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. So we (my sister and I) simply obeyed. After all, the Bible says that obedience to parents will be rewarded. How and under what circumstances can that be rebelled against was not mentioned.
VBS was a Sunday school innovation. Every summer when we were young, mom sent us to church for a straight ten-day period with the long-term vision of making us into young disciplined Christian women. Apart from memorising the psalms and a few gospel verses, we also did coloring books, ran around playing, collected roadside flowers, and giggled at funny boys.
VBS was usually extremely crowded. We were neatly put into different classes based on our age. We were titled the tiny tots, beginners, primary, juniors, intermediate, seniors, senior high, and super seniors. And every class had its own VBS syllabus and a special name. The 7th or the 8th day was the inspection day when some of the important church members questioned us on what we had learned until then. Once amma was an inspector and no, she was not partial in grading my class.
After the inspection was over, the remaining days were spent on practicing for the VBS closing day, when each class would do a special performance on the stage: a skit, a dance, and the like. I don’t remember me not being part of anything. I was either dancing or singing or acting. And if remember right, my sister had always performed something very important.
There’s also one other memory about VBS that brings back so much joy. The refreshments! Every day after class we had something to eat and drink - mango juice, rasna, rose milk, buttermilk, or watermelon juice, with cream bun, cake, sundal sprinkled with raw mango bits, samosa, or vegetable puff.
Once, on a palm Sunday, I did something totally unpardonable. After the street procession, which we usually did carrying coconut leaves (a substitute for palm leaves) and singing, I was expected to attend the church service as Sunday classes were canceled for the day. I, however, chose to stay outside the church building and whiled away my time chatting with a friend and making all kinds of miniatures and figurines out of coconut leaves. It was a new thing that I had discovered - the outside perspective of the church service. It was exhilarating. We did sing the songs, we did ‘follow’ the service but it was just not the same as being ‘inside’ the church.
My family reacted way too different. They simply could not grapple with the fact that I had actually stayed outside the church and worse, had enjoyed the experience. How can a law-abiding, bible-following, Sunday school prize-winning, memory verse-reciting, well behaved Christian child do something like this?
More importantly though, what kind of a Christian was I to grow up into? Did I know then? Do I know now? Did my faith journey really begin amidst all this?
Was it when my Sunday school teacher asked me to pray in the class or maybe when I gave my first testimony in Sunday school or during that time when I had my prayers answered, or when I wrote this long letter to God when I was just five years old?
All the same, I am grown up today. And all these years the thirst and the hunger to know this God had stayed in me. The refusal to accept simple explanations to questions or any justification for Christian hypocrisy had also stayed. And out of a million questions I had, some have been answered but most remain a mystery.
What more answers? What more questions? I don’t know but I’m waiting.
But faith remains.
