Art/ Heritage

THE BOMBAY SEMINARY: At St. Xavier’s

As discovered in the earlier articles the Bombay Seminary, in its gypsy life, travelled from Fort to Dadar, Surat to Bandra and from Cavel to Mazagaon. In 1870 it struck camp at Dhobitalao. What led to this sudden change in campsite?

The answer is more practical. On January 30, 1869 St Mary’s, Mazagaon was recognized as a College of Arts by the Bombay University. But its affiliation was granted under the name of ‘St. Xavier’s’. When a major portion of the Jesuit Institution along Carnac Road (now Lokmanya Tilak Marg) was ready, the makeshift school at Cavel as well as the ‘Young Gentlemen’s School’ at Fort were transferred to this building.

St. Xavier’s was a dream come true for the Jesuits and hence they also decided to transfer the ‘College Department’ and the ‘Matriculation Class’ of St Mary’s Mazagaon to the new location at Fort. For the next thirty years the Bombay Seminary was a part of the St. Xavier’s institution but at two locations i.e. from 1870 to 1891 in what is now St Xavier’s High School and from 1891 to 1900 in what is now St. Xavier’s College.

At the Seminary at Carnac Road, the minor seminarians followed the school or college curriculum and wore lay clothes. The major seminarians wore cassocks and had classes early in the morning or late in the evenings since the professors had their hands full during the day. From 1888 one priest was exclusively set aside for the Seminary.

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Food

Pesarattu

Pesarattu literally means Moong Dal Dosa. Pesarattu is also called as pesara dosa in Telugu. The word Pesarattu is derived from two words pesara and attu. Pesara means mung lentils or moong dal and attu means dosa.

This recipe was sent to me by Austin D’sa from my parish who was a student of Don Bosco College of Hospitality studies. I tried it out and it was extremely nice. 

Ingredients
1 cup whole moong dal (green gram lentil)
1/4 cup rice
1/2 teaspoon methi (fenugreek seeds)
1 tablespoon ginger, grated
2 green chilies
1/2 cup coriander stem, chopped (optional )
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder
Handful of coriander leaves, chopped
Oil or ghee to fry

Method
Soak the rice and moong dal over night. The next morning blend all the above ingredients in a blender and add very little water while blending Because moong dal and onions leaves water. The batter must be thick pouring consistency. Do not add salt

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Food

Malai kofta/paneer/mushrooms

You can make this lovely rich white gravy to go with koftas or paneer or any hardy vegetable. The gravy is simple to make. I used paneer and mushrooms in which case you can prepare the gravy and shallow fry the paneer. Add the mushrooms into the gravy when the gravy is cooked and allow it to cook for five minutes before adding the paneer. Once you add the paneer into the gravy, turn off the heat.

For the kofta you will need
Grated Paneer 250 grams
Potato – 3 boiled and grated
Fresh Coriander – 2 tablespoons chopped
Garam masala -1/2 teaspoon
Fresh green chilly – 1 chopped
Grated ginger – 1/2 teaspoon
Salt
Pepper

Kneed the above and make into round balls. You could stuff it with cashew nuts, raisins and a pinch of cardamom powder if you like. Roll it in cornstarch and let it rest for five minutes before deep frying. You don’t need to cook these koftas you simply need them to get a nice golden brown colour. Drain and set aside.

For the gravy

Onions -4 sliced
Green chillies- 2
Cashew nuts – 1/2 cup
Water – one cup

Boil the above for five minutes and purée when cool.

To make the gravy you need

Jeera – 1 teaspoon
Green cardamom- 2
Black cardamom – 1
Cloves – 3
Cinnamon – 1 inch stick
Bay leaf – 1
Ginger – one inch piece grated

In a pan heat oil and add the above and allow it to release it oils. Now add the onion and cashew paste and cook this with half a cup of water for five minutes.

To this add
1/2 cup cream
Sugar – 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder – 1 tablespoon
Black pepper – 1/4 teaspoon
Garam masala – 1 teaspoon
Salt
Kasuri methi (roasted on a hot dry pan) 1/2 teaspoon – to be used like a garnish 

Cook all of this for five minutes (except kasuri methi). You could add 1/2 cup fresh curd if you like but make sure you have beaten the curd to a smooth mixture

Drop the koftas into the gravy only when serving

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Faith

 Poor impetuous Peter, he did it again! It’s almost like he must say something at every occasion. But then again it sounds like a lot of people we know.  It would be hard to doubt the intentions of this good man who often shot his mouth. On this occasion, he sought to push himself to a new limit of giving, perhaps in the hope of winning the Lords approval. It bombed again.

Rabbinical Judaism recommended that forgiveness be offered just thrice.  Peter, who by now is quite accustomed to the Lord’s call to love more and give more, now more than doubles the Rabbis recommendations to forgive. Peter offers a perfect number, one more than the recommended double. Besides seven was a perfect number for the Jews. Seven sounded like heaven; So how could the Lord not appreciate this magnanimous figure that outdid the Rabbis in the forgiveness of one’s brother?  He surely had this one right? errrrr….wrong again

Jesus outdoes ‘Petrine generosity’, hitting it out of the stadium to seventy seven times. This sounds very nice as a thought but practically the thought of keeping such a count of forgiveness would be tedious, to say the least. So why does Jesus set this rather insane figure? Is there some magic in the number seventy times seven?

Jesus parables and teachings are filled with ‘extremes’. He is always asking the disciple for more. That is the heart of Christian discipleship; the teaching that St Ignatius held close to him, ‘let’s give the Lord more (Magis in Latin). So the call of Jesus to his disciples is to love more, give more and forgive more.  This is encapsulated in the parable that Jesus proceeds to tell to make clear his point; a parable of ‘exaggerated’ forgiveness.

For the sake of understanding the ‘exaggerations’ let’s look at what a talent is and how much the wicked servant owed his master. A “talent” is a measure of weight, close to about 59 kilograms. If the debt was in silver it would be roughly equal to about 15 years’ worth of wages for the typical worker. The king in our parable is owed 10,000 talents, or about 1,50,000 years’ worth of income, which works out to more than 3,000 financial life sentences. This is no little debt.

On the other hand the wicked servant was owed by a colleague a mere hundred denarii. A denarius (plural = denarii) is a small silver coin that was roughly the daily wage for the typical worker. The servant in our parable is owed 100 denarii. Now compare the two amounts; three months debt verse three thousand financial life times.  Get the point?

So then, what makes the inability to forgive, such an issue in our lives? One issue is when we begin to tell ourselves ‘enough is enough’; I have forgiven this person thrice and everything has a limit. We set limits because perhaps we don’t want to be vulnerable and understandably so. But Jesus is making a bigger point. The Christian nature of forgiveness has no limit for a disciple.The call of Jesus is a call to tear down the wall of limits. Vengeance prevents us from moving forward for it simply adds to evil. Jesus wants us to understand that Christian forgiveness is an extravagant affair. The king forgives extravagantly so that we may forgive in the same measure; for this is the prayer we pray each day, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
 Fr Warner D’Souza may be contacted on whatsap on +91- 9820242151
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Art/ Heritage

Hope and Home were finally on-site for the Bombay Seminary at Bandra. The Examiner tried to bolster up the Seminary through explanations and advertisements that encouraged vocations.

In 1860 the resourceful Fr Leo Meurin S.J. was appointed Rector. He opened a ‘minor seminary’ at Bandra for boys who wished to test their vocation to the priesthood. The minor seminarians lived with the boarders and orphans of the School but were privileged to wear the clerical dress! The ‘major seminary’ trained young men, more mature in years. The major Seminary was housed in St. Peter’s Church building.

However two years later, in October 1862, Fr Meurin was called upon to develop St. Xavier’s School, opened by Mr. Furtado at Cavel. As he shifted his quarters from Bandra to Cavel, the Bombay Seminary (only major) followed suit. Thus Cavel was soon to be crowded by cassocked clerics.  Unfortunately, this move ended prematurely.  The School at Cavel was very much in its infancy and lacked the arrangements needed for a full-fledged Seminary.

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