Opinion

My God my God, why have THEY forsaken us? – A reflection on Manipur

I am on a two-year sabbatical; that is a privilege considering the shortage of priests in the Archdiocese of Mumbai. It would seem that every hand should be on the deck and here I am, away in Goa. While my compulsions of health and ideological issues have forced me to take time off, the “fire within me” does not seem to burn out. God, it seems, won’t let me go even though my Archbishop so kindly did. So, it is with fear and trepidation I write my thoughts while entrusting my life to being HIS disciple who spoke his mind.

Everything within me tells me to shut up and sit back and take my sabbatical easy but then there is this ‘Jeremiah moment’ that I seem to be experiencing all of this week. What is that you ask? I echo the sentiments of the prophet Jeremiah, not that I am even a far cry to who or what he was but that ‘Jeremiah moment’ resounds loudly. Jeremiah 20:9 says, “If I say, “I will not mention him (God), or speak any more in his name, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in and I cannot.” So here goes…..

Manipur has burnt for more than 60 days. There is now enough evidence to point to the complicity of silence, if not more, of the powers that be; both federally and locally. Government officials have now told us that at least 500,000 pieces of ammunition, including grenades and mortars, and around 3,500 weapons were stolen in the riot-hit state and that too from the police armoury; that itself, as one commentator stated, is reason to file charges of sedition. These were most obviously put in the hands of those who have been given the mandate to terrorize the tribals of Manipur, many, if not most of whom, are Christians.

The Archbishop of Imphal has gone on record to state that more than 349 churches in the state were burnt within 36 hours of the violence erupting. That is not coincidence, that is a well-planned and coordinated attack. Fr Matthew Fernandes, director, NERSC, in an interview with Karan Thapar clearly indicated that churches in little know areas in the forests were targeted? How could city boys on motorbikes know where to go and what to target? This is the Gujarat model now being unleashed on Christians in Manipur and a model I suspect which is being perfected for other states too.

But is this too much to read all at once? Not at all. We have had enough of wrapping murder and violence in pretty bows of secularistic jargon and social niceties. It is time to call the failure of the Manipur government what it actually is, state sponsored ethnic cleansing. Which federal system allows an incompetent state government to continue in power sixty plus days into riots and looting and with what seems to be the clear intent to drive out the tribal Christians from their homes in forest? How does India’s first tribal President continue to keep her constitutional post in ceremonial splendour when her tribal people continue to suffer? Why has she not gone to them when they came to her at Rashtrapati Bhavan?

But why throw stones so far? Today, (July 2nd, 2023) the president of the CBCI, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Trichur, president of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India (CBCI), has directed Catholics throughout the country to observe this day as a day of prayer for peace in Manipur. Seriously Your Grace? More than sixty days after our brothers and sisters have been murdered, terrorized and displaced, all we can do is issue an appeal for prayer? Make no mistake, I am not undermining or diminishing the power of prayer, I am questioning the collective conscience of the Bishops of India and even more their collective silence. Why did the office bearers of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India (CBCI) not go hat in hand and camp themselves outside the Prime Minister’s office and demand no less for his silence to be broken?

This is the same prime minister who stood in White House just a week back and said, “democracy is in India’s DNA, it is in India’s spirit, in its blood, the democratic Indian government works on the basis of a democratic Indian Constitution, and if there are no human values, no humanity, no human rights, there is no democracy.” Really Modiji? Then why have you not uttered a word about the situation in Manipur or has that just become your style; to speak up too late? Is this but not tacit approval to those with vested agendas to continue the mayhem they have begun? The PM did not bat an eyelid when he spoke on foreign soil, in Australia to be precise, on the attacks on temples in that country; but not a word even when 349 churches were burnt and attacked in your own country and that too in one tiny state?

But to the many Christians who are reading this article, nodding their head in agreement, let me pick a stone for you too before you throw many at me in a series of questions that have come to be known as the ‘whataboutry’ form of evasion of the real issues at hand. Why are you silent while our brothers and sisters die in Manipur? Were you not educated by the Church whom you ought to defend? Why are you waiting for the hierarchy of the Church to speak up? Why have you relegated your role as voices of conscience to those who will not speak because they have ‘their compulsions?” How many Catholics have flooded face book and social media with their protests about the situation in Manipur as much as they have with the events of joy and blessedness in their lives (read your recent holiday or party)?

Ironically, I have reposted two or three articles on this matter on Facebook. Believe you me, not one like, not one share, not one comment as of this morning. I wonder if Facebook has received instructions to make sure that these post never get any likes. But what I fear more is the silence of this nation and in particular of the Christian community who have now begun to fear reprisal from government for speaking up for democracy. So much for a democratic nation!

I guess today I will lose friends on both sides of the aisle. The government for sure will not see this article as fair criticism. Today, to criticise the government makes you anti-national. It is more likely that you will go to jail for writing an article critical of the government but not for burning a Church. But I also suspect I will have lost friends in the Church because I dared to question their silence. The Gospel of today is emphatic, to be a disciple one has to put everything else in second place and embrace the cross of Christ. The fire burns in my bones!

Perhaps many may question why I speak just for my faith, my community; why not for all who suffer as we rightfully ought to each time violence breaks out. Let me make no apology for speaking for the underdog of the moment. The majority it seems, have the backing of government.

Christ bleeds on the cross; for the persecutors and the persecuted. Today, the people of Manipur, suffering with our Lord on the cross have this to say, “ My God, My God why have THEY forsaken us? “

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Faith

Before you ‘just do it’, remember he did it! Tuesday, 13th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 8:23-27

There are moments in our life when we hit rock bottom. I pray, that may not be the situation in your life but such experiences are bound to form the tapestry of our experiences. Such periods are hard to climb out of. They have been brought about by our sheer foolishness, a stroke of misfortune or as we have grown to say, ‘the hand of God.’ Whatever be the situation, moments like these are difficult and challenging to say the least.

Try as hard as we may, but no form of self-help can solve such moments of deep distress. These are moments when we have to awaken the one who is in our boat, or as may be in our case, the one in our home but who has gone to sleep because we have not turned to him.

I am not taking about grandpa who is snoring but Jesus who is asleep in our home. That sounds strange does it not? Jesus asleep in our home? Yes, he is truly asleep in our home and not asleep because he is tired of us; he is asleep in our home because we don’t turn to him, we don’t drive him insane with our constant chatter as we pray. He has fallen asleep in our boat because we have no need of him. Ironically, he has not left our boat, he should have, but did not. He loves us and knows that the moment will come when we will need him.

And then, just like that, the moment of crisis hit us. We find ourselves sinking; the emotional pain too hard to bear, the reality is too daunting to face, the future seems bleak and everything around seem grey and gloomy. What do we do? The answer is simple…wake the Lord up!

Will he be angry with us? Was he angry with the apostles when they woke him? The Gospels do not tell us that Our Lord was miffed that his afternoon siesta was disturbed, yet clearly the Gospels do tell us that they were chided for waking him up. “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” he says to them. Think about it, when we hit rock bottom, when the waves are swamping our boat and we need help we know the one person we ought to go to but we too are afraid for we will be chided; and rightly so!

Taking the Lord’s chiding is better than being drowned in a stormy sea. Jesus does not chide us because he is angry. He chides us because we lost faith in his presence in our lives, because we thought we could manoeuvre this ship of our life through what seemed like the calm waters of the Galilean Sea. Guess what, we were never thought the storm will come and storms do come.

What seems to surprise us the most, is Our Lord asleep in a raging storm. Was he so tired from working three miracles and a long sermon on the Mount that he had fallen into such a deep slumber? Here I am, tossing and turning on an average day when all that was said to me was mere criticism of how I cooked a meal or a stray comment from a relative who is known to be generally unkind. The Lord sleeps because he has cast his care on his Father. He can sleep because no storm can take away his peace. It is for this reason that the chides the twelve, “why are you afraid? Where is your faith?

Interestingly Jesus does not tackle the storm first, he tackles his disciples first. Their faith was more rocked than the boat they were being rocked in by the storm. The storm is easy-peasy, the disciples are going to be tough nuts to crack. Has our Lord not made his point yet? Did he not heal a leper, cure the centurion’s servant with a word and then lay his hand on Peter’s mother-in-law? Apparently, all of this was still not enough for the twelve. They were harder to crack than the storm and by extension so are we!

And when the storm has been rebuked by the Lord, we go back to our old way of living. Our response should have been acts of deep faith, rather we faithfully ask more questions; “what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?” What an odd question from the twelve when the answer was obvious. It is Our Lord who calms every storm of our life but we foolish delude ourselves that we worked things out. We did not, he did! He who is fully human; human enough to have good sleep is also fully divine, divine enough to rebuke a storm into submission. HE DID IT not I!

…..For your prayer today, read Psalm 130

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Food

Move over Martins corner….

Betalbatim and Martin’s Corner are synonymous but four years ago another home maker decided to take her culinary expertise in order to feed the Goans. Cota Cozinha opened just before the pandemic but within a month of its opening it saw customers arriving in droves. This family run restaurant by Sherif and Queeny Cota comes with a secret weapon in the kitchen, their mother/mother-in-law whose hands churns out some moth watering Goan dishes.

Cota Cozinha was recommended by a friend. I mentioned that I was on my way to Martin’s Corner and he said to me, “have you tired Cota Cozinha?” I am a Martin’s Corner fan but sadly the last time round the food and service was very disappointing. Simple courtesies that could be offered to a guest were made to sound like they had to move a mountain and the squid I was told will be rubbery because ‘that’s the way we make it.” Imagine being told our steaks are always burnt and our chicken is always undercooked but hey! that’s the way we make it. I have no beef with Martins corner, their rechad masala still makes my mouth salivate but perhaps when you get that big you don’t care a damn.

So, I decided to listen to the recommendations of my friend and took an afternoon trip to Cota Cozinha. I like arriving at restaurants at noon or by seven. You don’t have to stand in line for your table and even more, you can choose where you want to sit. We walked in on a weekday, they had just two tables occupied but in time the cars kept rolling in the parking lot

Menu cards in most tourist bound areas of Goa could just be a cut copy paste job. You have the really long list of booze offered and then the usual Indian Chinese slash Indian version of South East Asian food. This is generally followed by some North Indian favourites and the usual Goan fare and for good measure, just in case the white man may pop in, some ‘Indian continental’ food. Notice how all food gets ‘Indianized’. Curiously I have come to observe with some accuracy a local Goan from a visiting Goan in any restaurant in Goa. The local Goan orders Chinese while the visiting Goan must have the prawn curry rice with a whole host of other Goan dishes.

I have learnt better and stick to the Goan fare and while it still is the run of the mill it is comfort food for me. We ordered the pork chilly fry (Rs 280) and the salted tongue (also priced the same). Right away, I thought to myself, the portions were more than generous. The tongue was the most obvious choice to make contact with my tongue and it was delicious. That joy ended when I ate the pork chilly; it was chewy and undercooked. The flavours were all there but then again you don’t want to be cuding away for the next hour.

The Salted Tongue

At this point of time the owner, Queeny Cota stepped in. I politely explained that the mass of chewed meat on my plate was the result of my teeth struggling to do what it ought it. How a restaurant handles criticism is the make-or-break moment for me in such moments. Queeny was grace under fire! She suggested she replace the dish for her mother in law’s pork amsol and then suggested we eat the house favourite, squids stuffed with sausages in a thick rechad gravy. This was the game changer. The next two dishes followed by the coconut panna cotta was excellent.

Pork Amsol

But the food aside, Queeny is one restauranter in Goa who has not let her success go to her head. She is clearly a hardworking and proud restauranter. She visits every table and makes sure the guests are taken care of. Sadly, and this I say for most restaurants in Goa, those who take the orders have never eaten the food nor are they able to make recommendations. If only those who took the orders were trained better…..WHEN you visit Cota Cozinha, NOT IF you visit it, ask first for Queeny. Let her guide you to make the right choices for your meal. Even more, ask her to send out the dishes that are cooked by her mother-in-law in the house next door.

I walked out of Cota Cozinha a happy customer and one that was thoroughly spoilt. The restaurant is situated at Chaul, Betalbatim, Salcette, Goa. They are opened for lunch from 11 to 3 pm and for dinner from 7 pm to 11 am. Cota Cozinha has ample parking and are closed on Tuesdays. Call them for a reservation on 0832-2880031

Warner D’Souza

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Food

Rajma

Red kidney beans or rajma is commonly available in the market either in its whitish pink spotted version or the deep red ones. Today, I used the spotted version. I cook by ‘andaaz’ or by the hand but for your benefit I have reworked the recipe. I cooked 700 grams of kidney beans which can feed 20 people for one meal. I am reworking this recipe for your benefit.

Kidney beans -250 grams
Tomatoes to be pureed -250 grams
Onions to be finely chopped – two small or one large
Green chillies – one large
Garlic – seven flakes
Ginger – half an inch piece
Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon
Kashmiri chilli powder or even better deghi mirch – ½ teaspoon
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Jeera or cumin seeds – ½ teaspoon
Asafoetida – large pinch
Bay leaf – one
Coriander and mint finely chopped – two table spoons
Mustard oil
Ghee to finish

METHOD
Soak the kidney beans overnight and change the water as often as you can. This helps if you have an issue with gas in your stomach from eating beans. In a pressure cooker cook the kidney beans with salt, water and a black cardamom. Some people also add a bit of baking soda. Pressure cook the beans till they are well cooked. You should be able to hold a bean in your hand and it should mash easily. On a regular gas burner, I allow eight to ten whistles provided the beans have been soaked overnight.

In a pan heat mustard oil and add in the jeera and bay leaf followed by the green chilly, garlic and ginger which have been coarsely smashed. Now add the onions and saute till light brown. Add the asafoetid and the powdered masalas and stir on low fire for half a minute. Add half a cup of water and allow the masala and the onion to cook for a minute. Add the tomatoes which have been pureed and bring this to a simmer, cooking for five minutes. Take some of the cooked rajma, perhaps a handful and run it in a blender. Add this and the cooked rajma and any of the rajma stock and bring this to a boil. If need be add water. Drop the heat and cook for another ten minutes or till the beans are really tender. Your gravy should be thick and not runny. This is not a curry!

Finally add the finely chopped coriander and mint along with some ghee. Close and let it rest for an hour before serving.

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Faith

Solemnity – St Thomas, Apostle of India.

Young people, no matter what generation they may have lived in, want to jump right into a world of choices and truly this generation has way too many choices to make. There is much to see, much to explore, much to do, much to eat….so many people to love. God does not seem to find himself even close on the top of these lists of choices that most young people would make.

Having rolled over the hill, the sins of our youth are ever before us. Chance rather than choice, love replaced by lust, self over others… the list of those ‘mistakes’ seems to be endless. For most of the time that we spent in our youth, we relegated God to the role of a spare tire; he was remembered but only in emergency, when our tire was flat.

What is the point I am making? It is not God who denies us his love. It is not God who delays breaking into our lives. It is simply we who push him off. We could choose to believe in what he says at the age of 21 but we chose to take him seriously at 51, when ‘our passport having arrived we await our visa to be stamped.’ So, is delaying the presence of God in our lives just the ill of our time?

St Thomas did the same. Jesus had risen, it was Easter Sunday and hardly had he stepped out of the tomb, Jesus chose to appear to the apostles. John 20 tells us the narrative of the first Easter Sunday. He tells us that in the evening of that first Easter Sunday Jesus appeared to the apostles. He showed them his hands and side for he understood that they were not only terrified of the Jews but perhaps mortified that this could be a ghost they were seeing. He gives them the gift of peace and then breaths the Holy Spirit on them and gave them the power to forgive or retains sins. He had given this power earlier only to Peter, now he gives it to them all. Then, scripture tells us, that Thomas was not there!

I don’t want to make St Thomas our favourite whipping boy for what happened next. Too long, we have thrown St Thomas in the dock with a label that says, ‘doubting Thomas!’ Yes, he had doubts but we never call St Peter ‘betraying Peter’ or St John or St James the ‘angry apostles.’ St Thomas has patiently borne centuries of name calling for ONE single lapse of faith. That is a punishment too harsh to bear.

But, there was another mistake he made that day, one that seems to be over looked. It is true he would not believe; it is true that he wanted proof and what is true is that while the others accepted the resurrection on Easter Sunday, Thomas chose to wait another full week to celebrate Easter. It was a week later that the Lord appeared to Thomas, it was a week later that Thomas relaised his foolishness; it was a delayed Easter for Thomas because he chose not to believe.

Go back to the start of this article. It is not God who does not want young people to rally around him, rather it is the sins of our youth that keep us from accepting Christ. When we do find our Lord in our 50’s we come to realise too late, the time we have lost with him. While our acclamations of love can never be too late and perhaps like Thomas, our acclamations of love are profound when we too find our own version of “My Lord and My God,” yet we chose to lose the love of our Lord for so many years only to discover that with him all things were possible.

Many of you, reading this text may be well past your prime. You are no longer the spring chicken you once were and age has taken its toll. The intention of this reflection is not burden you with guilt but to encourage you to reach out to some young person and share your testimony. Share, how you were once them, young and reckless but even more how you are now an ardent lover of Christ.

Young people have doubts like Thomas did. Christ took the time to meet every doubt of Thomas. “Put your hand into my side” he said to Thomas. Christ met Thomas where he was in his spiritual life and we need to meet young people where they are. No doubt is too silly to be explained and the best explanation is the foolish mistakes of our own life. Will young people get it? May be not right away but this I know; you sowed the seeds of faith.

The Sunday preceding or following the feast of St Thomas is celebrated in many Archdioceses as faith formation Sunday. Go out therefore and sow a seed of faith. You don’t need a degree in theology, your mistakes and failings of the past and the joy of knowing Christ in the present, makes you a professor par excellence in the faith.

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