THE DICK DELUSION

This year too the Jaipur Literary Festival had its creases, with the Dalits doing a big time pout at some comments by sociologist, Ashis Nandy. Last year it was Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses that came in for major communal sulks.

I too did my little bit of sulking in response to Richard Dawkins' exhortation to people in India to stop wasting time on God, who didn't exist. 

This piece appeared in the Agnel Ashram magazine.
 

The Dick Delusion

Dick is a very, very clever man

He does what every other man can:

He thinks!

                        Only he does it much better.

Or so he thinks.

                        For he follows the rules

Of that god called Science. He uses the tools

Of Reason, Mathematics and Logic.

(Not God with a capital G. Or Magic.)

Peering through electron microscope

Looking up the great Hubble telescope

He can see what every other man can

Only better than any other man.

Using pure theorem and syllogism

To demonstrate to one and all: the chasm

Between Rational Man and a thing called God

That made the earth with a word and a nod.

Nay says Dick, the only god he knows is

A blind watchmaker who fashioned all this

With a series of accidents that fell into place

In a book by Darwin, a charlie who says

Your great-grandpa was an ape and that you

Are what you are today because a few

Million years ago you or rather your genes

Did some selfish cherry picking, the means

By which Evolution separated

The boys from the men who grew up and dated

Your great-grandma. And so you are today

What you are today, hip hip and hurray!

Here in Jaipur, attending the Litfest

Reading from Satan and thumping your chest

And chanting “Aye! Aye !” in unholy fusion

With the author of The God Delusion.

Will someone please tell this clever man, Dick

That Truth is revealed to Science and Logic.

As well as to Metaphor, Intuition

Fairy Tale, Myth and Imagination

That God does not play hide-and-seek under

Microscopes and telescopes. His wonder

Is not unravelled by sums and equations

Or clever syllogistic deductions.

He is not a Q.E.D. at the end

Of a theorem, my dear memetic friend.

He may not be seen by the curious eye.

Or fathomed by crafty brain.

                                                The High

Priest and theologian too may not see

Through ground glass lenses of theology

Dogma, doctrine and apologetics

And all their studied catechetics

The true vision of that divinity.

Get real and accept that Infinity

Lies beyond the finite grasp of Logic

Even the logic of a very clever Dick.

The eyes that see Eternity are not

Up in the head but in the human heart

Magnified by Infinity’s lenses

Of Faith and Love -- not the senses.

Faith will see through a multitude of sins

What till now has been hid from Dick Dawkins.

Grandson

 

Grandson

(An autobiographical indulgence)

Thanks for the breast. That was good, very good

And I am satisfied. Now cover up

And go.

              To the call of kosher kitchen,

Your pots, pans, needle-and-thread and chickens

Or to pretty up for that dreamer, your man.

And hand me over to Grandma Anna. Go.

You too. Dreamer Dad. Go. Go. Go. Go Go.

To your chisel, saw and hammer and nail

That will fashion the chairs and shape the cartwheels

Of Pilate’s chariots.

                                 And will they shape today

The nice notches and the wedges to fit

One horizontal strip of wood over

Another, much longer, vertical piece

That will then be planted into a hole

Dug on the summit of that punitive mount?

Hand me over to Papa Joachim, Dad.

Hand me over, Mum and Dad to those hands

Of pure affection superimposed over

Gratitude to Yahweh and to you two

For delivering me, your son to them,

My parents’ parents. Love undiluted

By Duty, Responsibility or

Divine fiat. With no thought for Simeon

And his prophesies and visions and Signs

Of Contradiction and the foretelling

Of heart-piercing swords. Nor expectations

From me. To walk the Pharisaic path.

And more: no expectations from you yourself

Of doing right by Moses and now Gabriel.

Of shaping a messiah.

                                    For I will

Soon lose myself in the temple and then

Will magnificat give way to miserere?

Son why hast thou done this to us? Oh why?

And will carpenter Dad fashion a stick

To spank the madness out of the Son of Man?

“Get a job, a well-paying career.

Climb the corporate ladder, my son. Get rich.

Stop hanging out with that locust eating

Wild son of your Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Zach

And his megalomaniacal voice

Of one crying in the wilderness, son.

And that ragtag bunch of faithless fishermen

And tax collectors. All that hippie talk

Of love, for Christ’s sake! And saving the world!

Get real, Son of David! Remember your stock.

Did your mother and I dodge the bloody sword

All the way to a cattle shed for this?”

Oh I get your point, Dad, Mum. I get it.

Now just leave me to Joachim and Anna.

They’ve none of those hang-ups. None of those fears.

See how they hold me, change my diapers.

Lisp endearments with no fear of doing wrong.

With no expectations from me or themselves.

As they had when they were bringing you up.

They spoil me. And themselves. We’re having fun.

Ah! If only you had me before they had you!

I would have taught them how to bring you up.

  

OWNING A SAINT

 
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Owning a Saint

(A community poem

as it might be written by the parishioners of Anjuna,

where Ven Fr. Agnel was born and raised.)

Forget the oxygen mixed with urak and cattle fumes,

I breathe in the remaining molecules of the breath he left behind

For all of us Anjunkars

On the 20^th of November 1927.

As today I walk the fields and pathways of

Mazalwaddo, Zorwaddo, Arpora, Pequeno and Grande Chivar

Or across any little vaddo in my Anjuna

That was his Anjuna.

(Blessed am I, Venerable One because of you.)

And do I feel even now, mingled in my sweat

The spray of his spittle as he delivered holiness from his pulpit.

"If we ourselves do not pay attention

                           to what we are asking for from God,”

He had thundered,

“how can we expect Him to hearken to us?"

And do I imagine I see his writing on every palm leaf,

As I slide up that maad for toddy.

"Trust in God,

He had said.

“Rest like a dog at the feet of its master."

And of course, it is his voice that I hear resonating

From the brass calling of the Angelus and daily chimes

From the belfry of San Miguel, our church.

His church.

He is ours.

No. He is mine. He is mine.

Don’t get me wrong.

I believe in the communion of saints.

Augustine, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila,

Jude, Anthony, Francis of Assissi, Lawrence,

Bartholomeo, Agapito, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia,

Rita, Cosme and Damiao, Sebastian, Anastasia and

Yes all your saints of the calendar.

Yes, I believe in St. Francis Xavier who belongs to Goa.

He is yours. He is ours. He is every Goan’s saint.

But Venerable Fr. Agnelo!

He is mine.

Mine, as I walk behind the plough in my field.

Mine, as I sit behind my wine shop in Chapora.

Mine, as I rent out my bike to a visitor.

Mine, as I belt out my hymns to Advogat Saibinni.

Mine, as I take my first born to the font.

Mine, as I take my spouse down that aisle.

Mine, as I lay my old mother to rest.

Mine, as I sit in the Panchayat office and …

Wait a minute now ….

Wait a minute, Mr. Builder, Tenant, Taxpayer,

What’s the colour of those currency notes under that table?

Have you counted them with spittle.

Now you have me salivating, mister.

What did you say, Fr. Agnel?

“It is difficult to love the world and save your soul.?”

I can’t hear you now, Fr. Agnel. A little louder please.

Those notes are rustling up quite a racket, you know.

While in another corner of our parish …

I close my eyes as my beloved son of just twelve

Has worked up quite a rustle of notes again, so help me God,

With that packet of snow-white powder.

Wow! Unbelievable!

And in another corner, I have learnt

How to let that time paid for by my boss

Sift quickly through that sieve called susegado.

Why, my dear Venerabilis, did you give us those hard sayings?

Couldn’t you just be born and be raised by your holy parents,

Minguel Arcanz Mariano and Maria Sinforoza Perpetua

In that modest, almost invisible home on the road to Arpora?

Couldn’t you have just quietly given us

Those three Amche Bappas and Noman Mories at your confessional

And done all those wonderful deeds in the Pilar seminary and in your parish

And finally, at that last sermon, when your great heart failed you

And you asked with your dying breath to be present at the Benediction?

And tell the whole world that you are mine.

Couldn’t you have just left it at that?

So that I could collect the mud from under your saintly feet

And join my hands and pray to my own Anjunkar for favours.

And we all would be happy ever after.

Did you have to say all those things to stir up my conscience?

Did you, Vernerable Father?

And then, can I still call you mine?

Can I?