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RELIGION, GODMEN, AND MIRACLES

Religion: My classmate, Artemizia Vaz fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I told her that I was a Roman Hindu. She said she never knew such a denomination existed. Roman Hindus, I explained, were a small sect from Southern India, who went to temples Sunday mornings, decked up in dhoti and kurta, attended mass bhajan sessions at the temple, and celebrated Diwali on December 25. I lived a Roman Hindu for the rest of my college life. You don’t want an ill-tempered, large, strong woman as an enemy, do you?

Godmen. I was deep asleep when my dad and mom woke me up. It was a tented waiting area somewhere near Manohar Pukur Road I think (or could be Sarat Bose Road…who cares anyway). Our turn to meet Elimbichapazham (Limbu) baba had come. At a godforsaken 1am. When we were ushered into this tiny room, the baba was seated on a low stage, with a couple of his ‘bhaktas’ next to him. I have a hazy recollection of this young man with a stubble, probably wearing kaavi thundu…he listened to my dad’s woes, probably with amusement and impatience; dad, who till recently was a diehard atheist had changed! Three minutes into my dad’s rambling, he picked up a few limbus and gave it to my dad. The meeting was abruptly over. I don’t think he spoke at all. But the message was clear – slice, squeeze, and have the limbu straight - NOW. No diluting, no sweetening, no nothing. “Oh what a bastard”, I probably thought, while having my share of this potent potion.

I was of course right…the guy was one more in a long list of conmen who came to Calcutta to milk idiotic TamBrams. And there was a surfeit of idiots then. Many, many years later, when I brought it up with my dad, he laughed it off. After all, this engineer too fell for the age-old trick.


Miracles. Doodhsagar Waterfalls, Goa, 1980. It was the usual College Biology Expedition. After we were done collecting insect, snake, and plant samples, we headed to the waterfall. A few braves decided to swim against the current from where the water drops off 400 or so feet to the small ‘cove’ about 100 yards away, and behind the fall. The ace swimmers in the party asked me to swim at an angle to the current. Of course, I decided otherwise. I headed straight for the rock about forty yards in front as my first stop. The current was very strong but I just about managed to reach the rock, completely exhausted. Foolish that I was, I decided to take off for the second leg, after a very brief pause. But I slipped off the rock, and the current took me away. Too tired to fight the current, I bobbed towards the edge of the cliff. Babuli and Surdy saw my plight from their perch on the cove. They jumped, and rapidly swam towards me, and caught hold of me a few meters from the precipice, and slowly me pulling about 80 meters towards the cove. Boy! it sure was a miracle to be alive. My classmates thought it was unfortunate. They missed seeing my name in that year's Darwin’s List.

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