Come at me Bhai

July 10-16

Well, I survived my train ride. It ended up being forty-two hours instead of thirty-eight, but no big deal. I really enjoyed it.

And no special Simran on the train, though there was this elderly North Indian couple in my cabin that seemed to complain and argue about something every hour. I guess we can call them the “Raj and Simran” forty-years later.

And then there was this guy. He slept for most of the trip and snored heavily, but I wasn’t sure if more noise was coming from the top or from the bottom.

The food on the train was pretty good. I was in first class, so I guess I somewhat got a royal treatment (not really).

Though I was inclined to sing Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Janna Sanam while walking through the train corridor, I stopped myself after seeing this sign, so that no woman would think I was trying to harass her through “songs and unwanted attention”

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The scenery was quite diverse while going from Kerala to Delhi.

I arrived in Delhi and I felt like I was in a completely different country. Before leaving Kerala, one of the seminarians taught me three essential words that I should know in Hindi.

Pani – Water

Khana – Food

Bhaiya –Brother

I asked him what the word “bathroom” is in Hindi, and he didn’t know. Hmm…

Delhi is more of a metropolitan city than Ernakulam. It’s more diverse, with people from all over India, and it seems to be more modern than Kerala. They recently got a new metro system here and it’s really awesome. Much better than the NYC Subways and definitely much better than the Chicago “L”. But then again, what isn’t better than the Chicago “L” ?

I stayed at a parish in Dwarka for the first couple of days I was here. The whole city is broken up into “sectors” so when people refer to where they live, they’ll say things like:

“I live in Dwarka, sector 7”

“Chacko lives in Dwarka, sector 4”

While at the parish, a few neighboring kids would come by and do their homework on the church property. I would try to speak to them, but because I know only three words in Hindi, I felt so powerless. You realize how important your hands are in moments like these.

A few days later, a family friend picked me up from the parish and took me to his home. He assumed that I was not accustomed to eating India food, so he took me to an array of American fast food places. I was looking forward to getting authentic North Indian food, but everyone assumes that since I’m from America, I can’t handle spicy food. Sometimes I wonder if people in India see me and see a white kid named Charlie Plovanich. 

 We passed by Dominos, KFC, and McDonalds, but we ended up going to Subway. The Subway menu in India is pretty cool. There are special India subs and spicy dressings you can put on your sandwhich. But other than the menu, I felt like I walked into a replica of a Subway in America

The furniture I found in the Indian subway was the same exact set of chairs and tables they have back home, they use the words “footlong” and “6-inch” to measure lengths, despite Indian’s use of the metric system, and Rihanna’s Go Hard was blasting in the background. But what was the main reason for why I felt like I walked into a carbon-copy of a Subway from America?

Indians working behind the counter.

In Kerala, the auto-rickshaws are brown/black, while in Delhi they are green. An uncle told me that in Kerala the auto-rickshaws run on diesel while the auto-rickshaws in Delhi run on combustible natural gas. It’s nice to know that palak paneer isn’t the only thing going green in Delhi. 

Speaking of vehicles in Delhi, Delhi driving is probably ten times as worse as Kerala driving, which means crossing the street is also ten times as worse. But a family friend I was with told me the secret of crossing the street. This is what he said:

Don’t run. Don’t look scared. You have to look calm. The moment you look scared, someone will hit you. Just simply start walking. If you see a car coming straight towards you, just put your hand out and tell that person to stop.

Powerful words.

So I tried it out. I went into calm mode, walked across the street, and though the next oncoming car was more than fifteen meters away, I still put out my hand like a boss and managed to cross the street in one piece. Come at me Bhai.

It’s really interesting meeting the Delhi-born Malayali youth. In many ways they resemble American-born Malayali youth. Though at home they speak Malayalam with their parents, they speak Hindi and English at school and in public. It’s really fun to listen to these youth speaking to their parents. The parents might be talking in Malayalam, their children responding in Hindi, and randomly, both the parents and children speaking English in between the Malayalam and Hindi –trilingual conversations.

I asked many of the youth if they consider themselves “Malayali”, but many of them don’t like using that terminology and just prefer to be called “Indian”.

I was blessed with the opportunity to attend part of a Jesus Youth four-day program for teens who just finished high school and are about to enter college. They talked about topics such as, relationships, substance abuse, balancing study and extra-curricular activities, and keeping the faith. Many of the struggles that the college teens go through in Delhi are exactly what the college students back in America.

On the last day, they had a hardcore jam-session, led by an awesome band called Acts of the Apostles.

Blessed Kunjachan also enjoyed having jam-sessions with the Dalit Catholics on their annual retreats (sorry for the poor segue).

He probably didn’t use the electric guitar, but I’m sure they pulled out the harmonium and jammed out to some Syriac hymns.

Kunjachan went through great struggles to offer annual retreats for the Dalit Catholics. It was hard for the landlords to let their Dalit laborers to let them go and attend a three-day retreat, so Kunjachan even went to the extent of visiting the landlords and persuading them to let their Dalit Catholics workers come to the retreat.

Catechesis, basic education, and sacramental ministry were a big part of the retreats Kunjachan gave. The Dalit Catholics went to him for confession, and Kunjachan would remain in the confessional for hours until everyone was heard.

Sometimes Kunjachan would invite extra priests to help out with confessions, but many of them were not so fond of hearing the confessions of the Dalit Catholics because of their lack of understanding of the sacrament of confession.

One of the priests complained to Kunjachan saying:

They do not know what sin is; they do not know what repentance is: what forgiveness is and what restitution is

And Kunjachan responded to this priest saying:

Father, you just listen to them; hear them; you may not understand what they are confessing; you may be suspicious of their motives, and what they want. But God is listening too; He knows; He understands them. you just pass on His forgiveness to them; Absolve them of their sins; everything will be alright

Boss.

“May God, the Lord of all, wash away the stains of our debts and sins, in the ocean of His mercy”

-SyroMalabar Qurbana

Wishing all the Rio pilgrims a blessed experience at World Youth Day!