25 The Master and His Passing
In the month of September, after a lifetime of service to the church he loved, and having reached the grand age of 86, the Master died. He left behind him a wife three years his junior, and a large family that had issued from his loins.
As it happened I met the Master three days before his death: owing to a confusion with the fathers who see to the ashram’s sacramental needs, one Sunday we had to go to one of the villages which is nearby to take mass. We left the ashram and after crossing the depleted river, we made our way through our village going left and right along the mud lanes, avoiding the open gutter that runs down the middle of the passageway and that serves to drain both water and garbage away.
It was early in the morning and the rather chaotically constructed houses were just seeing the start of a new day. As we pass on our way there are jerry-built stables housing cows and buffalos on either side. In the courtyards there are people stirring on their string cots, sitting up, or sometimes the cots are abandoned and only a tell-tale blanket hangs down – it appears that people sleep out in the cool air if they can. As we walk on, early risers at a gateway or window greet us, giving thanks to God: ‘Jay Prabhu!’ We zigzag our way through the village and out the other end onto a pathway that leads through the farmers’ fields for a walk of about 4 kilometres.
To either side of us are fields of dark green onion, or golden soya and maize, as well as cotton and millet and other crops. Half way along the sun a mishapen huge red ball appears on the horizon and greets the world with fiery splendour, and we stop and wonder at the sight. Just past some millet fields we come to pasture lands, and the sight of a bush-lark doing its absurd mating dance brings a smile to our lips. As we approach the village we come across some poor people scavenging firewood from a bramble-built fence. The village itself has about 600 families, twice that of our village, but we see only the outskirts: the Christian quarters are on the edge of town, and it’s as far as we go.
We come off the pathway into a compound, past Our Lady’s grotto, and are greeted by a dozen brothers who have been sleeping in a large room here while carrying out a survey on educational problems among the local villages, we exchange pleasantries and then follow a track that leads to the church; we are early as yet, so we decide to pay a visit to the Master in his home nearby.
The Master was born into a Christian family in the early years of this century, and apparently spent his youth rather boisterously, drinking and fighting, but later converted and eventually became a trusted servant of the church, to which he was appointed catechist in the 1950s. Along with some missionary fathers he would walk many a mile to bring Good News to people in villages both far and near. But now the Master is bed-ridden and people must come to him.
On arrival we are met by the Master’s granddaughter, a lady of great energy and cheerfulness, who is a regular visitor to the ashram. She now looks after her ageing grandparents, devoting herself to their welfare.
We enter the house and the Master greets us from his bed – a string cot suspended from the ceiling, he is very happy to have visitors, and especially to see Mataji who has great affection for him and his family; the room is dark and dingy, and on the walls are pictures of the Sacred Heart, and Our Lady; and photographs of the Pope, and of special occasions from yesteryear, all dusty and fading, treasured memories growing dim.
There are some introductions back and forth, and after a while the Master is in tears, and those tears are born of both sorrow and happiness. The granddaughter is helping his wife to dress for church, and putting her sari on becomes something of a riot as cloth is wrapped this way and that – and not always the right way, drawing shouts of exasperation from this frail and tiny figure. The Master having recovered from his crying is now trying desperately to clear his throat, the heaving and coughing painful to watch, but at last it clears and with an unexpected force the phlegm is shot out onto the floor. The grand-daughter having left the dressing room rushes to clear up.
Then it’s time to leave and we make our way to church – it’s the golden anniversary of its building this year – first we go to a side room where Mataji lived for two years when she first came to this diocese, it’s a small room with an attached bathroom on one side, and a window that opens straight onto the blessed sacrament on the other. There are, ostensibly, 40 Catholic families in this village, and the Master was caretaker at the church for many years, but until Mataji arrived they would get mass but once a month – it’s said that the Master and his wife even when in their 70s would walk from his village to the town to take mass and to get to other church events, a distance of about 10km. Now his granddaughter is caretaker, so she opens up and we enter this light, cool, and airy building. The walls and sanctuary are painted lime and turquoise, yellow, purple... and brown: a combination you could only get away with in India. But here it somehow looks quite harmonious, and the church soon becomes even more colourful as it fills up and the women appear in their Sunday best.
The brothers are also here and accompanying themselves on harmonium, they help to bring a full voice to the hymn singing. One of the Master’s sons reads the lesson, and indeed it’s mainly his family that fill the church. There are two priests attending so at communion time while one serves the faithful, the other takes communion to the Master in his home. After mass we gather outside under an ancient and gnarled tamarind tree which has seen generation come and generation go. Over the door of the church is the inscription Jaya Yesu, Praise to Jesus, and above the santum sanctorum the tower, in typical Hindu temple style, reaches up to heaven.
Two days later the Master was taken to hospital in the town suffering from high blood pressure, it was not the first time he had had this problem. He was treated in the hospital, and later taken home, but he never really recovered. In the evening the family called the priest who came out and administered the last sacrament; at the end of the prayer, the Master hiccupped, and sank back into his bed, perfectly at peace, a fitting Amen to close his life.
The funeral mass took place on Wednesday afternoon. We arrived early and went to pay our respects – from afar came the sound of dirges being sung over the corpse. At the house the women and children were gathered inside around the body, weeping and wailing, the granddaughter bent over the husk of her sire, while outside old men sat around disconsolate.
In the village a carpenter worked at the solitary task of preparing the coffin – there are none kept in store, they are built as occasion demands. The villagers, Catholic or otherwise, generally follow the custom of their fathers and cremate the body the Master would be only the second person from the village to be buried in the town cemetery. Preparations took longer than expected, and there being a lack of good drinking water available, I left before mass started. As I walked away I looked back attracted by the sound of wailing women suddenly becoming louder, and as I looked, the black coffin garlanded with orange and yellow flowers was being carried out, and a crowd of relatives and friends thronged round the Master as he made his last journey between home and church, the two poles of his long and fruitful life.