The Yercadu episode
A true incident)
The toilet was of the western type which most of us were not used to till then and that added to our problems and invariably they were used the wrong way in the Indian style, a risky venture(!) and no one was there to guide us ( and you couldn't expect somebody to guide you on such matters unless you were a child ), nor any one of us were prepared to get our doubts clarified by consulting somebody on such a delicate issue.
The other issue was our meals.
Cooks from our hostel at Coimbatore were drafted for running a mess for us during the period of the project. Even then there were the problems of vegetarians and nonvegetarians and our principal, a retired major from the army who himself was a civil engineer was averse to vegetarianism but since half the students were vegetarians, he yielded to our request to have veg preparations but insisted that there would be only one common mess for all and in the mess every vegetarian should be sandwiched in between nonveg students while eating. I never had an occasion to see nonveg items at close quarters till then and the mere sight of the nonveg preparations so close to me caused severe nausea in me and so I was not able to eat even the very small amount which I normally consumed and the very thought of people eating nonveg sitting by my side caused tantrums in me but I had no other go but to put up with the smell and sight of nonveg dishes.
When I joined engineering, I was weighing ninety four pounds (kg was not in vogue at that time. That came into use from 1958 onwards) and to put on weight some of my friends suggested that I should take eggs. Egged by the desire to improve my weight, which was one of my young days greatest obsession, I started taking eggs, that too raw, unmindful of my mind not accepting it, after eating which I felt so bad the whole day that I couldn't eat my regular food properly, besides feeling guilty. At the end of three months, I found that I had lost two pounds and that was enough for me to bid good bye to eggs. But I was and am a great lover of ice reams and when I was told that icecream contains egg, I satisfied myself with the thought that the egg there was not in any visible form and that it's gelatinous and slimy character was not felt in the ice cream. But even today I prefer ice creams without eggs and in the absence of that, my love for ice cream overpowers the fact that it contains egg. When I had occasions to go to some star hotels in India and the hotels abroad, I always felt a little uneasy when I thought of the fact that there might be every possibility of the nonveg items getting mixed with veg items either directly or indirectly through the utensils and vessels used. I was very orthodox so far as food habits were concerned and I continue to be so till date, whether right or wrong. That is a sort of a mental bug (as some might think) that I still have which I am not able to overcome.
Everyday we had to carry our theodolite and other instruments and trek through the mountain path to reach the hill tops and that was really an uphill task. Going through the coffee estates, the fruit orchards and rose gardens was a thrill and we could have enjoyed it better, but for the weight that we carried on our shoulders daily. We had to return for our lunch at midday and after finishing lunch, continue our survey till evening. It was only in the evening that we had the mind and the time to take bath. The common bath room where hot water was available was located at a distance of half a mile from our dormitory. We used to carry our requirements such as our clothes, soaps and so on to the bath room through a road on which a church was located . We used to meet one reverend father, a very soft spoken nice man who would enquire about the welfare of all of us and whether we faced any difficulties in our stay there and asked us to feel free to ask for anything which we needed. We were so impressed by his kindness and softness that we never missed to salute and talk to him whenever we met him. He used to talk to all the students and enquire about their family welfare and so on and he was very meticulous about it. He was happy to know that most of us were from Christian colleges. So daily he used to meet us one by one and comfort us with his soothing words, asking about the details of the staff in the college, the type of discipline that was maintained and the teaching standard. He would ask us whether we had seen some important spots there in the hill and would suggest that we go and see some important landmarks there such as "the ladies seat" and so on. One day we all decided to go to Salem to see the Tamil picture "Missiamma" that was released just then. After seeing the picture, while we were all returning to our dormitory, we met the reverend father again. He was asking us as to where we had been. We told him that we went to see the picture "Missiamma" and told him that it was a very good comedy picture with lot of wonderful songs. He was eager enough to know the story and we told him the whole story. He was almost moving with us like an elderly friend. We were all moved by this quality of a very revered elderly clergy.
Next evening when we were on our usual trip to the bath room, he called us and said " IF YOU WANT TO GO TO BOMBAY, YOU MUST CATCH THE BOMBAY MAIL AND NOT TRIVANDRUM EXPRESS". We told him in all innocence that we were not going to Bombay and we would be going back only to Coimbatore. But he continued saying that IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A PLACE , YOU MUST HAVE THE RIGHT TICKET FOR THAT PLACE AND A WRONG TICKET COULD NOT LAND YOU THERE AND PROBABLY COULD LAND YOU IN TROUBLE. We were wondering at what he was trying to say. Then he continued saying that IF YOU WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN , YOU MUST HAVE THE RIGHT TICKET WITH YOU. We were now in a position to understand what he was trying to say. Suddenly with a choked voice he said that WHILE ALL OF YOU ARE FROM CHRISTIAN COLLEGES, HOW WAS IT THAT YOU WERE ALL STILL HINDUS and went on saying how benevolent Christ was and how we were missing a great opportunity of going to Heaven by not being Christians and even as he said this, tears were rolling down his cheeks. We have nothing against Christ, we have nothing against Christians, in fact we were all praise for the christian institutions and the sevice they have been rendering towards the cause of education in India. ( Even till date, I have lot of respect for them ). But we were all shell shocked at his open propaganda. Among us there were quite a few nonbelievers too. We didn't know how to react to his statement immediately, but kept mum and went to our rooms seething with disappointment and anger.
A few days later when we were on our way to our dormitory, he again asked us to stop and ponder over what he had said. Not able to put up with this any more, some of us asked him where he was born. He said that he was born at Palayamkottai. And when asked about his age he said he was eighty five. Then all of in a chorus said " FATHER, BEING IN INDIA FOR EIGHTY FIVE LONG YEARS, HOW IS IT THAT YOU ARE STILL A CHRISTIAN AND NOT A HINDU" and that ended the episode and thereafter till we left Yercaud, we didn't meet him.
THOUGH NOT TO HEAVEN, WE WENT BACK TO COIMBATORE TAKING THE RIGHT TICKET AND THE RIGHT BUS IN THE RIGHT ROUTE WITHIN THE NEXT FEW DAYS !
