was celebrated 2 weeks ago, when I was in Channapatna.
"Girl child"? What's with that? you may wonder...It certainly sounds strange to western ears, and the fact that there's a whole Sunday set aside by CSI to address the rights and needs of girls is a powerful reminder that India is a very different context from home. For all my delight in the Indian experience and my envious admiration of the beauty of my Indian sisters (why, oh
why can't the west adopt fashions as universally flattering as the sari or salwar?) I wouldn't want to swap lives with them for all the tea in Darjeeling.
Girl Child Sunday is necessary because in India six years into the 21st century, the prevailing attitude to women remains firmly medieval. Women's work is the foundation of every Indian home, with mothers rising at dawn to draw water (even close to Bangalore, mains water is not only undrinkable but often non-existent for much of each day, so vessels must be filled to meet all domestic needs whenever the water actually does flow), then spending a good hour cooking the traditional Indian breakfast. (I've really struggled with the overwhelming hospitality that insists on three cooked meals a day, with numerous snacks in between - bizarrely, being thoroughly overfed so put me off food that I've actually managed to lose weight...not sure quite how it worked, but it's rather pleasing all the same).
From then on, for the Indian housewife, it's drudgery all the way. Housework (every home seems to need sweeping on a daily basis), more cooking, shopping for fresh food every day, more cooking...all to serve the men of the house, whether husbands, sons or fathers.
Domestic violence seems habitual in the poorer homes, with drunkenness compounding the problem,- it was commonplace to step round insensible shapes sprawled on the pavements,- and women have no escape from this, as to leave your husband is to cut yourself off from family and community, and ensure that you can no longer call anywhere home.
Only once her sons marry can a woman acquire a higher status for a time as a mother-in-law, making daughters-in-law miserable in their turn,- but with widowhood, high-caste women may find themselves non-persons again, traditionally condemned to shaven heads, white saris, sleeping on the floor and spending their time in prayer for their departed husbands, with no possibility of remarriage. In an interview a woman, widowed when she was still in her twenties lamented the outlawing of the custom of sati, for, she said " Swift oblivion has to be preferable to decades of living death" and sati matas are traditionally revered as akin to saints.
Even in westernised homes, where both partners work, the expectation is that the woman will undertake all domestic tasks on top of her career. I really struggled when clergy wives, coming in at 9.00 pm from a day's teaching and a long commute from the city immediately set to work serving the evening meal, waiting on husband, father and guests (including me). Nobody even suggested that a little help could be offered, and the culture of service seems completely non-negotiable. Repeatedly I was told "It's our privilege and pleasure to serve our menfolk"...and too bad if it isn't.
Against this background, it is maybe not surprising that female infanticide remains a problem. While in the past fathers might seek to evade the demands of providing a dowry by killing their new-born daughters, today it more like to be the mother who opts to abort a girl-child, not wanting to bring another woman into the world to suffer as she herself has suffered.
Modern medical techniques make this so easy that there is a real potential for gender imbalance in Indian society, such that the government has just launched a means-tested scheme to offer grants to girls on their eighteenth birthday.
But unless there is a radical change of attitude, it will never be easy for Indian women. Wherever we went, I was conscious of their labour, from our hostesses, eating in the kitchen long after the rest of us had relaxed at table, or the array of sweepers and labourers carting loads of bricks on their heads on the building sites of Bangalore.
I'm aware, too, that it is the women who are the strong core of the church. It is the women who gather regularly for midweek prayer, the women who hand on the faith to their children...but though women were ordained in C.S.I. for 10 years before the vote went through here in England, they remain largely submissive in ministry too, serving in difficult contexts with scant support. Even in my rather bemusing role as a "foreign dignitory" (yes, I really was announced as such on several occasions!), I too was largely ignored if the men in our party were present. This had its plus side, as I was less of a target for beggars and street vendors, who assumed that I had no voice in decision making,- though it could be maddening too.
I know that there is some interesting work emerging from feminist theologians, and a growing recognition that women may be entitled to an identity beyond that of wife and mother...but it seems to me that there are many many miles to travel before I could be persuaded to change places with my sisters...On Girl Child Sunday, I was privileged to baptise 3 children,2 boys and a girl.
As always, the rite was sheer joy, but more than ever I found myself wondering and worrying about what might lie ahead for Nikith, Pranesh and Nisha, in that society that is so unlike my own, and praying that each of them might come to realise their infinite value as children of God,- sons
and daughter.
an outing to the Sales with Hatti Gandhi...netting one new skirt, 2 tops and a truly wonderful stripey mohair jumper from Monsoon.
Good friends and an open fire. Can life get much better?
came the Boxing Day walk - just me and the dogs on Crickley Hill, as everyone else was still half asleep. Selfishly, this was exactly what I needed - even extroverts enjoy a window of solitude now and then, provided they know it won't be prolonged and we were out so early we didn't even need to be sociable to other walkers.
The service proper must have lasted all of half and hour, but afterwards there was a constant stream of families past the crib to rearrange the scene and count the camels.
Hatti Gandhi has just given me a Christmas Eve present with which I'm entirely delighted.
Our Eucharist this morning was bubbling with suppressed excitement as we admitted 5 children to Holy Communion for the first time. I presided and FabVicar preached about Bethlehem the house of bread, and included mention of my beloved Lancelot Andrewes, who in 1615 connected the little town with the Eucharist
Over the past couple of days I can report that there have been a few moments when I've felt distinctly Christmassy. Most of them involved catching Hatti Gandhi's eye as she sang in the choir during the Nine Lessons and Carols last night...it is so good to have her home for the holidays, and back in the choir stalls too. But overall, I'm still waiting for the breathless eight-year-old style excitement that usually grips me this close to Christmas. I do hope that India hasn't spoiled me for something I'm usually unashamedly enthusiastic about. The tree is up at home, and there are candles all over the place,- which means you can see less of our familial mess in the twilight. There are some parcels wrapped and ready to place under the tree. I don't actually have to prepare that much more for church. So here I am, waiting for the reality to dawn. Perhaps I'll actually have to hang on till Midnight Mass this year - but that might not be such a bad thing.
While considering the wonders of Luke's account of the nativity, I found myself re-reading past Midnight sermons (which, interestingly, all seem to have been on John...it's clearly high time I engaged with Luke for myself) and remembered the year that I, as a Reader, was conducting the first part of the Midnight Mass at Great Rissington, and had to fill in until the priest managed to get there from another eucharist in one of the neighbouring villages. That year nobody could complain that they didn't get to sing their favourite carol. We had the lot, interspersed with assorted readings, chosen on the spot to pad out the Ministry of the Word. It was also the year that, by tremendous serendipity I managed to so time things that we reached the last verse of O Come all ye faithful just after the church clock struck 12.00 - so those words were the very first uttered on Christmas morning. Before that, though, I took them around the highways and by ways of English literature, including this poem, which I'd almost forgotten. Did you know that Hardy scorned his novels, and wished to be remembered only for his poetry? Much of it is, imho, on the edge of twaddle, but this, I think, is rather lovely.
My good friend Marcella is complaining (only quietly, of course) about not feeling specially Christmassy...and, without any good reason, I have to admit I'm in rather the same state.
En route to Kanyakumari, we passed many wayside cemeteries, - and the crosses there reminded me of the missionaries who literally gave their lives for the people of India, just because they loved God and felt called by him to take his love into new places.
Conversation with him was fascinating for, now in his 80s, he has been in India for most of his adult life, living through the “quit India” campaign of the 40s and the terrible violence surrounding partition. He spoke of "Gandhi-ji" as a friend, and had known E. Stanley Jones (who wrote the wonderful Christ of the Indian Road) well too. As he talked to us, history lived and his whole being shone with love for the country and its people. Before we left, he took us outside his one-roomed home, in the compound of St John’s Church, and showed us the garden he had made. The trees which towered above us were all of his planting.
is part of the wonderful Wildgoose collection, Candles and Conifers, which makes life so much easier in this time of desperate creativity as hassled clergy across the world try to proclaim afresh the wonder of the season. I'd forgotten it till leafing feverishly through the book earlier in the week...and was so excited, because, you see, I was there, only 4 weeks ago! I'd had breakfast and supper at the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary in Madurai where Rosie had stayed when writing. Indeed, Indian friends suggested that I might do a short course there some time in the future, as a good pretext for a return to the country. So, in my current, "ever- so- slightly -homesick-for-India" state, finding these words was a real gift. The pictures were taken in the grounds of TTS, which provided a welcome haven during the Journey from Hell to Kanyakumari. As Rosie points out "Come, come" - or, in my experience, "Please come" is probably the phrase that visitors to S. India hear most.
are very much the rule in CSI. During the time I spent there, I was shown a model of ministry that is almost shocking to someone trained and working in a western context.
So the struggle of the curate and her day off continues.
I've been thinking about those Hindu converts I mentioned earlier,- who taught me much about the nature of faith in the short time we had together.
I've never dared experiment with photography before this year, and being madly shortsighted I have always presumed myself incapable of any form of visual art...but thanks to the blissful little Sony camera that HG bought back for me from Hong Kong (and, for reasons of her own, christened "Biggles"), I'm throwing caution to the winds and having such fun!
being invited along wasn't ever quite the same thing. So I was delighted to head down to Cardiff last night for L's first gig there. She was singing with "Blank Verse", an ensemble of girls' voices directed by a music post grad, and they were really really good.
Lovely views of the city lights from the ferris wheel and lots of dotty mother-and-daughter stuff, but best of all was knowing how very happy HG is with her course, her friends, her city. After the agnonies of decision-making, she has clearly arrived in exactly the right place.
But truly, a small purr is in order, since we heard last night that Hugger Steward has passed his Grade 8 flute by a very comfortable margin, despite his teacher being off sick for several weeks before the exam and his wretched mother (who can be quite useful for music practice, and even the odd bit of accompaniment) being on the other side of the world on the day itself.
who, thanks to the Atlantic Ocean, has managed to live a blameless life, free from any pernicious taint of Christingle!
of post-India reflections to report on the sheer madness of Advent Sunday at Charlton Kings.
