 "Gussi Frederick Sopena")
Gussi Frederick Sopena's initial fascination with India was not unlike that of several solace-seeking international backpackers. As a young man, he had keenly read about its ancient civilisation, historic texts like the Vedas and Puranas, and the Himalayas. By contrast, his home country Spain seemed new and boring. But when he left his city, a Barcelona impoverished by wars, in 1947 for Madras, he did so not as a refugee or a tourist but as a priest. For 68 years since, he has travelled doing social work for the Society of Jesus, a congregation of the Catholic Church. Earlier this month, the Spaniard took an oath of allegiance at the Bandra collector's office that prepares him to become an Indian citizen at age 90.
"India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters," Sopena quotes, eagerly leafing through the pages of the Constitution in Hindi. "I was here during the country's first Republic Day when the Constitution was promulgated." This is the priest's second shot at gaining citizenship. An earlier effort three years ago ended abruptly when his files were misplaced by authorities. This time, while he has received the state's nod, the central government is still to complete the process. He learnt Hindi in the 1980s as knowing a local language is mandatory to be recognised as a citizen. He also speaks smatterings of Marathi and Tamil.
His room in Andheri's Vinayalaya, a leafy house for ageing Jesuits, smells pleasantly of talcum powder. Sopena introduces it as his "home, office and reading room". Books on theology, philosophy and travel line the shelves and cover the table top. He also has copies of the Bhagvad Gita and the Quran, as over the years he has acquired friends from various faiths. His tall frame, clad in a soft blue kurta and white pants, diminishes a bit as he leans on a walking stick. A hearing aid dangles from his ear and a smile is fixed on his face and eyes. He speaks slowly, enthusiastically, apologising for having "many things to say".
Two days after the oath, his black landline rings at regular intervals as relatives call to congratulate. He responds with gracias and muy bien. Much of his family is in Spain but they visit him at times. When he had said goodbye to them in 1947, it had been with an air of finality. On moving here, he was immediately hit by the enormity of the population. Compared with Spain's 45 million people, India's strength of 330 million was staggering. At the time, Bombay seemed like a wealthier city than his home town where people were hungry for bread.
But he was soon exposed to backwardness in rural districts like Dhule and Raigad. By the late 1980s he started the Janhit Vikas Manch, an organisation to develop skills in landless farmers and women, and educate tribal children. The purpose was not to build churches, he says, but schools and savings groups. An accident some years later resulted in Sopena losing a leg.
Throughout his years here, Sopena appears to have been moved by small warm gestures of locals. This has "broadened and enriched" him and shaped his charitable views of India. He remembers, for instance, his first point of contact upon arrival, an officer at the airport, helping with spellings while he struggled to fill forms in English. And, recently while he waited at the collector's office in Bandra, someone ran inside to bring him a chair. "This doesn't happen in Europe."
It is sometimes alleged that Christian missionaries try to convert people, he observes, adding that he has never tried to win people over to his religion. "India has converted me. The people have converted me," he says, pointing to pictures of Raigad's children. He says India is home because he has never felt out of place or lonely here and wishes the ministry of home affairs would hasten recognising him as a citizen. His only wish now, Sopena informs on a morbid note, is to die an Indian.
