Geetanjali Krishna: God knows who they are

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Six years ago, in a remote village near Mirzapur, Hans Raj, a tractor driver, lost the use of his legs. Nobody could diagnose what his problem was "" all he knew was that his legs suddenly lost all their strength and just couldn't support his weight anymore. His eldest son was barely 14 at that time, and there were seven others to bring up. The harvest from the small piece of land he owned was sold for his treatment. In the absence of any other income, he and his family slowly and painfully began to starve.

Then, one day, some people came to his village and saw his plight. He told them in despair that all his prayers and entreaties to God had fallen on deaf ears. "Why don't you pray to Jesus Christ?" they suggested, "He lived and died for poor people like you and me!"

Hans Raj, desperate to get well, was willing to try anything. So he assented. Within weeks, a neat little white chapel came up right outside his home. The word around town was that the entire hamlet, consisting of about 15-odd homes, had converted to Christianity. But Hans Raj's strange malady remained uncured.

The fields were green and the potholes, little ponds, when we went to see Hans Raj's home. His eldest son, Lallu, was lying fast asleep on the charpoy in the front, heedless of the cows lowing behind him. A little fellow, probably about three years old, tickled his nose and he awoke with a sneeze.

"Paul! You rascal!!" he shouted, and then stopped short when he saw us. "That little brother of mine," said he grinning, "loves teasing me!" Just then, Hans Raj wheeled out of the house in his three-wheeler and greeted us.

"You've met two of my sons," said he, "let me introduce you to the rest!" A veritable army of children of all ages came and stood behind him. "God blessed me with two more sons after my unfortunate malady struck!" said he, pointing to Paul and John. His other children, born before he was crippled, had Hindu names. Lallu had recently been married, he said. "The girl is from a good Hindu family," said he proudly.

The chapel looked well cared for and had a nice little yard in front where someone had taken the trouble of planting flowers. "Isn't it pretty?" said Hans Raj's old mother, "some people we don't even know, came and built it for us." I peeped inside and saw some incense burning under a picture of Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms.

"The children love looking at this picture," said she. Suddenly she saw my driver peeping in and stiffened: "This doesn't mean we pray here! We haven't converted to Christianity! This is just a nice place to sit!"

By then, most of the villagers had gathered around, and all of them indignantly declared that they were Hindus. "There are so many Hindu gods and goddesses...we don't need to pray to any other," said the grandmother. Thus ended our conversation.

When we were leaving the village, my driver Sudhir said, "Hans Raj attends Sunday mass at the big church in Mirzapur religiously while the others all pray here.

They are a confused lot "" most have married Hindus, their children have Hindu names and all of them categorically deny that they've converted!" I wondered whether it really mattered what their religious affiliation was.

For whether they chose to be Christian or to remain Hindu, the one thing that's remained unconverted in the lives of Hans Raj, Lallu and Paul, is poverty.