Carlo Torriani

SWARGA DWAR

The conversion of a catholic missionary

presented by

Card. Simon Pimenta

PIME Publications, PIME Regional House, Eluru - 534 0-07, A.P., India

EDUCATION 

    What I was foreseeing as a defeat, it happened. I  followed the advice and the request of my superiors and I stopped living in Janata Colony. From the parish in Irla I was going there every evening to continue the school of adult education and conscientization. 

    When I think about it, I still feel the bitter taste of a defeat: I left because the life of the poor in a slum was too difficult and too harsh.  I felt that as a foreigner I could not organize them for demonstration to claim their rights. But that feeling of defeat still haunt me.

    After many attempts to shift Janata Colony elsewhere they could only succeed in 1976, employing the paramilitary forces, during the time of emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi.

At that time I was in Italy for my first holiday after seven years. When I came back I restarted again my night school in the new place, Cheeta Camp, where the authorities had allotted to Lok Seva Sangam two pitches. We continue the weekly dispensary for leprosy patients, we started a kindergarten for children, a stitching class for ladies and for the Catholic community I built a bigger chapel.

Letter No. 6, Bombay, March 1974

Dear friends,

    This time I don’t want to wait one year. Somebody, answering to my letter of November, reminded me the sentence of St. Paul to the Ephesians (4:26): “Even if you are angry, you must not sin: never let the sun set on your anger”. It has been a consolation for me this advice of St. Paul. I wrote it on a cardboard and hang it up in my hut at Janata Colony together with other programmatic sentences,

One says: “It is not what you give to this people that will enrich them; but is what you bring out of them”. That means that whatever amount of financial help I will spent in Janata Colony will not solve their problems, only their initiative can do it. This is the meaning of the Latin word educare: to bring out. Now I am concentrating on education, particularly informal education of adults. The pretext is to teach English, which is very much in demand in a city like Bombay, because the knowledge of English can open for you better jobs. You can also get a job in the Gulf.

    But we do not learn only English> We read and comment the daily papers and also the Scriptures. On Thursdays we read verses of the Geeta, on Fridays we read passages from the Koran, on Saturdays from the Bible. This way the night school becomes a school of life. From the daily papers we can learn about injustice: bad things make good news. From the Scriptures we can get inspiration to understand human events and to change them.

    The other day we were discussing how mush you need to pay to get a passport for the Gulf. Officially only 35 rupees, but if you want it you must squeeze out 350 rupees. Like this we understood the meaning of the word exploitation: to take advantage of your official position or power to make money for yourself at the expenses of the poor. Balaram told me how he had to cough out 200 rupees to get his name enrolled in the employment bureau. The we also spoke of how the rich nations exploited the colonies for centuries. Also the Gospel says, as a matter of fact, that those who are rich will multiply their wealth and from those who are will be taken away also the little they have.  But the evil is not to the right or to the left, but right at the center of the heart of man. In fact if the poor just succeed in getting some power in order to behave like the rich, history repeat itself. That what happened after the revolution of Russia, Cine and many other poor countries who went through dictatorship.

    When there are religious festivals we go to read in the Scriptures the events we are celebrating.

On Bakri Id we read the story of Abraham (Ibrahim) in the Koran and in the Bible.  During the Holy week we read the passion of Jesus according to Mark. I was surprise to see how everyone was following in silence and Zaida, a Muslim girl was hiding her tears.