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

LIFE IS BURSTING

 Letter No.36, July 1989

Dear Friends

    During the winter season, when European tourists come to India, sometime I take them around Bombay. In such a big city very often you find yourself in big crowds like those coming out of railway stations or in those rivers of people pouring out of the offices in the evening rush. Or passing along the road of the harbour where thousand of porters live on the pavements with their families. Or when from the top of a flyover you can see an extension of huts in the slums, then you can feel the heaviness of silence that grips your guests. And when we come across swarms of children near some school then it happens that westerners ask: “Why they have so many children in such appalling situation?”

    I, who lives here since twenty years, somehow I understand their bewilderment because I also went through their impressions. But living together with these men and women, sharing their hopes and their sorrows, you understand that children are the sign and the fruit of love and love is the gift of the poor, it flowers also in the slums. The children are their hope, their future and their life.

    Perceptions and impressions, sentiments and reactions are very subjective. They depend from our previous experiences, from our education, from our culture. But one thing is sure, is evident, is undeniable, one thing hits you immediately in Bombay, in India: here there is life, here life is bursting.

One can surely object and ask: ”But which quality of life?” There is vegetable life, animal life, and  human life in different degrees. Westerners can also ask: “Is this life humane?”

    Life is always a phenomenon in evolution. The environmental conditions of life in the slums of Bombay are surely not the highest level of development. But all civilisations had passed through similar stages. But in whatever stage of development man is, he has the power to jump to the end. The rishis , the seers, the men of God does not need any particular richness or environment to contemplate the ultimate reality. In the opposite, he tries to get rid of everything in order to be free to see beyond. When we think that in India rishis  had existed since ever, in economic or environmental conditions not surely better than those at present, who can tell me that  the lady  that I see now looking at her children, down there in her hut on the footpath, or that coolie who seeps  his tea and relax in a break of his work are not having a moment of beatific vision?  Man is able to transcend any kind of conditioning.

    May be I am dreaming when I speak of ultimate reality and beatific vision. Certainly is not my intention to idealise and defend  poverty and least of all I don’t want to excuse or exempt myself from working to eradicate poverty and fight for justice and equal opportunities for all. What we see in Bombay is not fantasy, it is stark and ugly reality.

    I am now thinking at the theme of life in the Gospel and letters of John. Jesus said: “I am the life”. If I can paraphrase the beginning of the first letter of John, in my context I would say: “What we have seen with our eyes, what we have contemplated and our hand have touched, what existed since the beginning, that life that was manifested, we have seen it and we are witnessing, and we are announcing to you that life that is eternal, that life that is of the Word of God, who was with the Father  -  this life we can easily see in India.

    We need a lot of faith, you will say. Of course! Without faith we cannot live.