Three years in MCC and three Popes

When I was reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown some years back, and when it came out as a movie this year, many people wondered at the amount of details that were given on the method of election of a Pope. As a matter of fact, when I was reading the novel, it all came back to me vividly. We had heard about this while we were at MCC. Like most things I heard people wonder about these days, I realized that it was MCC which told me these things first.

Pope Paul VI, who became Pope even before I was born, died on the 6th of August 1978 when we were just 3 months old in MCC. Like the mandatory framed photograph of Mahatma Gandhi in all police stations in India, all missionary schools had a framed photograph of Pope Paul the VI in the room of the Principal. And since this particular Pope had been around since 1963, his photograph was almost like that of Gandhiji or Jesus and one tended to believe that he was the permanent Pope. It was Sister Angel Mary who announced this sad news in the morning assembly. It was a great shock and loss to the Catholic world and to the extended family of Catholics like we from the MCC. Sr. Angel Mary also asked us to pray briefly and also told us a little about the Pope and his significance in Christendom. We also were told that a new Pope would be elected from amongst the cardinals eligible for election.

Joy of Joys!!! Very soon we had a new Pope. On August 26th, Cardinal Albino Luciani was anointed Pope John Paul the I. There was celebration in MCC and again Christendom had a Pope. In fact it was on this occasion that I remember being told about the black and white smoke plumes from the Vatican chimneys and their significance. Shahabad in those days, was not the www enabled global village. It was simply a plain village. A photograph could not immediately be obtained and framed. It would take atleast a month.

But we didn’t get a month. Tragedy struck again. Just a month later, on the 28th of September, Pope John Paul I too left for his heavenly abode. There was the announcement again and I remember some sisters weeping. The routine for electing a new pope began anew, and like the second occasion of any kind in the family, this was by now familiar. We read more about the process of election and since there was no TV or Internet then, we read from books in the library. And then again with the rising white smoke from the chimneys of the St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected Supreme Pontiff. (Like Shri Ganga Singh Rautela, Director General of the National Council of Science Museums, for which I work) he was the first non Italian Pope in 450 years. His election filled in the void left by the demise of Pope John Paul the I. When he took up the Papal name of Ioannes Paulus PP. II, or Pope John Paul the II, there was some dismay because though Christians we were Indians and an element of superstition persisted. The first man to take up the name John Paul died within days of ascendancy and this name was considered ill omened or even foolhardy. Possibly this was the reason the sisters of MCC were in no hurry to get a framed photograph of the Pope for quite some time. Or maybe Sister Angelita who succeeded Sr. Angel Mary was a little too independent. I don’t remember a Papal photograph till I left MCC in 1980. But the Holy Father lived long enough to depart only very recently, after serving Christ for 27 long years

The formidable Urs

Annual sports days were always part of the MCC school curriculum. We were classified into juniors, subjuniors, seniors and the like based solely on our weights. The 110 kilogram Jayachandran was then a measly 38 kilograms and I remember the figures because I being 40 Kilos barely qualified to be a junior, while Jayachandran went into the Sub junior category. Heavier guys like Xavier, tipping the scales at a massive 47 kilograms were seniors. I am now 82 Kgs. How lovely it would be to weigh 40 Kilos now!

It was in the winter of 1979 that the sisters of MCC decided that we should be celebrating the Annual Sports Day in a very professional manner like the opening ceremonies of modern day mega sporting events. There were to be group Hoopla dances and the like and yoga demonstrations. The venerable sisters, one doesn’t know from where, picked up a person called Urs from somewhere in south Karnataka, who was a dark wiry character retired from the Indian Army to train us for the big event.

One day after the school assembly, Urs was introduced and formally took over training. He taught us basic Yogic asanas and there were group drills. There were girls and boys practicing together and even those as uninclined in sporting activities as yours truly, were drafted in. Urs in the real Army tradition, liberally used harsh and bad words when a student didn’t perform to potential. He liberally used the word B*****od to girls and boys without gender bias. He pronounced it in a curious manner saying Baan for Behn. It was all mirth and fun for us boys while the girls giggled and squirmed.

Everything said and done, the annual event was a great success as they say and the time came to bid Urs goodbye. He was to board a bus from Shahabad to Gulbarga and then on to the depths of Kodagu or wherever, one morning in December 1979. There was a road running along the other side of MCC which went on to Gulbarga and we were waiting at the Bus stop, some of us seniors to see Urs off. A tractor with a trailer came chugging up from Shahbad side going towards Gulbarga with a lot of men and women sitting all over the tractor and the trailer. The driver was chugging merrily and when the tractor passed us, one woman who happened to be sitting on the connecting yoke between the tractor and the trailer dropped down between the wheels and the tractor went past. The woman escaped unhurt and got up walking towards the tractor which had stopped in response to the shouting and screaming of the occupants.

Urs was properly agitated and caught hold of the driver “B******d saala, tractor chalata ki helicopter chalata re? Kya be sochta?” he screamed and shook him by the collar. Everyone joined the melee and soon there was a crowd, during which time, the bus to Gulbarga came and went away without Urs. When the realisation that the bus has gone by, and there was no bus till the next day dawned, Urs abruptly abandoned his militancy, the tractor drove away and we came back to MCC. Urs left alone the next day with no escorts to see him off. The days of excitement were over and MCC went back to its academic ways.