Coimbatore

Wednesday morning Claire and I took the train to Coimbatore, northeast of Cochin, where Father Nelson’s parents Alphonse and Carolyn had graciously invited us to stay with them.




Alphonse had been a banker before he retired, but they chose to keep their home relatively simple and clutter-free. They were in the process of adding a smaller second floor apartment to move into, so they could rent out the ground floor and enjoy a breeze. We were given a tour of the building project, very different construction than in the U.S., brick covered with concrete and plaster. As you can see, everything is carried by hand (or head). Their transportation fleet is a motorbike and a bicycle, and for other needs they call on neighborhood taxis, motorized rickshaws, buses, trains, and hired drivers. We experienced all of these. I continued to be amazed at the relative freedom from “stuff” in Indian family life, and the richness in human relations instead. Also, the infrastructure—you could find anything you needed at one of the hundreds of tiny family-owned shops nearby, and could get around just fine on very little money.

We rested awhile, then played dominoes with them. Their family loves games, and over the few days we played a lot of cards and Yahtzee as well.




In the evening Father Nelson took us around town. First we visited a nursing home run by ten or twelve nuns, some of them quite young. Ordinarily families care for their elderly at home, but this nursing home was for those whose families were either too poor to keep them or for other reasons chose not to. Relatively new but materially quite spare, the facility housed about 120 women and 30 men in 4 or 5 wards. Each patient, or “inmate,” as they were called, possessed an iron bed with two small drawers under the mattress. That was it. The beds were lined up 30 or 40 to a room with ample space to maneuver, but no privacy. It gave a new meaning to “can’t take it with you”—there was not much stuff these elderly were going to be leaving behind. But they were all clean and warm, eager to meet us, to bless us and be blessed. There were vegetable and flower gardens the patients who could would enjoy working in. There were absolutely none of the nursing home smells we find in even the best facilities in the U.S. The sisters labored hard to care for their needs and to let them know they were loved. We were very impressed with their dedication.

The parish church was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan monk known not only as the patron saint of lost things, but of pregnancy. Nelson told us that many Hindu couples as well as Christians come to the church to ask St. Anthony to intercede for their fertility. Many miracles are associated with him; more on this later.

Father Nelson had told us of “Anglo Indians,” people descended from English colonialists who looked like light-skinned Indians but whose first language was English. He took us to visit a father and son who were Anglo Indians, and we visited with them and learned about their history. Very interesting. Like every place, India is more and more complex and diverse the more you learn about it.