To you, betrayed woman, if you aren’t dead by now

THE NUN OF ALUVA } I saw the video. The raw, patchy, shaky shot that would burn all the Bishops’ asses. That would do the rounds till life on the earth would end.

It wasn’t what the fumbling right palm of the naive nun did on the man’s organ that made me cringe. It was her immaculate wonder, when she held it, that burst of bliss from her human depths which sent a shiver through me. I couldn’t watch the rest of it for feeling like a party to the man’s cunning. Think for a moment about the contrast of the deepest personal flesh-wish of a 37-year-old woman, her innate thrill, her final trust in the humans, and the cold, planned betrayal by the man whose throbbing villainy stood out unzipped while his devious left arm hid a mobile camera, sucking in on every moment of the nun’s unadulterated joy.

Human desire versus devilish treachery.

But the Church had a simpler equation worked out. Expel her from the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel at Aluva, call up the news editors of Kerala’s dailies and whisper: ‘Hush, hush!’ As far as my inquiries tell me, till now, no guy with any Christian institution has been arrested under the Section 67 of the IT Act 2000 for producing porn. Nor has the nunnery paid any severance pay to the nun for her selfless service for over 20 years. Her whereabouts are still unknown.

The Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil of Verapoly, president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council, was glad the Church acted ‘in an exemplary manner’.

I’m wondering on two things: one, the grunt of the convent gate as it shut behind the befouled nun’s moment in the sun. Two, what that teacher sitting under the same sun two thousand years ago, must have written in sand, if you may remember the scripture.

‘Early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people were coming and he sat down to teach. The Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the centre of the court, they said: ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. In the law, Moses commands us to stone such women. What do you say?’

‘They were saying this, to test him, so that they might have grounds for accusing him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. ‘But when they persisted in asking him, he straightened up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again, he stooped down and kept writing on the ground. ‘When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and he was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the centre of the court.

‘Woman, where are thy accusers?’ he asked, lifting up his face. ‘Has none condemned thee?
‘She said, None, Lord.

‘Neither do I; go and sin no more.

As you read this, the Bishops and brethren sit atop, wearing gold rings to be kissed by the faithful, holding golden scepter brandishing the power of the sacred, running an ever-in-demand business, holding multitudes to ransom against their fears, unquestioned by none, served by countless unsalaried faithfuls, dowsing smartly all the scandals, guarding closely the cupboards full of skeletons (including Sister Abhaya’s), lavished by fresh apples from Australia and juicy grapes from Italy, moving in plush mobiles, busy saving the poor.

I’m still wondering if the nun turned one last time at the noise of the grating hinges of the Carmel convent’s gate, to look back at this edifice of slavery in clandestine. If the poor woman had, she’d have seen a dark and slimy creature, that is growing fatter, all from the potion of power it drinks each day in the name of that humble teacher who sat under the morning sun and looked at the hapless woman with all the love a man can muster from his heart.

To you, woman, if you still haven’t been throttled by the ‘Christians’: ‘take it on the chin and move on’, live in courage, laugh at your memories, remembering the old teacher.

To you, feminists : Go, find her, and talk to her about the real kingdom of god within human hearts.

To you, Bishop Daniel Acharuparambil : So, my dear Pharisee, what good finally came out of Nazreth?