On discovering this, Mr Thomas went into a rage. He dragged me in my cradle to the priest's house and dumped me there. 'Father, this baby is the root cause of all the trouble in my life. You forced me to adopt him, so now you decide what to do with him.' And before Father Timothy could even say 'Amen', Dominic Thomas walked out of the church. He was last seen buying a train ticket for Bhopal with a shotgun in his hands. So willy-nilly I became Father Timothy's responsibility. He gave me food, he gave me shelter and he gave me a name: Joseph Michael Thomas. There was no baptism ceremony. No priest dipped my head into a font. No holy water was sprinkled. No white shawl was draped over me. No candle was lit. But I became Joseph Michael Thomas. For six days.
On the seventh day, two men came to meet Father Timothy. A fat man wearing white kurta pyjamas, and a thin, bearded man wearing a sherwani.
'We are from the All Faith Committee,' the fat man said. 'I am Mr Jagdish Sharma. This is Mr Inayat Hidayatullah. Our third board member, Mr Harvinder Singh, representing the Sikh faith, was also to come, but he is unfortunately held up at the Gurudwara. We will come straight to the point. We are told, Father, that you have given shelter to a little orphan boy.'
'Yes, the poor boy's adoptive parents have disappeared, leaving him in my care,' said Father Timothy, still unable to figure out the reason for this unexpected visit.
'What name have you given this boy?'
'Joseph Michael Thomas.'
'Isn't that a Christian name?'
'Yes, but—'
'How do you know that he was born to Christian parents?'
'Well, I don't.'
'Then why have you given him a Christian name?'
'Well, I had to call him something. What's wrong with Joseph Michael Thomas?'
'Everything. Don't you know, Father, how strong the movement is against conversion in these parts? Several churches have been set fire to by irate mobs, who were led to believe that mass conversions to Christianity were taking place there.'
'But this is no conversion.'
'Look, Father, we know you did not have any ulterior motive. But word has got around that you have converted a Hindu boy.'
'But how do you know he is Hindu?'
'It won't matter to the lumpen elements who are planning to ransack your church tomorrow. That is why we have come to help you. To cool things down.'
'What do you suggest I do?'
'I suggest you change the boy's name.'
'To what?'
'Well . . . giving him a Hindu name might do the trick. Why not name him Ram, after one of our favourite gods?' said Mr Sharma.
Mr Hidayatullah coughed gently. 'Excuse me, Mr Sharma, but aren't we replacing one evil with another? I mean, what is the proof that the boy was a Hindu at birth? He might have been Muslim, you know. Why can't he be called Mohammad?'
Mr Sharma and Mr Hidayatullah debated the respective merits of Ram and Mohammad for the next thirty minutes. Finally, Father Timothy gave up. 'Look, if it takes a name change to get the mob off my back, I will do it. How about if I accept both your suggestions and change the boy's name to Ram Mohammad Thomas? That should satisfy everyone.'
Luckily for me that Mr Singh did not come that day.
* * *
Father Timothy was tall, white and comfortably middle aged. He had a huge house in the church compound with a sprawling garden full of fruit trees. For the next six years, he became my father, mother, master, teacher and priest, all rolled into one. If there has been anything approximating happiness in my life, it was in the time I spent with him.
Father Timothy was from the north of England, a place called York, but had been settled in India for very many years. It was thanks to him that I learnt to read and speak the Queen's English. He taught me Mother Goose Tales and nursery rhymes. I would sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in my horribly off-key voice, providing, I suppose, an amusing diversion for Father Timothy from his priestly duties.
Living in the church compound, I felt part of a much larger family. Apart from Father Timothy, his faithful manservant Joseph stayed in the house and Mrs Gonzalves, the maid, also lived close by. And then there was a whole bunch of street kids belonging to the plumbers, cobblers, sweepers and washermen, who lived practically next door and did not hesitate to use the church grounds for their cricket and football games. Father Timothy taught me about the life of Jesus, and Adam and Eve, and this extended family instructed me on the rudiments of other religions. I came to know about the Mahabharata and the Holy Koran. I learnt about the Prophet's flight from Mecca to Medina and of the burning down of Lanka. Bethlehem and Ayodhya, St Peter and the Hajj all became part of my growing-up.
This is not to suggest, though, that I was a particularly religious child. I was like any other child, with three main preoccupations: eating, sleeping and playing. I spent many an afternoon with the neighbourhood kids of my age, catching butterflies and frightening birds in Father Timothy's garden. While Joseph, the old retainer, dusted curios in the drawing room, I would sneak out and try to pluck ripe mangoes, under the watchful eye of the gardener. If caught, I would give him generous abuse in Hindi. I would dance with abandon in the monsoon rain, try to catch little fish in the small muddy pools of rain water and end up coughing and sneezing, much to the consternation of Father Timothy. I would play football with the street kids, come back battered and bruised, and then cry the entire night.
Father Timothy lived an active life. He would go for a walk every morning, play golf, volleyball and tennis, read voraciously and take vacations three times a year to meet his aged mother in England. He was also an expert violinist. Most evenings he would sit out in the moonlit garden and play the most soulful melodies you can imagine. And when it rained at night during the monsoon season, I would think of the sky as weeping from hearing his sad tunes.
I enjoyed going into the church. It was an old building built in 1878, with stained-glass windows and a spectacular roof made of timber. The altar was beautifully carved. Above it was a large crucifix of Christ and the letters INRI. There were sculptures of the Virgin and Child enthroned and of many saints. The pews were made of teak wood, but they were full only on Sundays.
Father Timothy would give a long sermon from the pulpit, during which I would doze off, to wake only when he gave everyone the wafer and wine. I also enjoyed hearing the organ and the choir. I fell in love with Easter eggs and Christmas trees, which unfortunately came only once a year, and church weddings, which were held in all seasons. I would wait for Father Timothy to say, 'And you may now kiss the bride.' I would always be the first to throw the confetti.
* * *
My relationship with Father Timothy was never precisely defined. It was never made clear to me whether I was servant or son, parasite or pet. So for the first few years of my life, I lived under the happy illusion that Father Timothy was my real father. But gradually I began to realize something was amiss. For one, all those who came to Mass on Sunday mornings would call him Father, and it intrigued me that he was the father of so many people, and that I had so many brothers and sisters, all much bigger than me. I was also perplexed by the fact that he was white and I was not. So one day I asked him, and he shattered the fantasy world in which I had lived till then. In the gentlest possible way, he explained to me that I was an orphan child left behind by my mother in the clothes bin of St Mary's Orphanage, and that was why he was white and I was not. It was then, for the first time, that I understood the distinction between father and Father. And that night, for the first time, my tears had nothing to do with physical pain.
Once the realization sank in that I did not have a biological connection with Father Timothy and was living in the church only due to his generosity, I became determined to repay, at least in part, the debt I owed him. I began doing little chores for him, like taking the clothes from the laundry basket to the washing machine. Sitting in front of the machine, watching the drum spin round and round and wondering how the clothes came out so magically clean. Once putting some dusty books inside the washing machine as well. Doing the dishes in the kitchen sink. Breaking fine china. Slicing vegetables. On occasion almost chopping off my finger.