IN November, I was fortunate to spend a fortnight in India. Four of us from Essex were part of a larger group of about 80 people taking part in a sponsored rally from Goa to Kerala in southern India, a journey of about 2,000 kilometres.
We were driving brand-new Hindustan Motors Ambassadors, a car based on the 1948 Morris Oxford that is still being manufactured and is very little changed from the original.
That was both the attraction and the challenge, as were the appalling condition of most of India's roads and the unpredictability of Indian drivers.
The important by-product of this jaunt was raising over £300,000 for two charities: the Rainbow Trust, which provides respite care in England for families that have a child suffering from terminal illness, and Adventure Ashram, a new charity that is setting up facilities for health and education in the Palani Hills, part of the region we drove through.
Of all the varied sights and events we experienced in the course of the trip, many were associated with religion and, in particular, Christianity. Although India as a whole is predominantly Hindu, in southern India there is a very old, and thriving, Christian tradition.
The Apostle Thomas is said to have arrived in Kerala in 54 AD, and here Roman Catholic and other Christian churches and wayside crosses appear to outnumber Hindu temples and shrines. St Francis Xavier established a mission in Goa in 1552, and his remains are enshrined and revered in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa. The Anglican church, not surprisingly, is more prominent in places where the influence of the British Raj was stronger, one such town being the hill station of Ootacamund, better known as Ooty, which enjoys a pleasantly cool climate at a height of 2240 metres above sea level.
The centre of the old part of Ooty is dominated by St Stephen's Church, in the diocese of Madras and now part of the Church of the South India. It was built in 1829-31 under the auspices of the British East India Company, to designs by Captain John James Underwood of the Madras Engineers, and was constructed largely of teak taken from the old summer palace of Tipu Sultan at Srirangapatnam. It was enlarged in 1851 and the chancel was added in 1876. In 1887, ventilation was improved by raising the nave roof, and vestries were added at the same time.
The benches in the nave have seats and backs of wickerwork to make them more comfortable on hot days; but otherwise the furnishings and fittings would not look out of place in any English parish church.
The parish activities - confirmation classes, choir rehearsals for the approaching Christmas carol service, Bible study groups - are also instantly familiar to the English visitor, although with a flavour of 30 or 40 years ago rather than the present day. This old-fashioned feeling applies equally to the services, with traditional liturgy and hymns, that are of a kind increasingly difficult to find in England now.
Only the odd memorial - such as that to Captain Henry Handcock, killed by a tiger in 1858, or Captain R.W. Preston, drowned in the Kromund River while out hunting with the Ootacamund Hounds in 1893 - remind us that we are not in England.
What is most striking to the English visitor, however, is the immaculate and unspoilt condition of the building. Like any church it has changed since it was built, but everything that has been introduced over the years - new furnishings, memorial brasses, stained glass windows - is in keeping; nothing jars or spoils the ensemble. Yet this traditional, rather cluttered, and decidedly inflexible layout does not appear to hamper worship, or to deter worshippers; far from it.
At early communion on the Sunday we visited there was a congregation of about 50, and the 11am service regularly attracts three or four times that number.
The building is in perfect repair inside and out, with fresh paintwork, polished woodwork, and gleaming brasses; this in a country where the concept of routine maintenance is otherwise virtually unknown. More extraordinary still is the fact that a second Anglican church, Holy Trinity, simpler in style and intended originally for Indian rather than English Christians, was built in 1858 less than 100 yards away. It is equally-well cared for, and just as busy. Comparisons between the conditions in south India and England are perhaps meaningless, but it is tempting nonetheless to make them. How do they manage to look after their buildings so well, and have such flourishing congregations, without the benefit of all the committees and heritage bodies that we find necessary?
Another rather different aspect of the dominance of religion in this part of the world can be seen at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka, where we had to change planes. In the departure lounge small cordoned-off sections of seating are draped in white cloths, with a sign saying 'Reserved for Clergy'. It made us wonder how the introduction of such a scheme would be viewed in England, and whether it might be extended to other locations and situations. Somehow, I don't see it catching on.
Print this page
Bookmark this pageFeedback on this page: contact Webmaster