South India – Day 4, part 1
Saturday, February 8, 2025
String hoppers and curry leaves
This morning’s breakfast was Idiyappam or string hoppers. They are cute little bundles of noodles, each one a mouthful or two, to be eaten with curry. Sally picks the curry leaves fresh from their garden every day. The essential job of these leaves is to flavor the curry and not be eaten. Thus, they lend themselves to the expression, “throw him out like an old curry leaf,” in this example referring to an old boyfriend.
ARI memories
This morning’s breakfast conversation was not about religion or Indian history or any of those things. It was about ARI, and Thomas Mathew has a slew of stories about his time there back in the day. I love these, because each one gives me a different angle on my perspective of ARI and what people are learning as they live together in that community. Honestly, bringing together such a diverse group of individuals begs for the unexpected, and everyone has a story. Here are the ones I heard while munching on string hoppers.
“At ARI you live with strangers,” Thomas Mathew started, “and those strangers eventually become friends. You share what you have under one roof. If you have a disagreement, you have to patch it up because that day you have to work, eat, live with that person. You have differences but you have to live together. This is how we must make our life.”
A stop in Manila
Among the participants that year was a Pakistani man that Thomas Mathew described as never being bothered about punctuality and loving to ask questions. He was especially good at asking questions on Friday afternoons at the reflection and planning sessions. All the participants joined this meeting and a number of them had personalities as strong as his, making for ‘lively’ conversations. In particular, he found himself butting heads with a pair of strong-willed sisters from the Philippines. Over the months, they became adversaries of a sort, up to and including the day they departed. Due to the infrequency of flights to Pakistan, this fellow left long after everyone else, including the two sisters. En route home, there was an issue with his connecting flight and he got stranded … in Manila. Guess who fetched him up from the airport and took care of him for several days until he could finally fly onwards? Yes, it was the two sisters.
“Even though they had their differences, they came to support him and help him,” Thomas Mathew reflected. “What you are learning at ARI, you cannot realize it when you are in ARI. At ARI, things like living together with others who are not like you, is just part of your daily life, but after you are out, you feel how precious it all was. You realize it after you go back.”
Consensus minus one
Thomas Mathew is a man who loves to talk – self-professed. At ARI he would talk and joke with everyone. He especially enjoyed going to the tea room, dropping a ten-yen coin into the box, and taking a tea bag. “With one teabag, I can make tea, but then I can also make one other tea. So, I can give it to somebody coming, and that way I can talk to that person. I liked to talk over tea to get more acquainted.”
Now let’s segway into the meeting taking place just before the Western Japan Study Tour when all the participants had gathered to decide the leader, Takami sensei presiding. Two candidates were in consideration, one of which was a fellow countryman of Thomas Mathew. Not only was he Indian, he was Malayali and the two were close. The other was his roommate, a pastor from Korea. They used to pray together, hand in hand, in their room every night. Thomas Mathew did not want to side with one or the other, so he slipped out for a cup of tea, thinking one or two people might join him. No one did, as the discussion had become serious. After finishing his tea alone, he returned to the meeting where he was greeted with the words, “you see our leader is Thomas Mathew, from India.” It was a unanimous decision and a huge shock to Thomas Mathew who was actually looking to avoid the responsibility. Takami sensei wanted a consensus among the participants, rather than a vote, and they found it in Thomas Mathew. “They selected me, unanimously, without my presence. It was the only occasion in my life that it happened,” Thomas Mathew declared.
with the land, against the atomic
The Western Japan Study Tour, is a long trip through the west of the country in which the participants learn about topics such as industrial pollution, homelessness, discrimination against minorities and more, all things they never imagined existed in a place as beautifully developed as Japan. The route plan required a decision to be made, to visit either Hiroshima and the Peace Memorial Museum, or the home of Masanobu Fukuoka, a world-famous natural farmer and the author of The One Straw Revolution. Naturally, they were divided, so the staff arranged to split the group and go both places.
When they got back, everyone gathered to share their impressions of the trip and all the places they visited. When it came time to talk about Hiroshima, Thomas Mathew asked the participant from Liberia to speak. He was the only one among the Africans to join that group and he “was very much changed by Hiroshima.” This is what the Liberian said:
“You are talking about natural farming. If there is a nuclear war, where is your farm? There is no farm. There is no land. No humans. We visited Hiroshima. It was a turning point. Whatever you see in this world, it can become ruined within a second. That I learned from Hiroshima. For daily life, we need organic farming, but we have to work with the land, and against nuclear war. We have to combine it. We can’t stick just on natural farming. At the same time, we have to talk about a peaceful world. We have to talk about no more war. No more Hiroshima. No more Nagasaki. If you can, go to Hiroshima and see and come back.”
“That was one of the best presentations,” concluded Thomas Mathew. “I could not present like him in those days.”
Sericulture
Just five minutes from Thomas Mathew’s house in the village of Elanthoor, is a place called Shanthi Ashram run by the Mar Thoma church. Shanthi means peace and an ashram is kind of a religious community. Here is where we met Sr. Mariamma Thomas (1978 ARI Graduate). Today was her birthday so Thomas Mathew brought her a cake. (He asked me to be the one to give it to her). He was not sure of her age, and she didn’t offer any hints, but it looks like the “no retirement age system” is in play here as well.
Before anything else, I want to share a short story that demonstrated to me once again the beautiful ripple impact of training grassroots leaders. At ARI, Sr. Mariamma explained that she was interested in learning about sericulture, the practice of raising silkworms and harvesting their silk. Sericulture was not in any part of ARI’s curriculum, but as this was so important to her, they made arrangements for her to study with a woman who knew the technique. Upon her returned to India, she started a sericulture project at the Hoskot Ashram in Bangalore, which was her sending body to ARI. Bangalore is cooler than other parts of South India, and a specific variety of mulberry tree, where the silkworms nest, grows well there. People came from all around to learn sericulture from her and many took it up as their livelihoods. Though she conducted these activities for only five years, silk production continues to this day as an important industry of that region, and is promoted by the Indian Government. Laughingly, she told me she wasn’t even interested in going to ARI, but her Bishop convinced her saying, “go, study sericulture, and come teach the farmers.”
I enjoyed seeing Sr. Mariamma’s mind return to her days at ARI more than 40 years ago, as she shared her memories with Thomas Mathew, me, and two other sisters sitting with us. “Use what you have,” an ARI mantra that is still strong today, made a big impression on her. She described the big gardens at ARI that supplied the kitchen, remembering even the specific vegetables they harvested. “We have a garden here at the Ashram as well, so there is no need to buy vegetables from the market,” she remarked. Though they are having trouble these days with wild boars getting into it and a costly fence is needed.
Vegetables make you strong
Sister Mariamma is in charge of administration and she works with the two other sisters who were sitting with us. One teaches tailoring and embroidery and the other provides counselling and does PR work for the Ashram. They are all vegetarians and they shared a small bowl of bean porridge that had been prepared for breakfast with me. I have to admit that it was tastier than it looked. It was really good! Sr. Mariamma was the only vegetarian in her year at ARI, but was happy with the soups, rice, bread, and butter that were provided. Takami sensei once told her “You are strong with only vegetables. Vegetables make you strong!” Here at the Ashram, they make their own church wine and bread for communion, explaining that it can’t be bought from outside because it must be made by Christians.
Around the Ashram
On a walk around the Ashram, I was first shown their tailoring center where several women were practicing making straight seams. I also got to see embroidery in action, with the seamstress sister expertly creating a flower design, freehand. You may recall that SEEDS India also teaches tailoring and Thomas Mathew often collaborates with this teacher. Next, we visited their palliative center for physically and mentally challenged women. The six residents live in a traditional style family compound where four houses are built facing each other to create a square courtyard in the middle. Two staff care for the women, who are not allowed to leave for the sake of their own safety. The courtyard was kept beautifully with flowering trees. Lastly, we moved over to the orphanage, which was once under the charge of Sr. Samuel, whom we met yesterday. Twenty girls under the age of 18 are living here now and when I met them in the hallway, they presented me with a guava. I said thank you and taught them how to say arigato. Today was a holiday so visitors were stopping by to bring donations from their churches, and I think it was the job of the girls to kindly receive the gifts.
The daily routine of the sisters is filled with meditation, worship, and prayer and so we were invited to the chapel to pray. Each sister prayed aloud in turn and I was asked to do the same. Sr. Mariamma mentioned me and ARI in her prayer. (Insert a happy face emoji here.) They then served me some of the communion wine. I don’t think it had been blessed, so it was not a holy sacrament, but just for tasting – sweet and no essence of alcohol.
As we took our leave of the Ashram, Sr. Mariamma sent her greetings and thanks to ARI.
Graduates gathering
Thomas Mathew frequently spoke of other graduates in India and beyond. He does his best to keep in touch with them and twice organized a large gathering. The first was in 1989, just a year after he had been at ARI. Takami sensei and other staff joined. That year he also had visits from Gretchen Devries, Pam Hasegawa, and Christopher Grundy, who wrote ARI’s theme song, Take My Hand. I know that you probably do not know these “ARI people,” but I put their names, because some of you might, and some of you readers may BE them!
The second gathering was in 2000 and this one was BIG. Titled “The Millennium Conference” 74 graduates attended, not only from India, but also Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Some traveled five days each way to reach the conference venue. It was an incredible endeavor. Now Thomas Mathew is waiting for someone to organize the next conference. It has been 25 years after all!
A few more Thomas Mathew notes
Thomas Mathew buys his fish from a Muslim merchant. Every day this guy brings fresh fish from the ocean 60 kilometers away. Some folks won’t buy from him because of his religion. This is nonsense to Thomas Mathew.
Nearby there is a place where they train elephants for forest work and festivals. In days gone by, having an elephant was like having a Benz.
Did you know that tapioca is the same as cassava? I was totally ignorant of this fact. Many of our African graduates grow cassava as an important staple, so I know about cassava and frequently ate it during my trips to African countries. In Kerala after the Second World War, there was a shortage of rice, so farmers planted cassava, only they called it tapioca. It is still grown today. Hmm. You learn something every day.
