chhotebhai's Writings

Author: admin

  • MULLALLY OR MULAKKAL?

    Other than similar sounding surnames, is there anything in common between these two? They are as different as chalk and cheese. Former bishop of Jalandhar diocese, Franco Mulakkal, nicknamed Frightening Franco, is a familiar name to Indian Catholics. A lower court in Kerala has acquitted him of charges of multiple rape of a religious sister…

  • DID JESUS SPEAK LATIN?

    Readers will pardon me for asking another audacious question. They will also note that I often write in response to current issues. This time it is a riposte to an article “Reviving the Old Latin Mass would be a colossal mistake” published in Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN) on 26th September, written by Robert…

  • ICONOCLASM – YESTERDAY & TODAY

    Iconoclasm is the destruction of things (often held sacred or precious), persons or even ideas. What is an icon? Millennials would be familiar with the icons (symbols) on their mobile phones, laptops or computers. Originally, an icon was usually a religious symbol, object or painting, often from the Byzantine Empire. For example, the popular picture…

  • VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS – POLITICAL & SPIRITUAL

    Nepal is in the news for the saddest of reasons – a political volcanic eruption led by youth disenchanted by the political system; its corruption and opaqueness. This is déjà vu for what happened in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. With three neighbours in political turmoil, can big brother India remain unscathed?  There have been similar…

  • WHERE IS GOD?

    Those watching TV on 27th August evening would have been jolted by two tragic events. The first was of hundreds of pilgrims washed away in flash floods/ landslides in the Jammu region. The second instant was of two young girls shot dead while praying in a Catholic school in Minneapolis, USA. Both incidents were when…

  • HAIL THE DOG – JAIL THE HOUND

    Donald Duck Trump has made a laughing stock of his country. Far from making it great again he is taking it down into the dumps. Are we Indians heading in the same direction? It would seem so, from the way we are treating our dogs. Thanks to the latest order from the Supreme Court, dogs…

  • BOOK REVIEW: MANIPUR’S ATOM BOMB

    (Manipur’s experience with AFSPA by John Shilshi IPS Retd, Rs 499/- Pgs 328 Hard Cover, published by White Falcon Publishing) Exactly eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, atom bombs are again in the news. Rahul Gandhi has claimed to have dropped an atom bomb on the Election Commission of India through his allegations of vote…

  • THE TRINITY IS NOT A MYSTERY

    (A presentation at Bishop’s College, Kolkata to commemorate 1700 years of the Nicean Creed, organised by the various Theological colleges of Bengal) This paper has an audacious title, considering the oft repeated experience of St Augustine on the seashore, and bearing in mind that our present Pope Leo is a follower of that same spirituality….

  • OBITUARY: OVER THE MOON

    Have we got over the recent death of Rev Eugene Moon Lazarus of Agra? Is there anything about his life that we should be over the moon about? There is much in the life and death of Moon, or Moonbhai, as he was affectionately known, for us to be literally over the moon? Why? Because…

  • THE POWER OF 2X2

    Most roadways buses have a 2×3 seat configuration; that is, 5 seats in a row. Since that is cramped, luxury buses are 2×2 giving long distance travellers enough leg space. I am writing this after attending Mass on Sunday 20th July. The first reading (Gen 18:1-10) and the gospel (Lk 10:38-42) both had two principal…