Rising from Adversity - Part III

Rising from Adversity - Part III

Read Part I and Part II of this story, before continuing on this third episode.

 

(a 4 minute read - more if you want to absorb this riveting story in small bites)

 

Man innovates through adversity.  Through Elmo, a schoolboy who commuted to school every day from my neighbourhood, I wrote a brief note to my father asking him to take me home for the weekend.   My father sent a note in return through Elmo addressed to Chamuel, asking him to send me home for a ‘family event’.  I gave the note to Chamuel who gave me permission to go home on Friday.

 

I left for home with glee, to spend that weekend with my family.  I enjoyed three days of bliss, playing with my sister and brother and the neighbours’ kids.  My mother and grandmother, Kadayamma made delicious dishes to feed me.  With reluctance, I returned to the boarding on Monday.

 

Chamuel regularly checked on me with regular one on one meetings privately in his room.  He continued to offer help without specifying what that help was.  Now I know that he did this to keep me on check.  On one of those meetings, he asked me a weird question, whether I could retract my foreskin.  It was a strange question.  I was defiant and did not answer him.

 

I was infected with the terrible flu sometimes after that episode.  The flu made me very weak.  I got thin but taller in a matter of days.  I remember this vividly because while suffering from the flu, I gained one inch in height from 5’ 3” to 5’ 4”.

 

When boys were sick, they slept in the sick bay.  Sickbay was away from the main dormitory, separated by a wall next to Chamuel’s room. Chamuel relocated me to the sickbay where I slept every night away from the rest of the boys. 

 

It was pitch dark in the night except for a distant light. In the middle of the night, I felt a hand on my genitals.  I opened my eyes and saw Chamuel’s bald head illuminated from the distant light at the edge of my bed. He took his hand off my body and claimed that he had come to check on me.  Despite my weak state, I knew what he had come for.  I did stare at him.  He knew that I was not available for his paedophile pleasure.  

 

Chamuel never visited me at my bedside after that episode.  I recovered in a matter of days and went back to my usual self.

 

I knew my days were over at the boarding.  Evander and Chamuel were child abusers. I wanted nothing to do with them nor with their religious order.  

I kept up the habit of going home every alternate week on various pretexts. That was my escape.  Elmo, my college friend played a great role as a carrier of messages back and forth that helped me to enjoy the weekends and avoid the misery of the boarding.  My family was delighted to have me back at home regularly.  Chamuel, director of the boarding was helpless to stop me from going home anymore.  I avoided him as much as possible.

 

Denzil at 15

 

The general certificate of examination was coming near.  It was the event of the year.  But my priority was not the exam but getting out of the wrecked institute.  I sat for the exam without any preparations and came home for the Christmas holidays. I was now fifteen years old.

 

I wanted to live free, as a normal ordinary boy.  It was a bold decision, to leave a religious institute. 

 

I spoke to my father and told him my decision to leave.  My mother joined the conversation.  I told them that I was fed up with the boarding and I did not want to be there.  I was not mature enough to explain what happened to me in the religious institute.  I explained to my father that Chamuel would try to convince him to keep me there on various pretexts.  I said that my decision was final and that I was not going back there. 

 

Both my parents supported my decision without question and without hesitation. Catholic people looked down on families when a child left a religious order during formation years.  They thought of it as defying God’s will. I am eternally grateful to my parents for thinking of only their son's wellbeing, not the societal norms and what others thought of them.

 

Before the new term started my father accompanied me to the boarding for the final time to organise my exit.  As I predicted Chamuel, the director in charge, pleaded with us both to reconsider the decision. He offered me an option to stay at home as long as I liked.  He proposed that I could return on any day when I wished to return.  My father bluntly told him that the decision to leave was final and it was not for negotiation. Delighted, I packed my blue “Ford” suitcase with clothes and schoolbooks. My father hailed a taxi, paying a fare of Rupees 2.50 to return home.

 

This was the beginning of redemption in my life. I came home, confident of living a free and liberated life from the shackles of a morally corrupt religious institute. I wonder, what would have happened to me if my father or my mother, hesitated to remove me from the wretched institute.

Read the next chapter Rising from Adversity - Recovery & Healing - Part IV