A Parson to India

Welcome poster at Kunnam! I wrote in the previous piece on the intermediary role of the priest. A priest is always, as the kids say, “representin’”. The absurd difficulty of this is most obvious in worship – the priest is facing East and West – representing the people to God, in all their diversity, and more incredulously representing Christ to the people. You will be relieved to know that since the Donatist scandal of 312AD (as a priest I claim the right to continue using AD) priests are not required to be perfect or even better than anyone else. We take on this intermediary role by virtue of our calling and ordination. I’ve also written elsewhere on misunderstandings of what a priest is and how it’s one of those occupations where, unless you’re talking to another priest, you’re almost certainly dealing with someone who has a completely different idea as to what your role and work comprise of than you do, which can lead to all kinds of difficulty for which the young priest had better ...

Dawn from our rooftop at Serenity beach, Pondicherry 2025 has been a good year for reading so far. I’m currently turning between Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep , Sarah Coakley’s The Broken Body and Arundhati Roy’s T he God of Small Things (obviously alongside the Famous Five, for which I’ve now settled quite definitely on voices for all the main characters. George has ended up with an irritating nasal voice which I regret, but now the die is cast). All the books are good in different ways but I’m quite caught up (especially since being forced to read through the ‘night of snoring’ with gritted teeth) with The God of Small Things. Rhiannon and I have both been trying to make our reading related to India; I’m very open to suggestions but am concerned that all Indian novels revolve around the death of children, normally by drowning, which is not comforting when Obi is learning to surf. Reading The God of Small Things is like watching the circling of a shark, knowing the inevitable resu...

Giant Shell in Bharati Park in Pondicherry. Locals seem to call it Pondi. It's definitely one of the most Western cities to visit with a very pleasant city centre. Working out your rhythm travelling – how often you move, how long you stay in one place, is pretty crucial. Otherwise you end up with rhythm and blues. For about a decade I led expeditions with teenagers across Europe. Young people are malleable, easily led and, by and large, quite high-energy. So you could plan a trip with a four hour drive in the morning, throw up tents, grab a sandwich and go white-water rafting in the afternoon. Adventures would last up to 3 or 4 weeks but we’d mostly stay in one place only 2 or 3 days, with an activity most days. I had this in mind when I planned our honeymoon, for which Rhiannon has never forgiven me. Driving from South-West France to West Germany (where we lived), stopping at Narbonne, Lake Como, then driving through Switzerland to Heidelberg, was not the beginning to our marriage...

We have travelled through Kerala and on to Tamil Nadu and the end of the world as far as India is concerned. Our journey South is complete with just its Eastern epilogue to complete. Prior to Alleppey, we had strayed already into Tamil Nadu, as Kerala is such a strange shape, enjoying some camping in the mountains past Yellapetty, which means “the last village”. Kerala is a heady mix of religions, officially just over 50% Hindu, a quarter Muslim and less than a fifth Christian, despite the interesting Christian heritage, unique to India. Worship for each is visible and often audible. The region we’re in at the moment is called Kanyakumari, literally “the unmarried girl” after a goddess (not, sadly, “an unknown god” from which more could be made), famed for the southernmost point on the Indian mainland, graced by a little island populated by a temple and a great big (41m) statue of wisdom embodied by Thiruvalluvar (as well as a million overheated people coming and going on overpacked bo...

We have in these last few weeks been in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. I say this with authority having grown up in Swansea. (Before the scoffers and antagonists guffaw, I would refer you to the beaches of Gower, which I stand by as being as beautiful as any in all the East or West Coast of Australia, South Africa, the Cote d’Azur and other places I have lounged upon, but just spoilt a little by the unremitting disaster that is Welsh weather.) It is a cliché that people find God in the grandeur of nature (and spiral off into bad poetry and worse photography), but I thought I would interrogate this a little from my recent memory of tea and coffee plantations straddling the arbitrary line between Tamil Nadu and God’s own Country of Kerala.  It's actually been quite a nice contrast our having moved from Hampi and Mysuru, famed for their archaeological remains and palace respectively – man-made beauty – to the gorgeous backwaters and mountains of Kerala – which bring India...

  As a late birthday treat we went out kayaking at dawn on the backwaters. We paddled along under an orange sun with the children dipping in their oars like a badly placed rudder and out of sync with the labouring adult behind them. In a rare moment of self-assertion I took us to brunch (my favourite meal) in Fort Kochi, when I think everyone else wanted to go home and be less wet. The café happened to be above an Ayurvedic Spa so Rhiannon suggested a massage before I rejoined the family at home. Luckily enough, I was able to make an immediate appointment, where I was led into a little room by a short man and through a series of gestures and inarticulate noises to disrobe. Normally (by which I mean “in my experience”), you are left deshabiller in private, but it was clear that this was not the expectation here and, being genial, I didn’t want to offend with my prudish English ways. Besides, I am used to being naked among other men. Communal showers were a feature of my childhood a...