JCSA

As an earnest young scholastic, and later, as a young priest in Gujarat Province, India, I was reflecting on how to make my commitment more meaningful, in keeping with the magis, 'the fire' of a Jesuit. Finding meaning in my call and articulating it in my own way has been a long struggle.

It was the 24th of November 2007. The Adivasis (indigenous/tribals) from every corner of Assam reached Guwahati, the capital city of the north eastern state of Assam, India, at the invitation of the All Adivasi Students' Association of Assam (AASAA).

I had to walk up and down 10 kilo meters every day to the (High) school. When I was seventeen years old and doing my final year of schooling there was a severe drought in our region and people were facing starvation and struggling even for drinking water and my family and I were not spared.

“Will anyone volunteer to go to Bombay to help in an action research study on the eviction of pavement and slum dwellers conducted by a Social Work College?” asked my Rector while I was doing my first year of philosophy in Pune in 1985.

This is the story of the village of ‘Agnipuri’ (A village of Fire). When I was appointed parish priest in Darsi, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, I soon heard of a neighbouring village called Erraobanapalli, which is more than 100 years old.