Patrick
Jan. 21, 2007

Today will be remembered as the most intense an emotional day for our group, because of events which we were fortunate enough to witness and from which we emerged unscathed. 

Today being a Sunday, we made our first church visit of the month to All Peoples Church, where the head pastor, Ashish, is the same individual who started New Creation IT (the business we visited on Friday).  The service was much like any contemporary Christian church in the U.S. today, with a rock/worship band singing worship songs in English to a 20-something-aged congregation.  The sermon was in English and I enjoyed it, this being my first overseas Christian church service.  After the service we went to lunch with a couple who run an orphanage set up by the church. They are an American/Indian couple, each of whom has a huge heart and a bottomless well of wisdom from his/her world travels.  Lelit (Indian names are impossible to spell) also runs a consultancy business along with his work at the orphanage. We had one of the most meaningful and informative conversations with Lelit about life, Christianity, business, India, and the needs for our generation in this next century.  It is times like these, being able to talk with such amazing individuals and to simply be filled by their wisdom, that have made this trip invaluable for me. 

After lunch our intention was to do some shopping, but on our way to the street we had been told to visit we ran into some trouble.  (What follows is a very brief and simple explanation of events; each person on the trip was affected differently, and all will surely have their own stories and explanations.) Two days ago (Friday)a large mob of Muslims, riled up over the Saddam hanging after prayer at a local mosque, took to the streets and began rioting, looting, and fighting with the police forces dispatched to control them.  Today, there was already a BJP (Hindu fundamentalist) march scheduled; the violence two days earlier only added to feelings and to the turnout for the march.  The march was to go right through a Muslim district and it was rumored that things might get ugly.  To make a long story short, our driver, attempting to find a way out, turned down a street where we came to a dead stop and were prompty blocked in from behind. Then we got to watch as the procession of Hindus wearing orange headbands and waving orange flags marched right down the street between cars, and just outside the windows of our coach.  As we sat huddled in the aisle and away from the windows (obeying orders from our Muslim driver)we witnessed a small taste of what hot-headed youngsters are capable of doing when spurred on by racial hatred. Needless to say, the situation was rather intense; and after watching the misfortune of one Muslim rickshaw driver, our driver was surely sweating bullets as he gave a fake Hindu name to the questioning mob while their clubs tapped on our tinted windows.  A few minutes later at a break in the oncoming crowd, were were able to back up and get out the way we came in. 

It was an experience that we will never forget and one that should be talked about, as it helps in understanding the frustrations and emotions that are a part of India.