THE UNWITTING THEOLOGY OF P.T. THOMAS

Light of Truth

Valson Thampu


One of my regrets is that I did not care to get to know P.T. Thomas personally. Aware somewhat dimly of the political landscape of Kerala, I thought he wasn’t in the line of my interest. I had an inkling of his commitment to environmental issues. I had also inferred that he was not the sort of political animal who creeps to the top on limbs of opportunism.
I began to know ‘PT’ better through his death; through his last rites, to be precise. It touched me deeply that he had prescribed how they were to be conducted. He wanted, not the traditional Christian chants and prayers, but a song by Vayalar Rama Varma that begins with ‘Chandra kalabham…’ Who is this man, I wondered who preferred the soil of Kerala to the solace of heaven?
Now let me come straight to PT’s unwitting theology. When I first read St. Paul’s claim that ‘Christ’s power is made more perfect’ through him, I felt incensed. Paul’s claim sounded impertinently boastful. How can Paul, who was overwhelmed by the power of Jesus, prefect the power of Jesus? I harboured this inner bug a long time. My attempts to explain the meaning of this claim to myself failed, despite their laboured ingeniousness, till PT came to my help through his death. Let me explain how.
I had heard Vayalar’s lyric, Chandra Kalabham, a number of times in the past. The line in which he wonders if there is anyone since the dawn of Kerala who departed with a feeling of having been satiated in love, had made my heart twitch; for I too had known unexpressed and unrequited love. I too had lived like a sealed jar of romantic longings in the human undergrowth of this wondrous state. I had left Kerala in 1971, clutching a small bag of personal effects and a world of aspirations that were inextricable from the soil and soul of this land.
All that seems now as nothing when I compare it with what it has become through the person of PT. What must have been the quality and depth of this man’s love for Kerala that made him want his last moments to be awash in the Bharatha puzha of Vayalar’s spiritual eroticism for this land? What was it that he felt so supremely important that he was ready to exchange the felicity of heaven for the renewed opportunity to serve this land and her people?
Upon the instant, Vayalar’s words assumed for me a pathos and power that they never had before. PT’s testimony through death clothed them with a fresh garment of feeling and meaning. Till PT chose this song as the background music to his last journey it was only a treat to my ears. Now it has become a banquet to my Keraleeyatha.
PT is to Vayalar, what Paul was to the teachings of Jesus. But for his heroic endeavours, the Way of Jesus would have, for aught we know, remained confined to Palestine. The world would have been unthinkably poorer, had that been the case. Just as PT caused the incomparable Vayalar song to be ‘born again’ in my heart with fresh power and pathos, the life and mission of Paul enabled the work of Jesus Christ to reach the bosom of people across the continents. Even today it is mostly through the lens of St. Paul that we see Jesus. So, Paul was not, after all, bragging when he said that Jesus’ power is perfected through his endeavours.
The answer to this question lies in the fact that a Vayalar needs a PT to remain alive in a cinematic dullard like me. It was only a few months ago that I stumbled upon the videos of Gireesh Puthencherry in the YouTube. How grateful I am that I have! As he shares his appreciation of the film songs from the past –the lyrics of Vayalar, P. Bhaskaran, Sreekumaran Thampi, Bichu Thirumala, and others- they assume a new life, a fresh fragrance in my experience. I feel privileged to see the great lyricists of Kollywood through the light-filled eyes of Gireesh Puthencherry, who has become my favourite lyricist.
At any rate, that liturgy has had its play in the mock-burials he had been given, while alive, in the full panoply of priestly paraphernalia, in five places in the wake of the Gadgil Report. His church burial thus over, PT was free to choose what, he felt, best bespoke the core of his life.
Let PT rest in peace. We have a life to live. How shall we live it? ‘Do the work of light,’ Jesus said, ‘while there is light’; for the time is coming, when no man can do any work. Here’s a small personal anecdote to indicate the power of these words in an unusual context. In the course of one of my conversations with Vice President Hamid Ansari, the issue of corruption popped up. I told him that ‘work’ is the sole medium of corruption and that the only way this epidemic can be eradicated is by evolving a robust work culture combined with self-respect via work. In that context I quoted these words from the 9th chapter of St. John. The impact it had on the Vice President was dramatic. ‘Where in the Bible are these words?’ He asked, almost rising from his seat in respect. I gave him the reference and he promised to look up the chapter.
The tragedy that has befallen the Way of Jesus Christ is that it has been nailed down to the coffin of man’s stereotypical ways and assumptions. We have fixed notions about how the teachings of Jesus are to be ‘proclaimed’ and how ‘souls are to be won’. Jesus on the Emmaus road showed the way. It made hearts burn with understanding. That’s the way; there is no other.

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