KOLKATA WILL SURVIVE

 

KOLKATA WILL SURVIVE     

Life in cities may be harsh and precarious, but as social organisms they are robust. This paradox surfaced, for instance, in the aftermath of the New York twin tower attack on 11 September 2001, another day that would “go down in infamy” but also in honour since Pearl Harbour and Hiroshima.  Another such urban theatre of World War II was London that was all but razed to the ground by the Blitz, yet proved to be the archetype of a city’s indomitable spirit under stress. “No time for regrets”, “stiff upper lip, Jeeves”, “business as usual” characterised the ethos of the Londoners during those horrific months, a natural source of inspiration that helped rally the New Yorkers, in their turn, after the collapse of the twin towers. Malta, Antwerp and many of the German cities, like Dresden, fared worse than London. Nagasaki and Hiroshima suffered the ultimate and unspeakable horror that “never again” shall happen.

  

And yet, seventy-five years on, all these cities stand proud and tall, proving once again that a city is not its buildings but its citizens. It is not defeated by external assault but by internal decay. When the Romans, glutted on blood and lust, handed themselves over to their slaves, the empire collapsed from within. Babylon, symbol of enslavement to corruption, could not last. Jerusalem, turned towards the Lord and blessed with peace and justice, will turn out resilient. This is true “survival of the fittest”, where fitness is endowed with moral fibre and spiritual muscle. However, despite the understanding that Jerusalem builds up and Babylon self-destructs, no city can pretend to be purely Jerusalem, since Babylon still circulates in the bowels of power and commerce, until purged by the forces of divine love and neighbourly concern, assured by the presence of the Risen Christ.

  

          Kolkata will survive because it has the spirit that cannot be crushed. Such a spirit is kept alive by the networks of charity and dialogue, of small Christian Communities, of the clubs and associations comprising generous workers and professionals, of families and students at the service of the needy. The dwellers of posh high rises and industry’s captains (who park their consciences with their cars before entering their board rooms) may just about notice the poor tenements and slums from a clinical distance, but they do not know from within the informal structures of helpful human relationships among the interactive poor. “It’s the poor what ‘elps the poor” was the by-line of an old cockney one act play. Indeed, well below Kolkata’s rising glass-concrete and underlying its fabulous festivals there are pockets of power of another sort that provide the endurance in Coronavirus and disasters, that gives the city its peculiar charm.

  There have been two great Teresa’s in the long history of the Church: Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux.   In the mid 40’s, the people of Kolkata awoke to the phenomenon of a new apostle in their midst; someone who took them by surprise and with whom every encounter was a refreshment of soul and body. Frail-looking on the exterior, but, robust with rectitude and mobile with the Spirit, she led her legions from the vibrant heart of Kolkata to the wider world of the “poorest of the poor”, as no armies of Alexander or legions of Rome had ever done, and with no more intent of conquest than that of giving them God in the form of a healed and healthy humanity. This woman was inserted into the grand narrative of the God of salvation. There is no nook or cranny left on this earth that has not received the comforting benediction of this apostle. This is the one who illumines the streets and shops, the slums and high rises, the parks and stadiums, the schools and theatres with the transfiguring light of the saints, for the world has awoken to  SAINT TERESA OF KOLKATA!