When I was a young boy, my parents sent me to a boarding school run by Irish Christian Brothers a few miles outside our city in India.
I was sent there even though I was a Sikh and not a Christian, because it was reputed to provide a good education.
I was about 11 years old when, during the school year, I had a bit of a windfall. It was the time of the year when the Catholic kids in the middle school participated in a retreat, and we, the non-Catholics, got a 10-day holiday as a result.
So, I arrived home one day, mid-week, and announced I had a holiday for ten days.
"What's the holiday for," asked my father, puzzled by my unexpected arrival.
"Oh, the Christians are having a retreat. So, I'm home," I explained, with muted glee.
Still puzzled, my father pressed on: "What's a retreat?"
I explained it's a time for prayer and meditation for the Christians. They read the Bible, the Brothers and Priests talk to them about religious matters, the kids listen, think about various matters, question a bit, spend a lot of time on their own, contemplating, studying, learning, finding out about their religion.
"Hm-mm-m. So? What's Christian about that?" asked my father.
I shrugged my shoulders.
Wasn't it obvious, I thought.
"Why can't you participate in this retreat?" he asked. "They pray, you pray; they meditate, you meditate; they think, you think; they contemplate, you contemplate. What's Christian about that? You listen to them, listen to their prayers and discourses; but only you can decide what goes on in your head!"
Within minutes, to my utter consternation, I was shipped back to school.
That
year and every year after that until I completed high school, I lost
my holiday. I had to participate in the retreat.
I've often thought of that first time when I felt traumatized by my father's stance.
Since I am, like all other male Sikhs, a Singh - a lion - it is the only instance I know of when a lion was thrown to the Christians!
A complete reversal of roles from the biblical story of Daniel that I oft heard during those very days.
I've often wondered what must have gone through my father's mind when he shipped me back to school that day, straight into a Christian den - knowing full well that I would be exposed for 10 full days, with no protection, no refuge.
Surely, he must have worried about how my own beliefs would fare when confronted with those of another religion.
Surely, he must have worried about proselytizing, about my being swamped by numbers or overwhelmed by arguments.
Yet, he threw me right into their midst!
I spent eight years in that school. And, you know, not once, not for a moment did I ever consider changing my religion as an option.
I grew up proud of my own religion, my own traditions and beliefs; but, more importantly, I grew up understanding Christianity ... and appreciating it. And learned as a result how to be a better Sikh by being respectful of the beliefs of others.
I believe it gave me the very template of how to approach other religions, any religion, all religions.
In fact, I believe that I grew up, directly as a result of that stance taken by my father in asking "What's Christian about that?" with the intrinsic belief that if I truly strive to be a good Sikh, I cannot help but be a Christian. And vice versa: if one is a true Christian, one cannot but also be a Sikh, and, of course, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, etc., at the same time. And so on and so forth.
But, what would have happened if my father had said to me: "Good. You are right. You should not be participating in this retreat business. You are a Sikh, they are Christians. Be careful of them."
It's this us-and-them business that complicates our lives and warps perfectly normal people and their perfectly normal, healthy, wholesome values out of shape and beyond all recognition.
The willingness to be open - and no small credit should go to the good Irish Christian Brothers; after all, they were willing to have me hang around in their midst when they could very easily have said no - and the willingness to take a risk, the willingness to teach, the willingness to learn, were the crucial ingredients.
And the willingness to ignore the demarcation line between us and them at a crucial point helped to erase that line forever.
I believe I'm all the richer for it.
All because a young lion was thrown one day half a century ago, right into a Christian den!