DNC: First Impressions

I arrive at DNC before dawn after a 30-hour train ride from Ernakulam (Kerala), a 1,400km journey. It is hard to make out anything beyond the silhouettes of trees on either side of the drive up to the house (and it's impossible at that hour and that state of wakefulness to accurately judge even the length of the drive!) and a dark, forbidding house that stretches away into the shadows on either side. Once inside, the corridors felt labyrinthine. I am shown the philosophers' chapel on the way to my room. Mass is in just half an hour, so I make my way there in the dark.

A single incandescent bulb (which may or may not pass current EU regulations) is lit in the chapel. A silent scholastic starts preparing the altar for Mass. Other silhouettes meditate silently seated on the floor in the lotus position. I have brought my copy of Morning & Evening Prayer (Collins: London, 1976) with me, but it's too dark to read. I take up a position off to the side of the chapel. Then the scholastics (both philosophers and theologians – since this is exam/holiday time) start streaming in. Communion hosts are dropped into a special paten of traditional Indian design for the offertory. Hymn books are passed out. At 7:40am, the Mass begins.

I remember reading somewhere that over 20% of the Indian population speaks English. At over 200 million people, that makes India second only to the United States as the largest English-speaking nation in the world. At DNC, the medium of communication is usually English (except when scholastics/priests meet in province groups.) The daily Mass, too, is in English. But it's Indian English – English in a distinctively Indian lilt and rhythm, idiom and connotation.

Hans-Georg Gadamer highlighted the importance of linguistic/cultural tradition in understanding and interpretation. Given the importance of philosophical hermeneutics at JDV, it's not surprising that the liturgy and normative liturgical spaces at DNC have been interpreted with great intelligence and sensitivity within an apparent pan-Indian tradition. A larger-than-life painting of the Risen Jesus in the lotus position under the wisdom tree adorns the sanctuary wall of the chapel. The readings are read from a pedestal similar to the ones used to support the holy books of other faiths. The altar is a low table behind which the priest-celebrant sits on the floor. I may yet reflect more on this as the days and weeks pass.

After Mass, a hurried breakfast in a great hall with the sounds of over 100 young philosophers trying to swallow down pancakes with coconut chutney, have a pleasant chat and revise their points for the exams – all at the same time.

I'm tired, so I return to my room for a nap.