Jesus Christ

Victor and a local snake charmer

About five kilometers from Saraya lies the township of Chauri Chaura. It has the dubious distinction of going down in history as the place where twenty three police men were burned to death by volunteers, participating in Mahatma Gandhi's Non-Cooperation movement in 1922. By the late 1940's Swedish missionaries had opened an orphanage there and were trying to convert the local Hindu populace to Christianity. The missionaries would often drive over to Saraya to consult Victor about a sick child and he in turn would make the occasional trip to Chauri Chaura to ensure all was well at the mission.

One hot summer afternoon Victor was called to the hospital for an emergency case. He found a woman cradling a limp child in her arms. She was incoherent with grief but somehow managed to convey that her son had been bitten by a cobra.

Victor laid the lifeless body on the operating table where he quickly administered a dose of anti-venom. The little boy responded well and soon could utter a few words,  much to the disbelief of his family. They had never seen anyone recover from a cobra bite, and in their ignorance were convinced that Doctor Sahib had performed a miracle and somehow resurrected their son from the dead.

Word of this incident spread like wild fire and Victor found, much to his dismay, that villagers were bringing him dead bodies of children and loved ones, begging him to just put his stethoscope on them and bring them back to life. It took months to convince people that what he had done was not magic or a supernatural act.

The missionaries at Chauri Chaura had also heard rumours of the wondrous miracle and dropped in to tell a story of their own.

They would regularly organise village meetings to educate the locals in the ways of Christianity and the Bible. At one such gathering they were talking about how Jesus Christ would put his hands on sick people and heal them and how he had bought Lazarus back to life. They exhorted the squatting throng to put their trust in the Lord to make their lives better.

While sermonising furiously, they noticed a little old woman in the front row, listening with  rapt attention and a broad smile of understanding on her face. When they asked her if she had grasped what they were trying to say she glared at them in indignation and snapped "Hum Yesu Masi ko jaante hai! Vo Saraya mein rehte hai!" I have met Jesus Christ! He lives in Saraya.

The dumb founded missionaries claimed  it had taken them only a second to realise that to the simple village folk, Victor could definitely be mistaken for Jesus Christ!