The Lost Supper -- another view
By Allwyn Fernandes
allwyn.fernan...@gmail.com
I know this is going to upset many, but I must raise it.
Ancy D'Souza has written a letter to Jaideep Bose,
Editor of The Times of India protesting against the
cartoon titled "The Lost Supper" in the Sunday
Times of India issue dated July 25, 2010. You can
see the cartoon at
http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?pageid=18&pagesize&edid&edlabel=TOIM&mydateHid=25-07-2010&pubname&edname&publabel=TOI
Ancy (and many others who share his sentiments on Facebook)
says that the cartoon has hurt the religious sentiments of
Christians deeply by projecting Laxman's Common Man as the
centre of the Lost Supper, with politicians of all hues
sitting around him. The cartoon symbolises the situation in
India today, especially over the past year -- as food prices
spiral upwards and politicians serve up empty promises, the
common man is left empty-handed and with an empty stomach.
But Ancy sees it differently: "You have made mockery of our
religious beliefs. Kindly apologize for the blunder you have
created or else we may have to plan a very stringent course
of action," says his letter to Bose, the editor of The Times.
But is the cartoon really offensive and has it made a mockery
of our religious beliefs?
If Ancy visits my home, above my dining table is a painting
from the Philippines titled "Table of Hope." It depicts Jesus
at the table, with a lot of ragged and dirty street urchins
around him instead of the apostles. There is also a cute
little urchin hiding under the table!
Everyone who has dined at my table has marveled at
the artist's depiction of what Jesus would do today
-- round up and invite us to his table not priests,
bishops and cardinals in pink fancy wear, not even
us Catholics praying in churches.
No, he would round up the urchins, the poor and the hungry at
our railway stations and bus stands and in our schools and
break bread with them. Yes, there is deep hunger even in
Mumbai -- thousands come to school hungry even in our
Catholic schools because their parents have no jobs or the
money to give them a proper meal. That picture was not given
to me by an atheist or agnostic, but by a solid SVD priest,
Fr Franz-Josef Eilers, Secretary of the Office of Social
Communications of the Federation of Asian Bishops'
Conferences.
I believe that the Sunday Times of India cartoon, by using a
scene that symbolizes Christianity's most solemn moment,
depicts the picture in India today very powerfully.
What are we protesting against? Did not Jesus say "whatever
you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me"? Did He
not say, and have countless artists down the centuries not
portrayed good being done to the poor, the hungry, the sick,
the tired and the dispossessed as being done to Jesus
himself? Then how are our sentiments hurt?
That Common Man in the cartoon, dispossessed of his
meal, represents Jesus himself. And around him in
the cartoon you see politicians of all hues,
fussing around him. Was everyone around the last
Supper pure of heart? Did you not have a Judas whom
countless artists have painted with his thirty
pieces of silver? And did not Peter refuse to let
Jesus wash his feet? Didn't those 12 men that we
believe were round the table with Jesus at his last
meal not human beings, with all their human
failings -- just like those depicted in the
cartoon?
It is time to take a broader view.
That cartoon is something I would enlarge and put up in every
church and use for reflection of the hunger that exists in
our country today -- hunger of every kind, while the
politicians huff and puff without purpose around the hungry
Common Man at the centre of it all.
--
Fernandes was earlier the chief reporter of the Times of
India, Bombay for a long stint.
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