Changing notions of alms and charity

From historic Antakya, which was buried by the earthquake, to Zarqa, formerly a British airbase and the site of our hijacking, the stations of my heart were forming

Lent, observed by Christians, is meant to usher in a period of abstinence, almsgiving, and fasting. This year, the period sadly coincided with the earthquake that destroyed much of historic Antakya (in modern-day Turkey), home to the Orthodox Syrian Christian church. The Eastern Church, as it was known, preceded the arrival of Christianity in Europe. It is believed that Orthodox Christianity traversed this region on its way to southern India. The pain and suffering that have befallen millions in the region has made my reflections about abstinence, almsgiving, and fasting even more fastidious this time around.

A lifetime of public service took my parents far from Bengaluru, the place of my birth. They worked as educationists in Nigeria in the 1960s, beginning their teaching careers in schools in Biafra, and soon became caught up in the civil war over there. My sister was born during the war and was cradled in the arms of a local politician who would soon become President Azikiwe of the newly independent Nigeria. Many years later, when my sister pursued a green card in the US, she had to trace back her birth certificate to that very hospital in Nigeria.

Three months after I was born, on one of my parents’ yearly trips to Bengaluru, I too was on my way to Nigeria. We followed a familiar route that characterised air travel in the 1970s—all roads led to London! En route from Mumbai to Lagos, it was mandatory to refuel in Beirut, Lebanon. I am sure it did not consciously register to my parents then that we were orbiting the same region from where it would be possible to trace my cultural roots to southern India. As our British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) flight, strangely labelled Golf November, rose into the sky fully loaded with high-octane jet fuel, we were hijacked by the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); we called it our 9-11.

Several years into my life, when I landed in Jordan as part of a United Nations mission from Germany, I was asked at immigration if it was my first trip to the country. I smiled and said yes. But I could not help but let it be known to the chairman of the conference that I was attending the conference to tell the truth about my connections to the region.

From the historic downtown of Antakya, which was buried by the earthquake, to Zarqa, formerly a British airbase and the site of our hijacking, the stations of my heart were forming. The 1970 Time magazine cover story detailed the events surrounding Black September, when several planes departing from Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland to the United States were re-routed and made to land at the specially created Revolution Airstrip in the Jordanian town of Zarqa.

When I arrived just before the pandemic to take up a professorship in the US, little did I know that I would soon be diagnosed with cancer or that I would finally have an answer to a question that accompanied me for most of my adult life as I travelled to study and work overseas: was it all worth it? The answer came to me as I stood face-to-face with my oncologist, who happened to be from Nigeria. Her mother could well have been one of the several women that my parents had mentored during their time in Nigeria, I thought. In an instant, Dr Ajala and I were exchanging notes. She grew up in the Northwest, I was told, a kindred spirit in whose hands I now place my hopes of a revival.

Mount Nittany Hospital, where I am being treated for cancer, bears resemblance to Mount Sinai and Mount Nebo, other places that I vividly remember from my extended visit to Jordan in 2018. What does abstinence mean in this difficult period as Zarqa has transformed into one of the largest refugee camps hosting Syrian refugees fleeing war and natural disasters? George Habash, a PFLP commander, famously said that as the passengers were being freed from the hijacked planes in 1970, several offered him money in return.

It is no surprise that my notion of almsgiving has also progressively taken on a more reflexive view, as has that of fasting, considering that another lease on my life could still very well be possible under the care of my Nigerian doctor in Pennsylvania.

(The writer is co-director, The Climate Panel, Pennsylvania.)