And what will find the truth? Love, only Love

I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.

Definitions time!

(But before that, the song that I am alluding to in the title must be given due credit, U2 - Electrical Storm - so much awesomeness)

So often statements like the above are made without proper care to the definitions of the key terms. This can be problematic because even if the definitions of the speaker are only slightly different than the definitions of the listener, it can cause grave miscommunication. For example, if a soldier says "I am a man of peace", what he could mean is that I go to war to defend the future peace or a more profound peace than the present. A listener however could think that statement means is that the soldier is claiming to be a person who doesn't fight or who encourages non-violence, and thus the listener could label the soldier a liar or a hypocrite (or if the listener was a very bizarre person he could label the soldier a hippopotamus, but that assumption would probably be unrelated to what the soldier said). The miscommunication here is the definition, both denotative (as in what the literal meaning is) and connotative (as in what ideas and feelings are associated with that meaning), of the word "peace".

In fact, given the uniqueness of everyone's minds, and the immense power of feelings and unspoken ideas to shape our understandings, all meaningful communication contains a degree of miscommunication, especially since even in efforts to clarify the miscommunication we must invoke words/phrases/ideas which are just as likely to be misunderstood.

Yet by expressing ourselves fully (and clearly as well, though with my tendency for rambling that's not going to happen), we can misunderstand less. So before explaining what implications I draw from my sentence "I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.", let me clarify a little my definition of tolerance.

What I believe tolerance means is that you do not consider it a personal flaw to be wrong, and you do not let someone's wrong-ness in one aspect affect all aspects of your relationship. That may sound profoundly intolerant, but let me expand. People hold different views, and even if you can say everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if you are (more or less) certain that point A is right, and point B is opposed to point A, you must (implicitly or explicitly) hold that point B is wrong. Thus even if someone else is entitled to believe point B, if they hold point B, you must consider them wrong on the matter, or reduce the degree of your certainty to just a matter of being certain of point A in the limited ways it applies to you (that is if you think stealing is wrong, but you refuse to admit that this implies that those who feel stealing is okay are wrong, what you really are believing is not that stealing is wrong, but that you stealing is wrong, you just aren't admitting to yourself the real truth of what you believe).

Thus the only way a man of beliefs and ideals can be tolerant is to accept that others can be wrong. And this isn't really so hard, since yes, you too can be wrong. Admitting that you can be wrong isn't a contradiction to believing you are right. After all, if you go outside for a walk, you don't think you'll be mugged, but even in the safest neighborhood, you might get mugged. Moreover, maybe based on limited information, or a flawed thinking process, or maybe bad luck, you can miscalculate the chance of you getting mugged. So you can be wrong, I can be wrong, and that's okay.

But then again, why? Why is it okay? Well, here is something I believe, and as the center of all my beliefs, it is the thing I am most certain I am right on, in fact it is perhaps one thing I don't think I could be convinced that I am wrong on.

That above all else, Love is supreme.

Intertwined with this:

There is a loving God in charge of the universe.

Could I be convinced otherwise? I doubt it. I'm not going to say that I couldn't be wrong on this point, because I admit my mind is not infinite, perhaps there's some way I haven't thought of that I could be convinced otherwise. But this I believe.

Thus above all disagreements, Love must prevail, and thus I strive to be tolerant even when I believe in all earnestness that the other is wrong.

Now let me draw out the implications of "I like to think of myself as a tolerant man."

The implication is tolerance is cool. So don't be an intolerant bum, yeah I'm talking to you Raj Thackeray! (now this may seem like a contradiction, but idiotic bum-iness is the natural outgrowth of a lack of tolerance, as shown by Raj Thackeray, so while I do not hold that this inherently dehumanizes him or that this proves him wrong in other aspects of his person, he is an idiotic bum (actually I'm just kidding, he may very well be a smart man, and may very well be a hard-worker, however the idea of intolerance that he holds is idiotic, wrong and full of bum-iness, and while I believe in tolerance for people, I do not mind saying that some ideas (not people mind you, whether or not they support this idea), ought be given a savage beating for their extreme idiotic-ness (again NOT people, beating people due to politics is also a very idiotic idea)).

I'm back, not quite in black

If any noticed, I had a bit of an unexcused absence for a long weekend, but hah!

Not that I need any excuses from you bums!
BUMS!

I'm just kiddin' I love all you folks out there in Internet-land!

Indeed, I'm bringing quite a bit of love with me now, because I just came back from the 2009 Malankara Catholic Association Convention, Woooo!!!!

Woooo!!!!!!!!

Malankara Catholics rule!

So I got a lot of thoughts and feelings coming out of there. Unfortunately I lost my exact notes (a similar situation happened to me at a certain Rutgersfest some time ago), but still I'm feeling good, and feeling post-y-ish. Although a full account of things will have to wait. Till then peace I'm out a'right?

Just kidding folks, I'm too awesome to exit with that sort of remark. Because I'm just that cool.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Happy St. Thomas' Day

Courtesy of my mother I'd like to give a quick rundown of the history of Christianity in that little SW corner of India called Kerala.

In brief, the St. Thomas Christians remained pretty much as one group until 1599 (Diampur Synod), when Portugese Bishop did a hostile takeover of Syrian Christians. But Portugese power waned and in 1653, some of the new Christians could not take the loss of traditional worship. They revolted and had a pledge to go back to Orthodox worship and tradition.Thus the Syrian Orthodox Church was formed. My family part of the church remained in Roman Catholicism and revived little bit of old tradition. They are Syro-Malabar church. Portugese missionaries also converted lot of Hindus from 1498 onwards and this group is called Latin Catholics.

The Syrian Orthodox church split into several factions. One faction under the Bishop Mar Evanios re-joined Catholic church in 1930. Achacha' family and our New Jersey church belongs to this group. This is called Malankara Syrian Catholic Church

So remember Roman Catholic Church in Kerala has three groups or independent 'rites' or form of worship. The The Latin rite, Syro-Malabar rite and Malankara Syrian catholic rite. I should say four, if I include the Kananya Church.

The Syrian Orthodox Church that remained away from the catholic church has three other famous factions: One is called the Othodox Church to which belongs Shaji Achacha's family. They have large congregations in the US and Achacha's friend Thankanchan uncle's family also belongs to this one.

Now there are 17 million Catholics in India, 7 million are Syrian Christians, about 500,000 are Malankara Syrian Catholic.

I was for years trying to figure out where these different factions arise and how they are connected. Now it is all easy to find out from Wikipedia.

And that's my mother (Thresia Thomas)!

Tipu, if not Sultan then what?

My brother's doing a report on Tipu Sultan, and since he is a most fascinating character I thought I might share a little on the man with you.

But here I'd like to display a little of my oft-maligned superpower, random history knowledge off the top of my head, so there will be no references here, there will be perhaps a few errors, ah, but this should be interesting. (I'll try to give a more researched overview of Tipu Sultan in the future)

First of all, for those who do not know, Tipu Sultan was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in the late 18th century. Mysore now is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka (I did look up the proper spelling there, but just so I could avoid any offense), but it once was a center of a Kingdom that covered perhaps a good 1/3 to 1/2 of South India. Tipu Sultan was not born of the line of Mysore Maharaja's that are there today. Rather his father overthrew that line, which was restored after Tipu Sultan's death.

It is interesting then to note that Tipu Sultan was essentially a usurper, and the fight between him and the British was between two usurpers, ah, but India in those days was a land of usurpers.

In those days of the late 18th century, the British East India Company was near hegemony (although not quite dominance) in North India and was making deep in roads into South India. The great forces which could oppose it, such as the Mughal Empire or the Maratha Confederacy were in steep decline. The French remained even their influence was starting to drop. One striking exception (there were a few others such as the Sikh's to the northwest and the Afghans, but those are other stories), was the Kingdom of Mysore. Whereas other powers were declining, Mysore was ascendant, and Tipu Sultan was an important cause of that ascent.

There were other causes, such as the wise management of his father, the key location of Mysore in trade routes, and Mysore's position within the Franco-British contest, but Tipu Sultan was a strong ruler. He centralized the state, abolished the tax farmers, modernized the military, essentially accomplished all those steps which would save the monarchies of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Thailand in later years. In short he was a formidable foe to the British expansion on the subcontinent.

The details of the Anglo-Mysore wars are beyond off-my-head knowledge, but they did involve the future Duke of Wellington, who was prouder of his victories here than those in Europe. But to summarize, while the first was a draw, the second saw Mysore gain, and the third saw Mysore weakened, and the fourth left Mysore a British dependency and Tipu Sultan dead.

The difficulty of defeating Tipu Sultan and that tantalizing counter-factual of his victory continues to taunt historians. Unlike some of the more recent historians, I do not wish to romanticize Tipu Sultan. He was ruthless, the surrounding states of South India were justified to be afraid of him and probably got better deals from the British to oppose him than Tipu would have given them. Moreover, he did devastate the countryside of Malabar in his campaigns there. Yet he was a strong and talented ruler, who did shape and develop his kingdom well. And he represents an alternate possibility. In essence, he did many of the steps that made the British East India company a formidable force within his own country. Could he have been the ruler of India? Could he have forced a split? Ah, but the could's of history are many, and while worth pondering, require more than off-the-top of my head knowledge. Maybe another day.

I hope therefore you have an idea of why Tipu Sultan is worthy of my brother's report. An impressive man, a cruel man, a blood-soaked man, a great ruler, essentially an important historical figure, with all the ambivalence of history carried in his name.

The Beginning of an Empire

One of the topics that's always intrigued me is the colonization of India. That's not too surprising considering my Indian lineage, but in fact my family experienced little of the colonization directly. My grandparents lived in areas of India that were either princely states or lightly governed, and the major impact of the independence movement on S. India, that is the impact it had on the caste system in S. India was also removed from my grandparents given that they were Christian. That is not to say my ancestors were removed from history, there were probably some indirect effects of the independence movement on my grandparents, but the bigger historical influence on my forefathers was the reunification of a branch of the Malankara Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church. Of course, with my parents themselves the post-independence history had an effect, but I am digressing in a majorly fashion.



As I said how a joint-stock company crafted a major empire over one of the most ancient areas of civilization on earth while the only other major area of colonization was in the Americas is an oft wondered question for me.



I hesitate to offer a speculation just yet, especially since I have been around professors who have speculated much better about the matter. But I offer this:



The rise of the British East India Company must be taken within the background of the decline and disintegration of the Mughal Empire.



Now up to 1707 the Mughal Emprie was one of the most powerful empires in the world.

Yet within a decade later, its decline had become epidemic.



1717 is often cited as one of the dates marking the beginning of the British East India Company's rise, but I think it would be useful to put this date in context.



In reference to the British East India Company, 1717 marks the date when the Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar completely waived trading dues (well, in exchange for 3000 rupees a yr.) for British East India Company trade in Bengal and gave them a grant of 38 villages near Calcutta. This would firmly establish them in the Bengal trading/military scene which would lead to their first major conquest, the Presidency of Bengal.



Yet let's take a look at 1717.



This was also the year the Mughals signed a treaty acknowledging Maratha Empire rule over the Deccan in exchange for nominal overlordship and annual taxes. Considering a little more than 30 years earlier the Mughal Empire had executed the Maratha Paramount Ruler who was then considered a rebel, 1717 is a year marking the incredible decline of Mughal authority.



A little more context:



Emperor Farrukhsiyar was to some degree a puppet of the more able, but less legitimate (as imperial legitimacy goes) Saiyid Brothers, major power brokers of the Mughal court whose struggle for dominance was a key factor in the weakening of Mughal rule.



This era also saw the Mughals struggling to repel advances by the Sikh Confederacy, the Sikhs were repelled by 1716 but even afterwards Sikh rebellions and eventually independence would fatally weaken Mughal strength in NW India.



Furthermore, in Bengal itself Mughal authority was questionable.



Thus while the East India Company got a grant of villages near Calcutta in 1717, despite the orders of the Mughal Emperor, their grant of duty-free trade was ignored by many of Bengal governor who would later become Marathas with only a nominal allegiance with the Mughal court.



Thus the decline of the Mughal Empire must be seen as vital in the circumstances that allowed for the rise of the British East India Company. But is that enough of an explanation?



Doubt it.



I hope to go into more of this in my chronology of India, but here's another factor:



The Maratha Empire, which supplanted the Mughal Empire as India's dominant power, was never able to establish a firm centralization and is often called the Maratha Confederacy. Furthermore, even before coming into major conflict with the British East India Company, in 1761 the Maratha Empire was dealt a huge blow to its stability by an invasion from the growing Durrani Empire, the predecessor to the modern state of Afghanistan. The Afghanis did not keep their advances, but they did do a pretty major pillaging job.



This has been a classic NW India problem, being right next to a major imperial area (Persia whose influence on Central Asia often caused imperial rises or destablizations, India itself was often an imperial player in Central Asia). NW India was in somewhat better shape but often had to deal with the impact of the changing fate of the Burmanese Empire.



But all this information is a bit thick and a bit speculative, which is why I shall continue work on my chronology to hit both those fronts.



Only then can the history cometh.

India, A Chronology: Prologue

Greetings, good readers!
Now I am not normally one to put up large blocks of names and dates, but I have done just that in my previous post. The reason why is that I feel that good hard names and dates, especially in regards to India, a country dear to my heart, are often lacking in these modern times.

Recent teaching methodology has dismissed the importance of names and dates and I agree to a degree. The essence of history is not names and dates, but the stories. The rich strands of narratives that drive forward events and ultimately make up who we are, that is what history is truly about! Often bombarding kids with names and dates will just alienate them from the true core of history. Yet names and dates are valuable. If a person can recall names and dates without any hesitation, his or her analytical thoughts can flow without interruption. I have never mastered that level of memorization but I still find knowing a few names and dates off the top of my head is a very valuable trick.

But what intrigued me most about names and dates in regards to India, is how much the historiography of India has been dominated by ideas of general forces, overall trends, and vague cultural assessments. I am not disagreeing with that school of historiography, or even that general forces drive history, but without grounding these general ideas in names and dates, historical analysis becomes mere speculation. Names and dates can often concretely link events and paint out a picture of what exactly is happening so that clear and concrete trends can be deciphered. And even when broad trends are apparent, having precise names and dates to back them up can help shut down any cliquish resistance.

Now, do not get the idea that I am making some grand criticism of historical research done in the past about India. I have great respect for most India scholars, both Indian and non-Indian, in the field today. All I want to do is add a tool to their and my investigative endeavors, and thus I am attempting to make an easy to use, easy to read chronology of India. By necessity, due to the intertwined nature of national histories, I am covering to some degree regional history, but my main focus is on India. Perhaps if I have the time I will put some effort on covering the chronology of other lands, but for now India is my destination. So let us go, post-haste!

India, a Chronology: Part I

1498 - Portuguese under Vasco da Gamma arrive at Kappad (near Calicut (Kozhikode), Kerala) in the kingdom of Saamoothiri (I'm unsure if this is the name of the kingdom, but it is at least the name of the ruler, the kingdom centered on Calicut and ruled over the surrounding areas of Kerala). Establishing the trade route between Portugal and India via the Horn of Africa (there are some sources which suggest that Greeks knew of this route before hand, but none of the sources are very strong).



1510 - Portuguese under Afonso de Albuquerque capture Goa and establish a Portuguese colony in the city of Goa and its surrounding area.



1600 - British East India Company founded as a joint-stock company with a 15-year monopoly over British trade in the East Indies (India and SE Asia) in its founding charter, granted by Queen Elizabeth.



1602 - Dutch East India Company founded (VOC based on its Dutch initials) as a joint-stock company with a 21-year monopoly over Dutch trade in the East Indies in its founding charter, granted by the Dutch States-General.



1605 - Mughal Emperor Jahangir begins reign.



1605-1627 - Reign of Mughal Emperor Jahangir



1619 - Mughal Emperor Jahangir grants the British East India Company permission to trade in his territories at Surat (in Gujarat).



1627 - Death of Mughal Emperor Jahangir



1627 - Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan begins reign



1627-1658 - Reign of Shah Jahan



1639 - First British factory in India established at Madras, then called Fort St. George. It was a factory in the sense of the word meaning warehouse.



1658 - Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan overthrown by his son, Aurangzeb. Beginning of the reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.



1658-1707 - Reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb

Arting upwards and onwards or my review of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum

So San Francisco is continuing to be awesome. Now basically while I've been on vacation I've been accumulating sessions to post up in the future, and so I have far, far more than I could possibly actually put up. So... Also, I've been thinking about things and such and making plans and such, so... Well, let me put that all aside for a moment and talk about the San Francisco Asian Art Museum (since I visited it today)

Let me hit up just a few main points because I am sleepy:

First of all: The museum is awesome. That's just how it is.

Also:

- There's a massive amount and diversity of cool stuff

- There's a large regional variety (well, let's say there's a large number of art belonging to several distinct regions: China, Japan, Tibetan Buddhist areas, Southeast Asia, and India), and there's even a decent subregional variety (I got to give credit to the fact that the museum makes a distinction between North India and South India).

- Nice thing about Asian art: colors and details (if that seems like an extremely vague description, well, Asia's an extremely big continent).

- Cool building too, the ceilings are often highly decorated and give a nice atmosphere to the whole museum.

- You can just barely take it all in within a day but that if you do your mind will most likely explode (yeah, that happened to me)

- A lot of the highly detailed works lend themselves to repeat viewing, especially the Indian sculptures and Chinese paintings

However:

- The Southwest Asian and Persian Art section (which for some reason includes Muslim Central Asia) is tiny (one very small room), out of the way (I missed it in my first time around), and there's some nice pieces, but only enough to show they really need to expand this section massively.

- The history stuff is kind of weak, some of it is interesting, but most is superficial and some of it is misleading, however that might just be my history snobbery (I'm actually thinking of creating a separate history webpost so I can post more about history, but I'll cover some of my general complaints, which to be fair I have about most popular histories, in another session).

- Mongolia's gets very little love in the Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist section

- Laos gets no love (although I didn't read all the labels so there might have been some Laotian art) in the Southeast Asia section

- The area's a little ghetto so try to leave there a decent amount before nightfall

Overall pretty awesome stuff. Really gets the brain juices flowing (maybe to the point of overloading) but forget utilitarian arguments the art is just beautiful (especially cool is the jade art exhibits (there's at least both Chinese and Japanese jade art), those exhibits might be temporary though, although they might be permenant, basically I'm not sure on that point. Also, obviously, Indian (or if you want to be politically correct South Asian (which I think, in disagreement with the museum, should include Sri Lanka) Art rocks!!!!)

There's more I could say, but again I'm sleepy so simply: Dude, you should go, dude. Dude.

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Parallel Rand

So I'm back in the US!!!!!!!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!
But India rocked!!!!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!
And now I'm in California!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!

As you can see I'm busy saying Woo!!!!!! So let me just post a little something I'm working on.

As a prelude let me give you a concert video of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Parallel Universe
And for more prelude here's an AMV of Parallel Universe with Gunslinger Girl (an anime I haven't watch but seems either interesting or overly-pretentious)

Finally here's the Lyrics

Finally you're ready for my version of the song:
Dravidian King

(This goes out to all you South Asians, especially you South South Asians and the Brahui and other N. Drav.s, you know who you are)


Deep inside of a parallel universe
(India's like a parallel universe really, but that would take too long to elaborate on)
It's getting harder and harder
To tell what came first
(Dravidians came first, then Aryans you stupid Hindu nationalists!)

Under water where thoughts can breate Easily

Far away you were made in a sea
Just like me
(So why aren't you rocking harder!)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
(Indians are everywhere around the world and we've got a big gross population too, so don't piss us off)
It's everything

Staring straight up into the sky
(Yeah, Indian's are good at that, we've got mad ancient astronomy skills, what!)
Oh my my a solar system that fits
In your eye Microcosm

You could die but your never dead spider web
Take a look at the stars in
Your head fields of space kid
(My father helped build the Indian space program and now they're letting the Chinese overtake them, what's with that?)

Christ
(Let me just point out for a sec that Christians have been in India since the 1st century AD so don't think of us as a religion of foreigners you damn RSS)
I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(And what if Christianity was a religion of foreigners, we're everywhere around the world so aren't we entitled to take the best of everything from every continent)

Christ I'm a sidewinder
(Damn straight I'm a sidewinder, don't you stereotype us brown folk!)
I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything

Psychic changes are born in your heart
Entertain
(Although not all Indians have Eastern mysticism, a term that ignores the diversity of Chinese philosophical thought and the vast and seperate Indian philosophical schools, still we got a awesomely deep spiritual tradition, represent!)
A nervous breakthrough that makes us the
same
Bless your heart girl
(Bless you all really, people are good folk, or can be if they give it a shot)

Kill the pressure it's raining on
(Watch out for monsoons man)
Salty cheeks
When you hear the beloved song
I am with you
(Dravidian men know how to treat a lady)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(Rock it!)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
(Oh yeah!)
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(Rock on South Asians!)

And if all that seems like insane nonsense, well it is, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, and since I'm immensely busy with tons of crazy Cali. stuff, that's all you're going to get for right now. But someday, someday soon, you will find there's much more to this Dravidian King.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Rutgers Rules!

"Rutgers University is inarguably America's cockiest, smartest party school. The only school in history who rejected their Ivy League invitation"
-The Star Ledger
So yeah Rutgers rules, anyways, I'm back from Texas and I have the Robot devil's hands to prove it. Had a great time down there, among the buffulo, or well, maybe not among the buffulo, but among the Malankara youth (basically the type of Catholic I am (well, sort of, since my mother is of the Syro-Malabar rite and I attend Latin rite masses often, I could also be placed into one of those, maybe, possibly, eh, I'll deal with that matter in another session), it has to do with Eastern-rite Catholicism, I'll get into it later). Lot of fun time, a lot better than what I expected from a Christian youth conference. Lots of fun people, some interesting speechs (a couple less interesting ones), a nice basketball tourtament (to prove how fun it was, I'd like to point out that it led to two hospitalizations), some dancing lessons and some nice socializing. To be honest I was a little afraid that the conference would be 1-dimensional and the people there would be 1-dimensional, I suppose this was just me playing into stereotypes, after all I'm a deeply religious person who does deeply religious people and I've got so many dimensions that they're slowly collapsing in on themselves in one of those infinite black hole things. So met some nice people, did some cool stuff, all awesome.

Let me explain Malankara a little before I move on (see I told you I'd get back to it, and I'm sure you thought, oh he's never going to get back to it or he's only going to get back to it months down the line, but here it's coming and you know what that makes you, a bum, yeah that's right, I called you a bum, bet you didn't expect that). See the Catholic world actually consists of several rites, the one that has the most people and which most people know of is the Latin rite, led by the Pope (hence Roman Catholics), but there are other rites. There are a couple very small other Western rites, like the Mozarabic rite practiced historically throughout Spain and Portugal and still in a couple churches in Spain, but most other non-Latin rites are Eastern rites, ie, east of Rome and Latin speaking Europe. These rites came into and out of communion with the rest of the Catholic world through a variety of reasons and ways, a couple actually never fell out of communion. Most Eastern-rite churches, however, find their origin in the split between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, over several issues including some theological and cultural points, but mostly over the pre-eminance of the Pope over the other leaders of the Christian world, especially over the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bzyantine Emperor. This created many Orthodox churches, most in communion with each other but some in a seperate group called the Oriental Orthodox. Over time parts of many of those churches came back into the Catholic fold through reunion movements sponsered (occassionally forcefully so) by various religious and political leaders.

This might explain how the Malankara Catholic Church (sometimes called the Syro-Malankara) was formed but that's not the case (probably, the history is a little hazy and confusing). For the Malankara Church, the initial split from Rome reached back further to the contraversies over Jesus Christ's exact, percise nature (I use this in the general sense, not in the theological sense), this prompted what was called the Nestorian Church (the current descendents of this church dispute this name, I'm kind of hazy on the matter myself, but the proper name for them is the Ancient Church of the East for those still outside the Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church who rejoined the Catholic Church) (let's call them Assyrian Churches since their patriarches were Assyrian) to split off, this being largely the church in Iraq and east of Iraq including India and what would later be the Malankara Catholic Church.

Little confusing, yeah, I'm a little confused by it too at times. Ok, but the situation was that the Indian churches (yes there were Indian churches, started by Saint Thomas, found in the Kerala region of India) was that they were mostly in communion with the churches in Iraq, accept some might have been in communion with churches in Syria, and some might have still been in communion with the Pope and just isolated (my father who knows the matter better than I would probably scold me for not knowing this better if he read this session, but hopefully I'll revisit this sometime when I know matters more certainly).

That was the situation in the 15th century, then the Portugese came. They found the local Christians practicing their own rite and tried to enforce communion with Rome. Some joined willingly, some joined unwillingly, but an Indian-rite denomination (although influenced by Portugese practice (to what degree I'm not exactly sure, it's generally said that the Portugese were not very respectful of the local Indian Christians, on the other hand, the rite that emerged from this was still very much Indian)) was formed in communion with Rome, this was the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. Also at the same time the Portugese baptized some new Christians, these became the Latin-rite Cahtolic Church in India. But some of the local, older Christians were defiant about Portuguese domination and impositions and the force the Portugese used, and these stayed part of the Orthodox Churches or part of the Assyrian Churches or on their own, and some were later influenced by Protestantism and their were other splits and such, it's all very, very confusing.

Anyways, what is more clear, is that Bishop Mar Ivanios, then of the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church, in 1930 led his church and others to reunite with Rome and form the Malankara Catholic Church, of which my father is a member of. I attend the Malankara masses and consider myself a member although I also attend Latin rite masses and like I said my mother is Syro-Malabar. And this church had a North American Youth Conference (Youth being 15-35, with a good number in their 20s) in Houston and that was where I was.

Anyways the important thing is is that the Malankara Catholic Church rocks the house, Catholic rule in general and I had a lot of fun.

So I got ot go to sleep soon, so take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!