missionary position

once in a rare while i end up with an excellent seat on a flight. my london-madras leg put me in a window seat on the wing, behind the emergency row. it's a row of 3, with the row in front having only 2 seats. the seat by the window is eliminated thanks to the protruding emergency door. so lots of leg room for me. couldn't have been happier. my neighbors were a young skinny black couple, who looked very introverted and seemed to keep to themselves. the girl wore a black headscarf. the guy was absorbed in the book he was reading and taking lots of notes. two black guys, an older balding gent and an early twenties tall lanky kid, were our neighbors to the front. there was one other black couple that i saw getting on the flight while in line, but i didnt see where they sat. a black american group that has all the women wearing headscarves heading to madras was a total novelty to me. i first assumed the younger members of the party were students heading to some college, maybe manipal. but obviously with 10 hours to spare on the flight i had time to get all the details. or so i thought.

i'm not normally the sort to strike up conversation with random flight mates. but this was one that i just could not pass up. about 2 hours into the flight i decided to get a sense for what the group was about. the girl, whose name i never caught, was not very forthcoming.

"are you on vacation to madras?", i asked. a lame opening, but i was really at a loss for anything better.

"yes". she giggled, which was odd to me, like one of those smiley new agey types.

"your first time?" i persisted.

"yes". she was smiling pleasantly, almost coyly. when i get monosyllabic responses i sometimes feel like maybe they don't want to continue with that line of questioning. but then again i'm stubborn and dense sometimes.

"are you traveling around, or on a package tour or something?". now i'm reaching for gaps to pry open.

"i think we're just going to be around madras" she said. sometimes the prying works. "but i'm not completely sure. i'm going as part of the group.". aha, so the black entourage *is* together.

"should be fun. where are you guys from?" i ask.

"north carolina".

"are you on a student trip?" i'm still getting the vibe that something's a bit strange with the group, but want to get at the details obliquely.

"we're traveling as part of my church. um, we're going to do some missionary work." there's definitely a sense that she did not want to put out this message too clearly. probably for good reason!

i now realize that the husband, who's on the aisle seat, is reading a rather large bible with lots of annotations and footnotes, and he's taking down notes on a per chapter basis. he's got a spiral binder with pages that have the book name at the top of the page, and each ruled line numbered with a chapter title. he was on romans chapter 22.

"oh nice" is all i say. i want to ask what kind of missionary work, but the shyness of the girl, and the fact that the husband is studiously writing away, and the guys in front who both have heard my conversation so far and seem to be pointedly ignoring it all makes me stop for a while. i actually try to get some kind of response from the older gent when he's up a couple of times, but that goes nowhere as well.

i'm a very judgemental person when it comes to religious zealots. missionaries fall squarely within that category no matter how good the work they're doing. and believe me, i'm not on the whole anti-conversion bandwagon - i just don't like to have some whacko religious order that believes that some dude who got nailed to a cross for a few hours is the reason for my salvation. on the other hand, this girl is really nice, so i decide to hold back my sentiments and be nice. i'll put aside my irkedness to be civil since what else can i do at 30k feet?

i had written these people off as yahoos, but i start getting really bored with my books another 2-3 hours in. so i bring the topic back up to the girl.

"you said you were part of a church group? what kind of missionary work are you doing?" those who know me realize that i'm now looking for an opening for an argument. a way to dismiss what this girl believes. it's pointless and mean but that's me.

"i'm not really sure. i think we're going to visit some orphanages, and we're going to a conference", she really sounds unsure of what she's doing now, rather than attempting to be oblique. she reaches over to a bag by her husband's feet and pulls out a folder. inside are some printed sheets with instructions, directions and a schedule - sort of like a convention program. they're going to the ascension church in madras. i decide i need to look it up when i get net access. there's nothing of real depth in the info that's in the folder. just overviews that proved addresses and contact details.

i'm now completely deflated, plus my traditional tam-bram hospitality sentiments start welling up. how could i have been ready to diss this poor girl when she's a guest in my hometown? i actually start having pangs of guilt!

"well i hope you have a good time with them. if you can you should try to go around a see a few things in the area. would be a shame to have come all this way and not really get a sense for the history of the place." this is my attempt at tourist hospitality. i think i need to be retrained!

"thanks", she giggles again.
oy vey! i really should be minimally thankful that someone is thinking about the wellbeing of the masses all over the world. given the degree to which the under-classes in india have been fucked, there should not be an iota of distaste in my mouth for those that want to provide a helping hand. but it kills me that all the missionary work is done with such callousness. i can just see pat robertson and his godamm 700 club saving the indian heathen for the rapture. that's the shit that gets under my skin and makes me crazy. the fucking bastards put out their version of moral rightness which is like a subliminal inquisition. it's a virus that will destroy what little culture there is here.

but then again the indian heathen coexist with far more ruthless parasites on a daily basis. pat robertson and his savior cronies are merely on the level of tapeworm, rather than flesh-eating bacteria!