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Article: I WAS A TEEN-AGE ATHEIST : Memoirs of a naughty Catholic girlhood.(a Catholic girlhood in India is described, where convictions ranged from atheism to wanting to become a Missionary of Charity with Mother Teresa)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- October 8, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Flames leaped into the horizon. My parents, my sister, Shalini, and I abandoned our dinner to race up to the terrace and watch the blaze. It was Holi, the Hindu spring festival, an explosion of mischief celebrating the god Krishna's shenanigans with the cowgirls. Flung water balloons gushed vermilion; water pistols squirted indigo. Stranger smeared stranger with silver paint stolen from construction sites. Buckets-dishwater? urine?- were emptied from high apartment windows onto passersby. Riotousness and devilry burst forth, a ripe sore.
Durga, our tiny, curly-haired cook, cycled into town and returned, panting with news. A procession of Hindus, chanting bhajans, ...