Building bridges for 26 years

CANACONA: Born a Catholic, he swears by the Holy Bible, but has read the Dnyanesh-wari (commentary on the Bhagavad Gita written by the Marathi saint-poet Dnyan-eshwar) and holds the Quran in high esteem. During his childhood, his family would play host to Hindu tribals in their humble tenement at Palolem by the sea, and also often enjoy the hospitality at the homes of their Muslim friends.Sanskrit, Portuguese, Konkani and Marathi enjoyed equal status in his house as the elders would converse in all these languages with ease and élan.

Meet Socorro Fernandes, who has single-handedly been organizing all-religion prayer meetings at Canacona every year for the last 26 years. Socorbab, as he is popularly known among the locals (the suffix -bab is a Goan salutation of respect), says that his early grounding in religious equality and inter-faith activities sowed the seeds for conceptualization of an event that would bring together leaders of all religions and faiths on a single platform. “An idea which was borne out of a deep yearning for a barrier-less society took the shape of an annual all-religion prayer meeting — an event that is steeped in spirituality, yet without being rooted in any particular ism,” says Fernandes.
The 26th all-religion prayer meeting will be held on Sunday at Chaudi, Canacona, where heads of various religions and faiths will converge to deliver their homilies. “Around 9-10 heads of various faiths from Goa and neighbouring states, including those of Jainism, Budhism, Sikhism and Bahai faiths, have confirmed their participation in the programme. Each speaker will be given five minutes to speak and five minutes to read a passage from their respective scriptures. The uniqueness of the programme is that, unlike other inter-faith prayer meetings, our gathering is addressed by heads of respective faiths and not by the laity,” Fernandes said.
The all-religion prayer meeting evolved, Fernandes elucidates, from the need to help inculcate a feeling of amity among students of different faiths who were receiving training in the typewriting institute he had founded way back in the late 80s in Canacona. Aptly named Vividha, meaning one composed of diversity, the typewriting institute has helped many a poor student embark on a successful career, avers Fernandes, the institute’s principal.
“In this typewriting institute, we had copies of the Quran, the Bhagawad Gita and the Bible; I thought why not hold an all-religion prayer meeting in our premises? During the initial years, we would invite leaders of various religions to address our students. But as the strength of our students grew, the premises turned out to be largely inadequate to accommodate our guests, students and ex-students. We then started holding this event on public platforms. Since then, I have received a lot of support and cooperation from the locals, and the annual event is receiving a fairly good response,” Fernandes told STOI, adding that the finances for the organization of the event comes largely from voluntary contributions.
Prod him a bit more, and Fernandes, who is usually reticent about his humble upbringing, reveals that his grounding in the students’ movement in his salad days inspired him to contribute his might towards fighting injustice in the larger objective of achieving his dream of a “society sans discrimination” — discrimination on the lines of caste, religion, faith, language, and of course, political views.
“Is that too much to ask for?” Soccorbab demands to know.