Munnar Church Sharon Alice Christy Ponmudi   © Copyright 2024 by Sharon Alice Christy Ponmudi

Photo courtesy of the author.

Even from a distance, I could easily make out the cross-shaped architecture. It was a tall structure, with a bell tower at the top. A long corridor with sloping roofs housed the actual interior. The bell itself had been imported from Scotland along with a grand piano that was said to be still inside the chapel. The stained glass windows and granite exterior gave it its famed gothic-touch. Against the backdrop, stood another little hill with a dirt road that rose and fell with the uneven landscape before fading into the horizon. The buildings dotted on the path appeared to be the church offices and residences.

It was Sunday so the church was already in session. Since I could not enter, I decided to go around the premises. Perhaps I would see the cemetery which had been the beginning of it all. The sign board that stood opposite the church entrance recounted that familiar story that had prompted my journey. Everything looked so well-preserved from the outside. Would the interior look the same, I wondered.

Soon enough, I could hear the familiar phrases that signalled the close of the service. “Pitha, Kumaran, Parisutha Aaviyin Naamathinaale…” (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost), the somewhat distorted male voice hummed the benediction. Anytime now, the church-goers would file out the doors, shooting wary glances at the strangers who had appeared at the end of service.

Once the bell rang, the congregation walked down the parking lot speaking to each other in a cosy mix of Malayalam and Tamil. The service had been in Tamil but the congregation seemed to be able to speak both languages. It was a testament to the multicultural legacy of the church. A few came over to say ‘hello’ to Amma (mother). It did not take long for my cheerful mother to effortlessly engage them in a conversation of which her social-distancing daughter took no part, opting to remain a spectator.

They were happy to discover we were Tamil.

“Tamil? Where from, exactly?”

“Oh, no, we’ve lived here pretty much all our lives”.

“The service starts at 8 AM, you know, but don’t worry, there’s another one at 2 PM today. You should come…”

What surprised me was how ordinary and commonplace they made the church sound. While it was understandable that their familiarity with the place should make them view it simply as a house of worship, it astounded me that they could overlook the old-world heritage and its storied history. Later, I would learn the true state of affairs for myself when I stepped into the empty church. Ahuja speaker sets mounted on ageless granite walls, wire-coils running down the sides of damaged, irreplaceable stained-glass windows. Outside, gleaming silver rails ran around the face of the hillock, creating a lovely sit-out area that somehow jarred with the solemnity of this antique granite edifice. Two paths merged here, the mossy stone pathway and the broad cement road the cars took.

They were friendly enough as was the pastor, who upon learning we were CSI Christians, offered to pray for us. He reiterated the invitation for the afternoon worship. As for me, I was not there for the service. I was there for that incredible story.

It was November 1894. A young couple strolled along the rolling landscape of Munnar. They were not of the country. Henry Mansfield Knight, an Englishman, was a manager of the Kannan Devan Hills tea plantations in Munnar during the days of the British Raj. His wife, Eleanor, had just descended on Indian soil following her wedding to him a few weeks earlier.

Eleanor Isabel Knight née Eleanor Isabel May was in love with more than her husband. With its misted mountains and gentle summers, her new home was closer to the land she’d left behind than the rest of the new country. Its serene beauty made her say something few young brides would say.

She expressed her wish to be buried in Munnar when she died. The next day, the 24 year old Englishwoman fell sick with cholera, eventually passing away on the 23rd of December. I can only imagine the kind of Christmas that was in store for her husband that year.

Eleanor Knight's remains were interred on a little hillock where a marble headstone read out the cursory details, whose wife she was, whose daughter she was, and when she died.

The first European to be buried in Munnar, her funeral and subsequent burial was the first in the series of funerals that followed– other Europeans who had made a home of Munnar were laid to rest in the surrounding area. To this was added the local Christian population, causing the need for a cemetery. After a proper consecration in 1900, a funeral register was started, bearing Knight’s name as the first entry. Plans for the construction of a church in the immediate vicinity were drawn up. In 1910, the foundation stone was laid by Sir A. K. Muir Bart and a monument of love arose in a place of death.

But there it stood, a blend of the old and new, an eminently Anglo-Indian phenomenon.

Is it ever meet for the old and new world to meet, I mused, while my mother continued her bright and airy conversations with the churchgoers.