By Shravan Garg

Indore, April 2, 2023: Not finding words to express my personal grief and the collective loss to the society in the passing away of our dearest Father Varghese Alengaden.

The moment I shared the devastating news with my dental surgeon daughter and her critical care consultant husband in Melbourne, they reacted with an unbelievable shock. Both knew Father Varghese very well with lots of admiration and respect. Both were aware of my love, regards and relationship with Father Varghese spanning over a quarter of a century.

My daughter offered to travel to Indore to console me and my wife. For my son-in-law it was medically an unacceptable development. He was following the medical bulletins I was sharing with him ever since Father Alengaden’s admission to the hospital.

He was not prepared for the final outcome. He angrily reacted that such a tragic death could have never happened in Australia. He is managing ICCUs of two major hospitals in Melbourne.

I had no answer!

I had met with Father Varghese as recently as on March 18 on the eve of my departure to Delhi to participate in a condolence meeting organised to pay homage to Ved Pratap Vedic who had passed away on March 14.

I didn’t disclose to him the reason for my travel to Delhi, as it could have depressed him. I was aware that he knew Vedic very well and also my relationship over seventy years with him.

Fatger Varghese, to my great uneasiness, became very emotional seeing me in his hospital room. It was for the first time in my long relationship with him I saw tears rolling down his soft cheeks defying the specs he was sporting. He asked me to bless him by putting my hand on his head. I did that. I could make out Father Varghese was not well. He was struggling with himself. Neetu Joshi was present in the room watching our conversation silently.

I wanted to see Father Varghese again. I telephoned Neetu on March 25 evening to inquire about father’s wellness and the possibility of seeing him the next evening. To my utter shock I was told that he had already been discharged from Medanta only to be readmitted at Roberts Nursing Home. It was fixed with Neetu that I will visit Father Varghese at 6 pm on March 26 in Roberts Nursing Home and Bincy would be there to help see him from a distance, if allowed.

The worst ever emotional Tsunami struck me at 1:54 pm on March 26 only to be communicated by Bincy George in a WhatsApp message that Father Varghese had already breathed his last at Roberts.

My biological father had breathed his last at the same place way back in May 1980 and now I had lost my Father of reverence for the last twenty-five years.

It was as recent as on January 30-31 that I was blessed to spend two full days in the holy company of Father Varghese at Porbandar, the birthplace of the father of the nation. I do not find words to describe the kind of love, affection father showered on me at Porbandar.

There was a period in my life, not in the very distant past, when I had to unfortunately pass through a difficult phase and had almost stopped writing anything. I used to visit Father Varghese almost every evening or afternoon to spend some time in the positivity of the USM, which is very close to my residence.

Father would keep insisting that I must start writing. He even offered me an exclusive room and a table equipped with a desktop to start work. He used to feel very much agitated with the current state of affairs affecting communal harmony in the country. He was equally disturbed with the developments taking place in the churches around the country particularly in Kerala, his home State.

He would call Father Jacob informing him on mobile that I had come to the USM and he should join us. And following Father Jacob’s arrival in the room we three would discuss at length everything, every subject —from the happenings in the churches of Kerala to New Delhi politics.

Father would never let me leave the USM without taking a cup of tea and snacks. He, accompanied by Father Jacob, would always see me coming down from his first-floor office walking up to my car and would keep waving till the last moment. Slowly and gradually, I resumed my writing of articles. Father was the happiest person to see all this happening.

I will never be able to assess the quantum of loss which has taken place and is going to be felt more intensely in days to come in the passing away of father Varghese. An unbearable loss, not only to the USM, a movement he created out of nothing, but also to his thousands of true admirers, readers of his revolutionary articles, school children, their teachers, principals, directors and everyone who believed in peace, non-violence and ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhava.’

We are going to miss him all through our lives. The void his absence has created can never be filled. I pray to the Almighty to provide peace to the departed soul – a true son of Christ. Dear father used to always say: sab ho jaayega. We know dear Father Varghese that nothing will happen without you being with us. Amen.

(Shravan Garg is well-known journalist. He was the Group Editor of Dainik Bhaskar, Chief Editor of Naidunia and Chief Editor of Free Press Journal Group.)