Trouble in paradise
The church property we lived on belonged to my mother’s paternal aunt. Mrs. Bakthul. She had written it off to her brother in law, Mr. Daniel, to use it for the purpose of the church. This land was purchased from the Canadian Baptist Missionaries by Mrs. Bakthul, who used to work as a teacher, in the school that was started by the Canadian Baptist missionaries, for girls. It was called the Mary Bates School for girls. When our church held conventions, we would rent the sprawling school play ground for our church services and we would clean the place and pack up after the 3–4 day conventions were finished. In summer when the school is shut, the church kids would sneak into the campus to play cricket or to play Kho-kho.
Somewhere down the line, the management changed, where there was principal there was a conveynor of the CBM association calling the shots. It was all very strange for us, but I have moved out of Kakinada, I was not aware of the heart of the matters, neither was I invested in what happened. I was out of Kakinada, away from the attention of the church, when, in 2013, my father and the church authorities decided to pull down out home and build a bigger church with more parking space.
For this to happen, we needed another space, to hold our services, so the church requested the conveynor of the CBM School to provide them with some space for their church. By now, this compound was being used extensively by all churches in the city, for various church related activities.
The space was provided for a hefty amount for the lease. The church services were being held while the bigger construction was on the way. The Conveynor requested for more amount for the lease, seeing that the church services maybe disrupted, my father unwittingly, paid the extra amount. The church construction was finally ready, but money paid for the lease was not written on paper, even after repeated attempts of requesting for a bill.
One Wednesday evening 2019, while the church service was on the way, a man, appearing to have papers to the land that was leased by the church. He claimed that he bought the land and he needs it vacated immediately. If not vacated he threatened to bring in his bulldozers and demolish the makeshift shed with all the church equipment. Repeated requests to the police seemed unhelpful as the man appeared to show legitimate papers. While the rest of the church members, many of whom belonged to the alumni association, wondered, how the land could be sold?
Turns out politicians with money along with corrupt government officials and police can be an impenetrable combination of human shield. So it happened that as the church watched the bulldozer trampled upon the makeshift asbestos roofed structure with all the equipment along with it.