Amballore House Read Online Free PDF

nine months each for ten of her children. She realized with a jolt that the said time span translated to seven and a half years! That is how long she had been pregnantwith all her children.
    She knew that she could not have survived sitting alone for such a long time on the top of an egg; she could not have pulled through not seeing her husband for such a long time. That would have been too much of a sacrifice, she thought. She thanked God in her mind for offering pregnancy to women instead of making them sit on eggs. She prayed for women to be able to spend their time with their husbands during a series of nine-month ordeals.
    Thoma and Ann could not keep track of the names of their children; there were so many of them. They remembered the names of their first four children: George, Rita, Kareena, Josh. That was it. After that, it became an ordeal to track the names. From the fifth child onwards, they gave up calling the children by names. The last six children were merely tracked by number. The fifth child was a boy called Number-Five, the sixth was boy called Number-Six, the seventh a boy named Number-Seven and so on. Even though they had bona-fide names on their baptism certificates and school records, they were called by numbers by relatives, neighbors and friends. To complete the long list, Number-Eight was a girl, Number-Nine a boy, and last but not the least, Number-Ten was a girl.
    “It is your job to remember the names of your children,” Thoma told Ann, as if he had nothing to do with them; as if Ann became pregnant through a miracle, like the Virgin Mother Mary was pregnant with Jesus. He might as well have called her “Ann of the Immaculate Conception,” with the biblical connotation to “Mary of the Immaculate Conception.” Ann was Mary’s mother, after all.
    Thoma would have loved to place no claim on his children, hoping to wash away his obligation to bring them up, as his drinking buddies would attest. Thoma told his buddies: “My children are the accidental tourists that dropped by during my love festival with Ann.” They all would break into laughter upon hearing this.
    He told Ann, “Why don’t you keep all the children with you for as long as you like; I want no part in their upbringing.” Ann was shocked when he said this for the first time. “They are our gift fromGod; please treasure them,” she replied. Thoma was ready with an answer. “Why don’t you wrap them like Christmas gifts, if they are gifts from your God?” He commented sarcastically.
    Her neighbor in Amballore, Annamma, often corrected her when she bragged that she got in Thoma a treasure chest of a husband. Annamma was very surprised to hear this, and she mentioned that Thoma was Ann’s sole source of misery. Ann vehemently refused to share this cynical view. Ann never listened to Annamma in matters related to Thoma.
    Here was Annamma, a saintly Mother Theresa, never skipping daily Mass and living a highly pious life, proclaiming vehemently that Thoma was Ann’s sole source of misery, and her declaration was unbiased. There was truth in the statement.
    However, Ann learned long ago not to be critical about her husband’s character flaws and mood swings. She learned not to pass judgment on him. She erected a formidable edifice at the border of reason and faith, never crossing to the land of reason, firmly grounded as she was on the land of blind faith. She fortified her unquestioned love to him through numerous sacrifices. She blindly stuck to her love toward her husband.
    Thoma, on the other hand, was unable to display his love to his wife, even though he knew in the heart of his hearts that his heart belonged to her. After all, who in her right state of mind would stick to him when he piloted her life through misery, making her and their children wallow in insecurity, poverty, and insatiable hunger?
    Theirs was a strange but unique team.
    He was a man who sometimes tried to lead a principled life in the face of the