A Church built by Jabaraj Ji

 Some places always beckon us . Be it of nostalgic or whatever it's called by. With a journo friend James Edwin ji visited a small village Dummugudem in the last month on the mission of procuring details about some British era constructions. Apart from it, we get intrigued to stop at a tiny church. It was named as Garden Church. Full of colorful flowers, plants and trees were found there. An eye feasting scene. Furthermore lullaby like breezing all over. With no pre-plan, we have stopped and entered it and many memories lingered in me.

It was almost more than thirty years back, I happened to meet the founder of this church. His name was Jabaraj ji of Tamil origin. He was a lone crusader in gathering a small group of people and was always seen  toiling his way to dig for laying foundation stones and planting different kinds of saplings. He had no workers and no helpers in the mission. Always indulged in the physical work with shovel, spade and other tools. His body was filled with soil and sweat. At last ,after some years, there was a little shelter appeared in the name of Church along with a beautiful garden.

As he was a lonely person with no family or relatives , he was going to surrounding villages in the remaining time to do prayers and in course of time people started to come here and in the process, he had his own set of enemies to make hurdles. Surprisingly he had gained supporters as well. However, decades passed by. Jabaraj ji died some years back and his people are running it successfully. Present pastor is Vinny with whom I talked for some time about Jabaraj ji. They felt happy being remembered that noble soul. I have never seen such a persistent and hard working man in my life.