Reported by Robert R. Schwarz
My journalist eye focused on Mahadevan “MD” Ramaswamy in February, 2023, after a weekday Mass in our church in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Once again my new fellow church member was patrolling down the center aisle, now and then bending over to pick up a small nondescript bit of paper trash, likely dropped on the floor by an existing child. And once more, dear reader, I swatted away the temptation to ask MD for an interview. But the next Sunday at Mass, when again I saw MD at the end of a long line of parishioners going up to receive the Eucharist, and MD again kneeling almost prostrate as the priest made the cross sign on MD’s head but again with a hand empty of the Host, I knew I had questions for MD. After Mass, MD accepted my invitation to breakfast at McDonald's.
We quickly warmed up to each other while eating our sausage biscuits; me sharing my encounter in Calcutta with Mother Teresa and MD his early years on his parents' farm in southern India and his one year in pre-medical school before coming to America to earn money to send home to his family of,six now living almost impoverished in India.
I asked him why our priest wasn’t offering him the Body of Christ. “Well, Bob,” he replied, though I’ve called myself a Catholic for a few years now, a few months ago I entered RCIA. I’ve been studying the Catechism since Oct. 5 and attending weekly 90-minute classes. I will—praise God—officially become a Catholic with several other St. James people on this Holy Saturday, April 8.“
RCIA is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a process through which non-baptized men and women enter the Catholic Church. It includes several stages marked by study, prayer and rites at Mass.
I got up to leave. MD remained to do some paper work for clients he mentors (several are immigrants ) and who, he told me, have consulted with him for the last few years about financial matters.
Again I had to know... “MD, please tell me why you pick up those things from the church floor after Mass. “
“I’m grateful for God giving me this church and I want to keep it clean for Him.” End of conversation.
We became friends after two more breakfasts together. When I gave him a gift of my favorite religious book, “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a’ Kempis, translated superbly by William C. Creasy, MD hugged me.
“Let me tell you, Bob, the day before you gave me that book, I had a dream about it”...we both went silent. “You know,” he continued, “a famous Hindu leader in India talks a lot about that book.” ( As I write this report, for giving him that book, MD is still referring to me as his hero...I wish he wouldn’t.)
Except for MD’s light brown skin, the exotic oriental coloring and designs on the different jackets and mismatched pants he wears, and his command of English, one might easily perceive MD as very American, with an accent born in some neighborhood unfamiliar to them. He is 67 years of age, maybe five feet, eleven inches tall-- and always ready to complement anyone.
Getting to Know Each Other Better
In MD’s Small, Rented Basement Home
I needed to learn more about MD’s faith life for you readers of “Exodus Trekkers”, and my new friend was quite willing to share it.
After a brief descent down cracked cement steps of a small brick home three blocks from downtown Arlington Heights, MD opened the basement door and led me through a darkened, cluttered furnace room into his kitchen; it faced his bedroom just a few feet away. Everything appeared old and worn and unmatched with any other object. The kitchen sink was covered with scratches and contained a few unwashed dishes, yet it was a clean kitchen--for a bachelor. There appeared to be only two small, quiet nicked cabinets, crammed with food packages and fresh vegetables that could not fit in MD’s midget refrigerator ( he is a vegetarian) . I could not see the counter tops. Nearly each of the squeezed-in walls had a picture or printed design reflecting something of Hindu culture or Christian faith.
I began staring at the low ceiling, now recalling all the times through the years I had driven by this home seeing colored lights and outside signs telling a passerby that one’s fortune or psyche could be told here. MD chose to live here because of its low rent of $440 monthly which was unheard of in Arlington Heights. “My basement home gives me peace and quiet, and that’s a favor from heaven. “
“Excuse me, Bob,“ MD said as he walked to a wall with a picture of Jesus. “I need to pray.“ That he did for at least two minutes while focusing on Jesus. An hour later, I would hear him softly say as he interrupted himself, “Excuse me for a moment, that prayer you heard me say weakened me... my heart melted a bit.”
We
talked a lot about all the jobs he’s had. “I learned computers at
an early age, and that led me into cost controls and systems. I was
trained in the hotel business, especially hospitality. I just
happened to fall into several different jobs because of God’s
will…My dad lost his job, and there was depression and poverty in
the family. I was supporting a family of six. That’s why I came to
America. “That was his life’s milestone, MD added. When I
reminded him that the poor people in India are more likely to need
him than poor people in America, he replied, “But what am to do if
I’m one of those people in India? To be a blessing in other
peoples’ lives makes me happy. And to be an ambassador for Jesus
Christ?! “ i
Soon after arriving in America , MD was hired as a special events and catering manager at Walt Disney World, but after two years, he said he “messed up being un-corporate. “
When I told MD that I wanted to hear about his coming into the Christian faith, he related that it began at age 30 with falling in love with a young woman. And then came his attendance one night at a non-denominational church in Springfield, Massachusetts. “ There I experienced the presence of a Hindu goddess who told me she approved of me becoming a Christian. “ He explained that when, simultaneously, the charismatic preacher, with an estimated 40 worshipers looking on, held his hands above MD and prophesied in an undecipherable language, that in that moment MD believed that the Hindu goddess had somehow shared with the preacher her approval of MD’s decision to become a Christian.
Things Start to Shift into Reverse for MD
MD’s success as a versatile, aggressive businessman “who dreamed big“ began to sour ten years ago when a business he owned in Atlanta failed. “It broke up my marriage and cleaned us out financially. But I never quit,” he said. “The important thing is that you have a vision and God’s support.“ And a few years later an Indian snack company in Chicago where he was vice president of marketing also failed because the relationship with his business partners fell apart-- as did MD’s second marriage.
Asked what challenges him the most, MD said, “To have enough money to fulfill the needs of other people." His total monthly income is currently the $1,500.40 he gets from Social Security.
“That’s how I wound up in Chicago,” he admitted. His mother told him that he’d be rich and successful today if he had been “more selfish and greedier and not so helpful to people.” I asked MD if he has a girlfriend nowadays. His reply did not surprise me. “Lately I’ve loved Mother Mary, ( i.e. ,mother of Jesus )….I try to stay away from anything sexual, for I get polluted easily...But I do have five girlfriends on a farm in Elgin. “ I stared at MD. “They are five cows which I simply drive out to see weekly for a break now and then. I also , every other week, drive to Lamb’s Farm in Libertyville to visit with disabled young people there. I also love to pet the lambs there. “
Lastly, ,I wanted to know what he’d like people to say about him after he died. MD didn’t spend a second to reply with: He was a farm boy from southern India and had a great family. Looking back at his James Bond life style he enjoyed once, he admits that his life today would have been a lot sweeter if he had denied himself that kind of life and had chosen God instead.
A Ministry with The Misbehaving Homeless
MD has a part-time ministry with the homeless in Arlington Heights, consisting of his prayers for them and engaging them in conversations when he greets them sitting in the village train station or encounters them outside the Jewel grocery store here or casually bumps into them on any sidewalk. “They trust me,” MD says.“ I don’t judge them.”
( Much of Arlington Heights—population 77,676-- one might observe-- a typical upper-middleclass, law-abiding suburb with churches of several denominations and a fair number of commuters on a 45-minute train ride to downtown Chicago. Though the past covid-l9 pandemic makes the current number of homeless people difficult to estimate, MD is fairly certain about the current number of “hard core bums “ who are homeless. “ He says that the ten to twenty-five of them with whom he has, in various manners, interacted with, unfortunately are homeless because motels and hotels and even volunteer agencies in Arlington Heights have denied them entry because of a criminal record, ongoing drug addiction, or abusive alcoholism. Their home, MD says, is a park bench, the underground parking lots, or a pitched tent in one of two adjacent forest preserves. The few hundred “behaving” homeless to whom St. James and two other churches had once given overnight shelter with a shower and a meal or two, have lost this relief because closed the kitchens and sleeping quarters have been closed mainly due to the epidemic. )
MD sees a serious problem putting one of the “outcasts” homeless into a motel room. “That’s a death sentence for them, “ he insisted. “They soon get terribly bored because there is nothing to challenge them. Then they turn to drugs or alcohol.“ We talked about giving them, in the winter at least, a heated bus in a parking lot to sleep in. What I’d really like is for the leaders in this town to build, maybe find some large unused building that these certain homeless souls could inhabit.“
There was a long silence. Finally, MD said, “Problem is the attitudes some of our civic leaders have about all homeless people. They consider them ‘untouchables. ‘ When you look at all the red tape and legal stuff…” MD suddenly became very quiet before saying ...“ You find it impossible to help them ! It’s like Jesus would say to the ill and disabled: I want to heal you,but first show me your vaccination.”
Ed Pelrine, and membership sponsor
Deacon Johnny Burnett.
We closed our talk with a prayer after which MD looked away and admonished the two of us with, “So, let’s see if we can bring a ray of light from God to these most hurting people.”
MD being baptized into the Catholic
faith by Fr. Pelrine on April 8, 2023. When asked
for his thoughts , he said, "It's an awesome honor
beyond anything I could have imagined...coming
from a small village in India. It's very humbling."
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