KOLKATA: Brother Brendan MacCarthaigh, the 84-year-old Irish educator left for his country Ireland on Sunday after 62 years of devoted service in India, leaving behind a message in his farewell speech: Hang on to love as the centre of your value system, whatever may be your religion.
The educator decided to leave Kolkata after the last date of application and submission of documents for the extension of his visa was over. “Getting old is a profound experience. I find myself asking what my purpose is. I find that life has only one purpose and that is love.
Hold on to love as the centre of your value system whatever your religion may be,’’ said Brother Brendan at a farewell event, organised by the alumni of St. Joseph’s college in Bowbazar to wish their beloved teacher goodbye.
When Brother Branden was just 22, he landed in Kolkata in 1960 after being selected by the Irish Christian Brothers to teach in India. He arrived at St. Joseph’s College, Kolkata, the first of 23 schools of the Christian Brothers in India. He made the state capital his home for the next six decades, teaching kids on railway platforms and pavements other than the students in his school.
Recounting how growing up in a childhood, amidst intermittent religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics, inspired him to take on the path he chose, Brother Branden said, “In my childhood, I got no love. I was among 11 children of my parents. We were poor. My family would have been better off with two to three children. With most people, one’s childhood becomes the primary source of one’s inspiration to become the person they are going to be.’’
While delivering his last speech in Kolkata, Brother Branden did not stop at love but enunciated the importance of forgiveness despite being hurt by offensive statements. “The hardest thing that humans ever have to do is forgive. We all get hurt by people and they say offensive things and they hurt us. And we have to forgive them? It’s terribly hard work. But it is the only answer.’’
The educator explained how his rough childhood led him to found SERVE (Student Empowerment Rights and Vision through Education) in 1996 alongside Rajesh Arora and Abbas Bengali, representing the goal of religious unity to solve social problems. The SERVE worked to relieve the pressure of depressed school-going children and helped them view education with enthusiasm.