{"id":92388,"date":"2021-06-26T14:39:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T18:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=92388"},"modified":"2021-06-26T14:39:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T18:39:31","slug":"the-rosary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/the-rosary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rosary"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 6 – The Rosary<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Nandhini G. Natarajan<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was four years old<\/p>\n

when a visiting missionary<\/p>\n

crossed my grandfather\u2019s path<\/p>\n

and he found religion.<\/p>\n

Till then, he flouted his atheism,<\/p>\n

to shame his wife, a devout Catholic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grandfather became<\/p>\n

a humorless convert,<\/p>\n

an instant authority on Christianity.<\/p>\n

He acquired a three-foot rosary,<\/p>\n

suspiciously like the one<\/p>\n

the visiting priest<\/p>\n

had worn around his waist.<\/p>\n

It became a weapon<\/p>\n

in grandfather\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every evening, family members<\/p>\n

were forced to their knees to<\/p>\n

pray the rosary.<\/p>\n

The children mumbled and stared<\/p>\n

at the marble-sized beads.<\/p>\n

I was always restless<\/p>\n

Made faces, and others would laugh.<\/p>\n

Grandfather would turn and glare<\/p>\n

with fire in his eyes.<\/p>\n

After the rosary,<\/p>\n

namesake saints were solicited,<\/p>\n

children blessed,<\/p>\n

by the six-inch cross.<\/p>\n

The miscreants<\/p>\n

were knocked on the head<\/p>\n

by the same cross.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One evening,<\/p>\n

I leaned against my father\u2019s knees,<\/p>\n

a big knock on the head<\/p>\n

was heading my way.<\/p>\n

When I was blessed,<\/p>\n

I pursed my lips<\/p>\n

and blew the blessing<\/p>\n

back into grandfather\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

He stared solemnly at me<\/p>\n

and told my father.<\/p>\n

She is possessed by the devil.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My father never forgave<\/p>\n

his father-in-law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 6 – The Rosary By Nandhini G. Natarajan \u00a0 I was four years old when a visiting missionary crossed my grandfather\u2019s path and he found religion. Till then, he flouted his atheism, to shame his wife, a devout Catholic.   Grandfather became a humorless…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92438,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92388\/revisions\/92438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}