By Jessie Rodrigues
Daijiworld Media Network—Bareilly (CN)

Bareilly, May 9: The newly built St Alphonsus’ Cathedral and its surroundings, besides being a place of prayer and encounter with God, is also a place for instruction, catechesis, and proclamation. 

This cathedral is built in the midst of people of other faiths. Christians constitute less than 1 percent of the population of Bareilly. While the edifice attracts many, there is something educative in the Biblical Garden or ‘Vachan Vatika’ that the people can experience and take home with them.  Everything in it re-narrates the story of Jesus to the Indian mind. The Cathedral becomes more significant because of the Biblical Garden.

The garden consists of various places that Jesus frequented ranging from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, what Jesus did and taught and hence the name  ‘Vachan Vatika’. 

The selection of the scenes and places is done depending largely on the significance they have for Christianity in India. 

The scenes have life size figures made of fiber and cement.  Some of them are accompanied by light and sound. To portray the setting of the Holy Land, there are animals, plants, and trees of the Holy Land such as olive trees, fig trees, and palms. 

The static images are thus complemented with rhythmical movement of human beings through dance and drama, performed on the stage of resurrection.

The most visible statues in the Vachan Vatika are that of Jesus and the devil.  This is to underline that the struggle between good and evil continues in our life too.  It is a challenge for us to make the right choice. 

All the statues, murals, and relief works are painted in one single colour.  This is to show continuity from one scene to another.  At times it may appear to be monotonous, but that is taken care of by the variety of presentations – we move from statues to murals and then to relief works, we move from silence of the stalls to the music and the dialogue from six stalls, we also move from viewing the statues to having an experience as near the river Jordan, or getting into the darkness of the desert or bending low  to get into the sepulchre to pay  homage to Jesus or feeling the coolness of the fountain in front of the pool of Siloam.